The threats with which the leaders of the Unemployed regaled us derived a pleasing actuality from the fact that on the 24th of January simultaneous explosions had occurred at the Tower and in the House of Commons. I did not see the destruction at the Tower, but I went straight across from my office to the House of Commons, and saw a curious object-lesson in scientific Fenianism. In Westminster Hall there was a hole in the pavement six feet wide, and another in the roof. I had scarcely done examining these phenomena when another crash shook the whole building, and we found that an infernal machine had been exploded in the House of Commons, tearing the doors off their hinges, wrecking the galleries, and smashing the Treasury Bench into matchwood. The French Ambassador, M. Waddington, entered the House with me, and for a while stood silent and amazed. At length he said, "There's no other country in the world where this could happen." Certainly it must be admitted that at that moment our detective organization was not at its best. However, neither mock-heroics nor actual outrage could obscure the fact that during the spring of 1885 there Was an immense amount of unemployment, and consequent suffering, among the unskilled labourers. I suggested that we should issue from the Local Government Board a Circular Letter to all the Local Authorities in London, asking them, not to invent work, but to push forward works which, owing to the rapid extension of London into the suburbs, were becoming absolutely necessary. But the President of the Board, a bond slave of Political Economy, would not sanction even this very mild departure from the precepts of the Dismal Science. The distress was peculiarly acute at the Docks, where work is precarious and uncertain in the highest degree. Some well-meaning people at the West End instituted a plan of "Free Breakfasts" to be served at the Dock-Gates to men who had failed to obtain employment for the day. On one of these occasions--and very pathetic they were--I was the host, and the _Saturday Review_ treated me to some not unkindly ridicule. Child of the Whigs whose name you flout, Slip of the tree you fain would fell; Your colleagues own, I cannot doubt, Your plan, George Russell, likes them well, "What will regain," you heard them cry, "That popular praise we once enjoyed?" And instant was your smart reply, "Free Breakfasts to the Unemployed." And then, after six more verses of rhythmical chaff, this prophetic stanza: And howsoe'er profusely flow The tea and coffee round the board, The hospitality you show Shall nowise lack its due reward. For soon, I trust, our turn 'twill be, With joy by no regret alloyed, To give the present Ministry A Breakfast for the Unemployed.