Sorry to trouble you with such a long yarn, but I put it to you as a practical question, How am I to get out of this fix? If I go to gaol I lose my work, and rent’s running on, and grocery bills and coal bills are running on, for seven bairns can’t be fed on air, and I am told going to gaol does not clear off the whole of the bill to these pedlar fellows, but only a little bit of the back payments, and you may be taken again as soon as you come out for another bit. I put it to you plain, What is a man in my circumstances to do? Faced with a similar question, what would the reader do? Circumstances like these indicate only too clearly why it is that there is a social problem. The heart of all happiness and integrity in life resides in the home, and when anything comes between the mutual understanding and confidence that alone makes home life possible, we may be sure that evils undreamt of before will find an entrance into the home. The insidious nature of the evil is best illustrated from the fact that almost every week the newspapers record the downfall of some individual whom the public had thought above suspicion. Similar instances occur in the humbler walks of life. The present writer knows of instances in which cottages sometimes lent for religious services were also on occasion used as betting centres. Here is an extract from the letter of a reliable correspondent:— A bookmaker made one woman in a street his friend. She would receive the money for him, and gradually entice many to join. In my own district there the most respectable looking home was used in this way. The owner, a widow woman, was perfectly clean and tidy, no gossip, and never talking at the door. She allowed her son first, and then she herself took it up, and just because in all other ways she was respectable, the other women were snared into thinking less of the sin. Another feature which calls for comment is the fact that girls are either encouraged by their employers, or by their fellow-servants, to indulge in betting. Deaconess Clarkson of Durham mentions the case of a girl, sent to service from a “Friendless Girls’ Home,” failing to repay her monthly instalment for her outfit. On being asked the reason, the girl maintained that her mistress had persuaded her to put it on a horse. This other instance would be ludicrous if it were not pathetic. The first night a young girl spent in service she was asked by the butler to give half-a-crown for the sweep. She asked why she should pay the sweep! but in order to avoid giving offence gave him the money. The parlour-maid “lifted” the sweep, amounting to 37s. 6d., when the girl understood what the butler had meant. We saw from the evidence of Mr. Luke Sharp that this evil was not confined to the North, and it might be well to draw attention to a reference to similar practices elsewhere. Writing in the _Nineteenth Century_ recently, a writer said:—