I am not ashamed to say that I had been somewhat proud of my name and title, for the words "Police-Court Missionary" meant much to me, and I had loved my work and had suffered for it. It was doubtless in accordance with the fitness of things that I should retire from the work when I did, for I am getting old, and dead officialism might have crept upon me, and whatever power for good I may have might have been atrophied. Of such a fate I always felt afraid; mercifully from such a fate I was prevented or delivered. Still, I sorrowed till time lightened the sense of loss. By-and-by new interests arose, new duties claimed me, and other phases of life interested me. Four years have now lapsed, a length of time that allows sufficient perspective, and enables me to calmly take stock of the twenty-one years I spent in London police-courts. I do not in this chapter, or in this book, intend to review the whole of those years, but I do hope to make some comparisons of the things of to-day with those of twenty-one years ago. The comparisons will, I trust, be encouraging, and show that we have progressed in a right direction, and that we are all still progressing. Two days of those years will remain ever with me--the day I entered on my work and the day I gave it up. Of the latter I will not speak; but as the former opened my eyes to wonders of humanity, and humanity being of all wonders the greatest, I have something to say. The conditions at London police-courts in those days were bad, past conception. No words of mine can adequately describe them, and only for the sake of comparison and encouragement do I attempt briefly to portray some of the most striking features of those days. Even now I feel faint when I recall the "prisoners' waiting-room," with its dirty floor, its greasy walls, and its vile atmosphere. The sanitary arrangements were disgusting. There was no female attendant to be found on the premises. Strong benches attached to the walls provided the only seats; neither was there separation of the sexes. In this room old and young, pure and impure, clean and verminous, sane and insane, awaited their turn to appear before the magistrate; for the insane in those days were brought by local authorities that the magistrate might certify them, and they sat, too, amongst the waiting prisoners.