It is very true that in the green country beggars have a little dread of policemen and dogs, but in towns they fear more the annoyance of other callers, who are not beggars. One thing they dread very much, in towns of some size, is to be offered a ticket to introduce them to a charitable organization that professes to attend to their wants. True beggars know well what these organizations are. But sometimes the man who is looking for work is only too glad to receive this ticket--and he certainly gets plenty of work. He does about three shillings' worth of labour for a bed whose only virtue is cleanliness, and about threepenny worth of food. However, the poor fellow is well satisfied, because he is a very timid man, and he feels less shame in being made a slave than a beggar. He is only too glad to perform these tasks at every opportunity, but the true English beggar is a Briton that never will be a slave. XXI The Lowest State of Man Some people think that a man cannot fall lower than to live in a common lodging-house; but men and women are occasionally met in London that are even stared at and pitied by those who live in such low places. The men and women of whom I speak would not be admitted into the lowest common lodging-houses in London. They are so ragged and filthy in appearance that if you gave one of them a sovereign it would be impossible to get a bed until an alteration was made in his or her appearance. Some of these have slept in their clothes so often and been outcasts so long that they are really without the least hope--not dejected for a few hours or days, as with others. Their dreams, if they have any, are recollections of days gone, but they have no hope in the future. Who has not seen them? Men and women in such a condition that if a man gives them a penny he has to avert his eyes; and the most kind-hearted women pass them by with as quick a glance as possible. There is only one place open to these poor wretches, and that is a Salvation Army shelter, where they pay twopence and sleep on the floor. They think nothing of suffering; one of them will sit on a seat, when it is raining hard, with the utmost indifference, and there may be an arch that he could reach in less than two minutes. So he gets wet and shivers all night, which is common for him.