As usual, the knocker at No. 81, Gough Street, knew no rest during his illness. Hundreds of people called to leave sympathetic little messages of goodwill. From Woolwich came a telegram from a party of children. An old bedridden man laboriously penned a letter, brought round by his aged wife, to say that Mr. Crooks might like to know that an "ole bloke as is pegging out fast" was thinking of him all day, and hoping he would soon get well. This message cheered the invalid greatly, and he sent back a reply that renewed the old man's youth for weeks. For Crooks never lost his cheerfulness when lying bandaged in bed. He used to banter his wife and daughters, and his Labour colleagues in Parliament who came to visit him, until they had to hold their sides with laughter. His cheery doctor used to store up good stories for the invalid's delectation; but he always had to admit that Crooks could cap them all with better ones. Once back at work again, Crooks threw all the time and energy he could spare from Parliament and his Labour meetings into a campaign for feeding starving school children. Perhaps the best instance of the people's trust in him was supplied by what happened in consequence of a powerful plea for hungry children he made on the London County Council. The Moderates were then in power, and he pleaded with them to persist no longer in their policy of refusing to exercise their powers under the Necessitous School Children's Act, which enables them to spend public money on food for starving scholars. It was nigh on midnight before he got an opportunity of raising the question, and then--according to the _Daily Mail_, which had often been one of his bitterest opponents--he "electrified his sleepy colleagues as he expressed the agony of hungry children and the despair of parents unable to satisfy their cravings. The speech was spoken without a single note; it came from his heart. When Mr. Crooks sat down, exhausted by the effort--he was far from well--there was a moment of dead silence. Then there broke out the applause which relieved the tension. There was scarcely a dry eye in the Council chamber." In the course of his speech to the Council Crooks said:-- There are no hard-hearted men and there are no hard-hearted women; there are only men and women ignorant of the need. Only the other day a teacher in one of our schools showed me a letter from a mother of three fatherless girls. It ran:-- Dear Teacher,--Will you allow my little girls to come home at half-past three? I shall have earned sixpence by then, and shall be able to give them something warm to eat. They have had nothing all day.