, between a florid manhood on my side
and hernia and pulmonary consumption on his, the task should have been
easy. But the events of '65-66 looked a long way off in '78; and somehow
it seemed hardly worth while to reveal one's identity. So the sergeant
got half a crown and was left with a bit of a puzzle to occupy his
leisure moments.

VI

I have seen a good deal of the working of the English Poor-law, and have
learned to have some decisive opinions about it It has always seemed to
me, since I had any acquaintance with it at all, that it might have been
constructed on purpose to restrict the free action of honest labour and
to set a premium on idle vagabondage. I determined, fourteen or fifteen
years ago, to put the system to a test in my own person, and for my own
sake to start with the odds in favour of the institution. My belief was,
and is, that no law-abiding man could travel in search of work through
England under the provisions of the Poor-law without danger to health
and even life, whilst any worthless and shiftless idler can by its
provisions eke out a tolerably comfortable subsistence.

I got me a shabby suit of clothes, sent a portmanteau to the place where
I intended to end my journey, and, posting a ten-pound note in advance,
carried a money order for that sum in the lining of my hat. Thus
provisioned, and with a shilling in my pocket, I started to walk towards
the money. I was David Vane, compositor, and it was my object to see
if David, with the best will in the world, could live under Poor-law
provisions without bringing himself into the mesh of the policeman's net
I gave him seven weeks of it, and walked over half the south, midland,
and western counties; giving him an occasional rest in a cheap
lodging-house when workhouse fare had come to be too much for him.

When; I came to a town where my money lay at a post-office, I drew a
shilling or two and sent the bulk on further; but during the whole seven
weeks I only trespassed on my hoard to the extent of fifty shillings.
Without that hoard, or without a breach of the law, my imaginary
compositor would surely have died. I see now and again in the newspapers
a sporadic correspondence about the treatment of men on tramp, about the
food supplied them, the hours of their imprisonment, and the amount of
labour they are compelled to perform. I notice that chairmen of boards
of guardians are quite satisfied with the existing condition of things.
I enco