One result of my former book, "Pictures and Problems from London Police Courts," is to be found at Walton-on-the-Naze--a Home of Rest for London's poorest toilers, which the readers of that book generously gave me the means of establishing. During the present year five hundred poor women have rested in it, some of them never having previously seen the sea. Such profits as accrue to me from the sale of this book will be devoted to the maintenance and development of this Home. One word more. I want it to be distinctly understood that _I am no longer a Police Court Missionary_. I resigned that position four years ago that I might be free to devote my life to London's poorest toilers, the home-workers, to whom frequent references are made in my pages, and for whom I hope great things. But I am not free altogether of my old kind of work, for, as secretary of the Howard Association, one half of my life is still devoted to prisons and prisoners. THOMAS HOLMES. 12, BEDFORD ROAD, TOTTENHAM, N. _September, 1908._ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. MEMORIES AND CONTRASTS 1 II. SOME BURGLARS I HAVE MET 33 III. THE BLACK LIST AND INEBRIATES 45 IV. POLICE-COURT MARRIAGES 65 V. EXTRAORDINARY SENTENCES 74 VI. DISCHARGED PRISONERS 92 VII. THE LAST DREAD PENALTY 125 VIII. HOUSING THE POOR 147 IX. THE HOOLIGANISM OF THE POOR 166 X. THE HEROISM OF THE SLUMS 182 XI. A PENNYWORTH OF COAL 198 XII. OLD BOOTS AND SHOES 212 XIII. JONATHAN PINCHBECK, THE SLUM AUTOLYCUS 222 XIV. PEOPLE WHO HAVE "COME DOWN" 243 KNOWN TO THE POLICE CHAPTER I MEMORIES AND CONTRASTS During the summer of 1904 there were in London few men more unsettled in mind and miserable than myself. I had severed my connection with London police-courts--and well I knew it. I was not sure that I had done wisely or well, and was troubled accordingly. I missed more than words can express the miseries that had hitherto been inseparable from the routine of my life. For twenty-one years, day after day at a regular hour, I had turned my steps in one direction, and had gone from home morning by morning with my mind attuned to a certain note. It was not, then, a strange thing to find that mechanical habits had been formed, and that sometimes I found myself on the way to the police-court before I discovered my mistake. Still less was it a marvel to find that my mind refused to accept all at once the fact that I was no longer a Police-Court Missionary. I must in truth confess I felt a bit ashamed that I had given up the work. I felt that I was something of a traitor, who had deserted the poor and the outcast, many of whom had learned to love and trust me.