It was twenty minutes past ten when I arrived. At half-past ten we were due at the relieving office. But before we started, some three or four pathetic narratives had found their way into the little hall for Mr. Crooks to mark, learn, and inwardly digest. I appreciated the situation, and expressed sympathy. "It is depressing," said the people's M.P., "but, after all, somebody's got to listen and somebody's got to help." We went out into the street. In the hundred yards that we walked to our destination six sad riddles of life were submitted to Mr. Crooks for solution. The broad-shouldered, black-bearded, smiling politician of the people had a cheery word of advice for all applicants, and scarcely had these pavement consultations ended before we were seated in the relieving office listening to tales of woe told by a procession of poor petitioners with whom the world had gone woefully wrong. The committee of relief were generous and sympathetic. Poplar has a reputation for generosity in this matter. It struck me that at times the committee might have impressed a little more earnestly upon the recipients of out-relief the other side of the situation; but I am bound to admit that undeserving cases--cases which had a history of drink and thriftlessness--were dismissed with no illusions.... We went to the workhouse at the dinner hour. A comfortable place certainly, and the dinner probably better than a good many of the inmates had been accustomed to when they were earning their own living.... A pleasant hour with Mr. and Mrs. Crooks and their daughters at the castle, a stroll in the little garden which is Mrs. Crooks's delight, a short interview with Tommy the Tortoise, and it is time for the Member for Woolwich to start for Westminster and take his place in the National Assembly. He takes up a leather case containing some sixty or seventy letters to be answered, and we go out into the street, which is happily bathed in sunshine. We get on the top of an omnibus, and I listen to the merry stories merrily told until we arrive at Aldgate Station and bid each other good-bye. I have spent a most interesting and instructive morning with a typical Englishman, a man who has laboured with skill and used his brains as well as his hands to good purpose--a man who has fought his way up from boyhood, a man whose heart is as big as his shoulders are broad. Beyond his sterling common sense and his sympathy with suffering, Will Crooks has one golden quality in a tribune of the people. He has a sense of humour. It does your eyes good to see him smile. And he has a laugh that makes you feel the sunshine even when the north wind blows.