d crying quietly to himself
as he tried to rid his fingers of the tar which stuck to them after his
workhouse morning's experience of oakum picking. I sat down beside him
and offered him a fill of tobacco, and by and by got into talk with him.
He was a man of some intelligence and education, and had begun life as
a journeyman watchmaker. He had risen to be an employer, and had kept a
small workshop in Coventry, but misfortune had overtaken him and he had
failed in business. The immediate cause of his distress was that he had
received notification that employment at his trade of watchmaker was
open to him at Evesham. The poor fellow was quite penniless and had been
compelled to walk; his strength had failed him by the way, and he had
had to take refuge in the workhouse. In payment for his lodging, his
two chunks of dry bread and his pint of skilly, he had been compelled
to pick his quantum of oakum. The man's fingers were, of course, as
delicate as a lady's, and in the course of our talk he held them out to
me, showing the tips all raw and bleeding and thick with tar. He sobbed
bitterly as he told me that he would be unable to do a hand-stroke
at his trade for at least a fortnight. He carried with him letters of
recommendation which ought to have guaranteed him from any such usage
as that to which he had been condemned. He had tried to show them to the
labour master, but he had been waved contemptuously aside, and had been
forced by threats of being imprisoned as a refractory pauper to betake
himself to the task imposed upon him.

It need hardly be said that all the men one encountered were not of this
type. I met one engaging ruffian who unbosomed himself to me with the
utmost frankness. "Oi meets genelmen on the road," he said, "as arsks me
why Oi don't gaow to wurk; a great big upstandin' chap loike you, they
sez, loafin' abaht and doin' nothin'--why it's disgraiceful! Well, I
sez, guv'nor, I sez, 'ow can Oi go to wurk? Oi'm a skilled wurkman, I
sez, in me own trade, but Oi'm froze aht by modern machinery. Oi'm a
'and comb-maker, I sez, and the trade's bin killed this dozen years.
Oi'm too hold a dawg to learn new tricks, I sez, Oi'm a middle-aged man
and what ham Oi to do to yearn my means of loiveli'ood." He added with
a wink that there was only one hand comb-maker in business in that wide
district of England and Wales over which he wandered. "And," said he,
"you can bet your sweet loife Oi don't go nigh 'im." This c