'No, sir,' he answered, colouring as though he had done something wrong. 'What are you going to do with it?' 'Please, sir,' he stammered, 'I'm goin' to take it 'ome to mother. She's ill and can't eat nothink, and I thought as she might manage cake, sir.' In the train that brought those youngsters down came one white-faced child, who looked faint and ill with the walk to the station. The head teacher, who has the history of each child at her fingers' ends, saw what was the matter. 'Had no breakfast to-day, Annie?' 'No, ma'am,' was the faltering reply. There was a crowd of poor mothers at the station, come to see the children off. One went ont and presently returned with a penny, which she pressed into the child's hand--to buy herself something with. The woman had pawned her shawl for a copper or two in sheer womanly sympathy. Had she had the money about her, she needn't have left the station. There was a good deal of pawning that morning, I know, from an eye-witness, and all to give the little children a copper or two to spend. And what a struggle there had been to get them something decent to wear for that grand day out! If all the stories were written that could be told of the privations and sacrifices endured by mothers, that Sally and Jane and Will might look respectable at the treat, your heart would ache. As I don't wish it to, we will not go into the matter. CHAPTER XII. |To get an odd job at the Docks is often the last hope of the labouring men who are out of regular employment, and to whom the acquisition of a few shillings for rent, and the means of subsistence for themselves and families, is a task fraught with as much difficulty as were some of the labours the accomplishment of which added in no inconsiderable degree to the posthumous fame of Hercules. When it is borne in mind that sometimes at the West India Docks--taking one for example--as many as 2,500 hands can be taken on in the morning, it will be easily understood that the chance of employment draws an immense concourse of men daily to the gates. The time to see what I venture to think is one of the most remarkable sights in the world is an hour at which the general public is not likely to be passing by. Sometimes the hands are engaged as early as four, but it is generally about six o'clock that the quay-gangers ascend the rostrums or elevated stands which are placed all along the outside wall, and survey the huge crowd in front of them, and commence to call them out for work and send them into the different docks where the good ships lie, with their vast cargoes, waiting for willing hands to unload them. The pay is fivepence an hour, and the day's work lasts for eight hours. It is miscellaneous, and a man is expected to put his hand to anything in the shape of loading or unloading that the occasion may require.