egrading
about them, if only the professional element can be eliminated.

Labour exchanges are doing a splendid work for the genuine working man
whose labour must often be migratory. But every labour exchange should
have its clean lodging-house, in which the decent fellows who want
work, and are fitted for work, may stay for a night, and thus avoid the
contamination attending the common lodging-houses or the degradation and
detention attending casual wards.

There exists, I am sure, great possibilities for good in labour
exchanges, if, and if only, their services can be devoted to the
genuinely unemployed.

Already I have said they are doing much, and one of the most useful
things they do is the advancement of rail-fares to men when work is
obtained at a distance. A development in this direction will do much
to end the disasters that attend decent fellows when they go on tramp.
Migratory labour is unfortunately an absolute necessity, for our
industrial and commercial life demand it, and almost depend upon it.
The men who supply that want are quite as useful citizens as the men
who have permanent and settled work. But their lives are subject to
many dangers, temptations, and privations from which they ought to be
delivered.

The more I reflect upon the present methods for dealing with
professional tramps, the more I am persuaded that these methods are
foolish and extravagant. But the more I reflect on the life of the
genuinely unemployed that earnestly desire work and are compelled
to tramp in search of it, the more I am persuaded that such life is
attended by many dangers. The probability being that if the tramp and
search be often repeated or long-continued, the desire for, and the
ability to undergo, regular work will disappear.

But physical and mental inferiority, together with the absence of moral
purpose, have a great deal to say with regard to the number of our
unemployed.

If you ask me the source of this stunted manhood, I point you to the
narrow streets of the underworld. Thence they issue, and thence alone.

Do you ask the cause? The causes are many! First and foremost stands
that all-pervading cause--the housing of the poor. Who can enumerate
the thousands that have breathed the fetid air of the miserable
dwelling-places in our slums? Who dare picture how they live and sleep,
as they lie, unripe sex with sex, for mutual taint? I dare not, and if I
did no publisher could print it.

Who dare describ