ek." "Yes, mother," says the invalid,
"on a Saturday." She knew the day of the week and the hour too, when her
eyes brightened at the sight of three-halfpenny worth of butter.
Truly they fared sumptuously on the Sabbath, for they tasted "shilling
butter."

But they refuse to die, and I have not yet discovered the point at
which life ebbs out for lack of food, for when underworld folk die
of starvation we are comforted by the assurance that they died "from
natural causes."

I suppose that if the four children all over eight years of age,
belonging to a widow machinist well known to me, had died, their death
would have been attributed to "natural causes." She had dined them upon
one pennyworth of stewed tapioca without either sugar or milk. Sometimes
the children had returned to school without even that insult to their
craving stomachs. But "natural causes" is the euphonious name given
by intelligent juries to starvation, when inquests are held in the
underworld. Herein is a mystery: in the land of plenty, whose granaries,
depots, warehouses are full to repletion, and whose countless ships are
traversing every ocean, bringing the food and fruits of the earth to its
shores, starvation is held to be a natural cause of death.

Here let me say, and at once, that the two widows referred to are
but specimens of a very large company, and that from among my own
acquaintances I can with a very short notice assemble one thousand women
whose lives are as pitiful, whose food is as limited, whose burdens are
as heavy, but whose hearts are as brave as those I have mentioned.

The more I know of these women and their circumstances, the more and
still more I am amazed. How they manage to live at all is a puzzle, but
they do live, and hang on to life like grim death itself. I believe I
should long for death were I placed under similar conditions to those my
underworld friends sustain without much complaining.

They have, of course, some interests in life, especially when the
children are young, but for themselves they are largely content to be,
to do, and to suffer.

Very simple and very limited are their ambitions; they are expressed in
the wish that their children may rise somehow or other from the world
below to the world above, where food is more plentiful and labour more
remunerative. But my admiration and love for the honest workers below
the line are leading me to forget the inhabitants that are far removed
from honesty, and