or which they
paid extortionate rents in London.

There were four hundred and thirty-eight of these work-people.
Twenty-seven of them, with some hesitation, expressed their willingness
to enter into the new scheme for their benefit. The remaining four
hundred and eleven refused positively to leave their warrens in London
for this garden city, situated within an hour's run of the metropolis.

Figure to yourself the attitude of such people, where the great open
uplands of the Empire were concerned: the prairie, the veld, the bush.
Consider their relation to the elements, or to things elemental. We went
farther than "Little Englandism" in those days; we produced little
street and alley men by the hundred thousand; and then we bade them
exercise their rights, their imperial heritage, and rule an Empire. As
for me, I was busy in my newspaper work trying to secure more rights for
them; for men whose present freedom from all discipline and control was
their curse.

The reporters' room at the office of the _Daily Gazette_ was the working
headquarters of five other men besides myself. One was a Cambridge man,
one had been at Oxford, one came from Cork, and the other two were
products of Scotch schools. Two of the five would have been called
gentlemen; four of them were good fellows; the fifth had his good
points, but perhaps he had been soured by a hard upbringing. One felt
that the desire for money--advancement, success, or whatever you chose
to call it; it all meant the one thing to Dunbar--mastered every
feeling, every instinct even, in this young man, and made him about as
safe and agreeable a neighbour as a wolf might be for a kennel of dogs.

A certain part of our time was devoted to waiting in the reporters' room
for what Mr. Pierce called our "assignments," to this or that reporting
task. Also, we did our writing here, and a prodigious amount of talking.
The talk was largely of Fleet Street, the ruffianism of Mr. Pierce, the
fortunes of our own and other journals, the poorness of our pay, the
arduousness of our labours, the affairs of other newspaper offices, and
the like. But at other times we turned to politics, and over our pipes
and copy paper would readjust the concert of Europe and the balance of
world power. More often we dealt with local politics, party intrigue,
and scandals of Parliament; and sometimes--more frequently since my
advent, it may be--we entered gaily upon large abstractions, and
ventilated our