direction. That attitude
was justifiable enough in all conscience. The trouble was that I was at
fault, first, in my diagnosis; second, in my notions as to what kind of
remedies were required; and third, as to the application of those
remedies.

Like the rest of the minority whose thoughts were not entirely occupied
by the pursuit of pleasure and personal gain, I saw that the greatest
obstacle in the path of the reformer was public indifference. But with
regard to the causes of that indifference, I was entirely astray. I
clung still to the nineteenth-century attitude, which had been
justifiable enough during a good portion of that century, but had
absolutely ceased to be justifiable before its end came. This was the
attitude of demanding the introduction of reforms from above, from the
State.

Though I fancied myself in advance of my time in thought, when I joined
the staff of the _Daily Gazette_, I really was essentially of it. Even
my obscure work as reporter very soon brought me into close contact with
some of the dreadful sores which disfigured the body social and politic
at that time. But do you think they taught me anything? No more than
they taught the blindest racer after money in all London. They moved me,
moved me deeply; they stirred the very foundations of my being; for I
was far from being insensitive. But not even in the most glaringly
obvious detail did they move me in the right direction. They merely
filled me with resentment, and a passionate desire to bring improvement,
aid, betterment; a desire to force the authorities into some action.
Never once did it occur to me that the movement must come from the
people themselves.

Poverty, though frequently a dreadful complication, was far from being
at the root of all the sores. The average respectable working-class
wage-earner with a wife and family, who earned from 25s. to 35s. or 40s.
a week, would spend a quarter of that wage upon his own drinking;
thereby not alone making saving for a rainy day impossible, but docking
his family of some of the real necessities of life. But this was
accepted as a matter of course. The man wanted the beer; he must have
it. The State made absolutely no demand whatever upon such a man. But it
did for him and his, more than he did for himself and his family. And,
giving positively nothing to the State, he complainingly demanded yet
more from it.

These were respectable men. A large number of men spent a half, and even