ther, by his shrieks and yells, aroused the lot
of us. Toward morning I was awakened by a rat or some similar animal on
my breast. In the quick transition from sleep to waking, before I was
completely myself, I raised a shout to wake the dead. At any rate, I
woke the living, and they cursed me roundly for my lack of manners.

But morning came, with a six o'clock breakfast of bread and skilly, which
I gave away, and we were told off to our various tasks. Some were set to
scrubbing and cleaning, others to picking oakum, and eight of us were
convoyed across the street to the Whitechapel Infirmary where we were set
at scavenger work. This was the method by which we paid for our skilly
and canvas, and I, for one, know that I paid in full many times over.

Though we had most revolting tasks to perform, our allotment was
considered the best and the other men deemed themselves lucky in being
chosen to perform it.

"Don't touch it, mate, the nurse sez it's deadly," warned my working
partner, as I held open a sack into which he was emptying a garbage can.

It came from the sick wards, and I told him that I purposed neither to
touch it, nor to allow it to touch me. Nevertheless, I had to carry the
sack, and other sacks, down five flights of stairs and empty them in a
receptacle where the corruption was speedily sprinkled with strong
disinfectant.

Perhaps there is a wise mercy in all this. These men of the spike, the
peg, and the street, are encumbrances. They are of no good or use to any
one, nor to themselves. They clutter the earth with their presence, and
are better out of the way. Broken by hardship, ill fed, and worse
nourished, they are always the first to be struck down by disease, as
they are likewise the quickest to die.

They feel, themselves, that the forces of society tend to hurl them out
of existence. We were sprinkling disinfectant by the mortuary, when the
dead waggon drove up and five bodies were packed into it. The
conversation turned to the "white potion" and "black jack," and I found
they were all agreed that the poor person, man or woman, who in the
Infirmary gave too much trouble or was in a bad way, was "polished off."
That is to say, the incurables and the obstreperous were given a dose of
"black jack" or the "white potion," and sent over the divide. It does
not matter in the least whether this be actually so or not. The point
is, they have the feeling that it is so, and they have create