s are full of them; they have good quarters, good food,
every attention, so they live long in the land.

But the case is very different with the half imbeciles or the half mad.
Short terms of imprisonment with short periods of hopeless, useless
liberty and an occasional spell in the workhouse constitute the circle
of their lives; and a vicious circle it is. Can any life be more
pitiable? Sane enough to know that they are not quite sane, insane
enough to have no wish to control their animal or vicious instincts.
Possessing no education, strength or skill, of no possible use in
industrial life, with no taste for decency or social life; sleeping by
day in our parks, and by night upon the Embankment. But they mate; and
as like meets with like the result may be imagined! Here again we
are paying for our neglect of many serious matters. Bad housing,
overcrowding, incessant work by the mothers whilst bearing children,
drinking habits among the parents, insufficient food for the children,
endless anxieties and worries. All these things and more amongst that
portion of the nation which produces the largest families; what wonder
that many incapable bodies and minds result!

But if civilisation allows all this, civilisation must pay the penalty,
which is not a light one, and continue to have the miserables upon the
Embankment.

Have we no pity! no thought for the next generation, no concern for
ourselves! No! I do not recommend a lethal chamber, but I do strongly
advise permanent detention and segregation for these low types of
unfortunate humanity. Nothing less will avail, and expensive though it
might be for a time, it would pay in the near future, and would be at
once an act of mercy and justice.

Yes, on the Thames Embankment extremes meet, the ages are bridged over,
for the products of our up-to-date civilisation stand side by side with
the products of primeval habits and nomadic life.

CHAPTER IV. LODGING-HOUSES

The inmates of the underworld lodging-houses are a queer and
heterogeneous lot; but they are much to be preferred to the sleepers
out; because rascally though many of them are, there is a good deal
of self-reliance and not a little enterprise amongst them. By hook and
crook, and, it is to be feared, mostly by crook, they obtain sufficient
money for food and lodging, and to this extent they are an improvement
upon the sleepers out. They have, too, some pluck, perseverance and
talents that, rightly applied,