"Ah, those inquiries!" said Crooks, recalling the promise at a public meeting in Woolwich. "I've seen a good many inquiries and Royal Commissions in my time, and they always remind me of the East Ender who went down Petticoat Lane on market day. He saw on a barrow some hard-boiled eggs which had been dyed various colours, evidently for children. He'd seen nothing like them before. "'Wot kind of eggs is them?' says he. "'Them? Them's pheasants' eggs,' says the coster. "'Would a hen bring 'em off?' "'Rather!' "'How much for a sitting?' "'Eighteenpence and half yer luck.' "A month or two later the same man was down that way again. The coster saw him. "'Ain't you the bloke as bought them pheasants' eggs?' "'Yes.' "'How'd yer get on?' "'Well,' he says mournful like, 'that old hen sat and sat and sat until I'm blowed if she didn't cook them pheasants' eggs at last.' "And," added Crooks, "I have never known a Royal Commission or a Government Inquiry yet that didn't sit and sit and sit until its report was cooked by the time it had done with it." As the distress deepened with the approach of winter, the Poplar Guardians pressed for an Autumn Session of Parliament. They wrote to the Government welcoming Mr. Long's scheme of Distress Committees, but doubting their efficacy unless power was granted to raise a halfpenny rate for providing the unemployed with work. As Chairman of the Board, Crooks himself wrote a long letter to the Prime Minister on November 21st. He supplied official figures, showing the exceptional distress then prevailing, and pointed out that the Guardians' request for an Autumn Session was supported by fifty-six other Poor Law Unions and no fewer than eighty municipalities throughout the country. To that letter Mr. Balfour sent the following reply:-- 10, Downing Street, Whitehall, S.W. _November 28th, 1904._ DEAR MR. CROOKS,-- I am well aware that in many parts of the metropolis--and more particularly, I fear, in the district in which as a Guardian you are immediately concerned--much temporary distress prevails at the present moment. How best to deal with the situation thus created has, as you know, been the subject of most anxious consideration on the part of the President of the Local Government Board; and Mr. Walter Long has established a scheme--now, I understand, in actual working--which will have the effect of organising and generalising methods which local experience has already proved to be useful, thereby greatly increasing both their economy and their efficiency.