If offenders, young or old, must be punished, let them be punished decently. If they ought to be sent to prison, to prison send them. But if their petty offences can be expunged by the payment of a few shillings, why not give them a little time to pay those fines? Such a course would stop for ever the miserable, deadly round of short expensive imprisonments. I have approached succeeding Home Secretaries upon this matter till I am tired; succeeding Home Secretaries have sent memorandums and recommendations to courts of summary jurisdiction till, I expect, they are tired, for generally they have had no effect in mitigating the evil. Magistrates have the power to grant time for the payment of fines, but it is optional, not imperative. It is high time for a change, and surely it will come, for the absurdity cannot continue. Surely every English man and woman who possesses a settled home ought to have, and must have, the legal right of a few days' grace in which to pay his or her fine. And every youthful offender ought to have the same right, also, even if he paid by instalments. But at present it is so much easier, and therefore so much better, to thrust the underworld, youthful and adult, into prison and have done with them, than it is to pursue a sane but a little bit troublesome method that would keep thousands of the poor from ever entering prison. CHAPTER XIII. UNEMPLOYED AND UNEMPLOYABLE My life has been one of activity; from an early age I have known what it was to be constantly at work. To have the certainty of regular work, and to have the discipline of constant duty, seem to me an ideal state for mind and body. Labour, we are sometimes told, is one of God's chastisements upon a fallen race; I believe it to be one of our choicest blessings. I can conceive only one greater tragedy than the man who has nothing to do, and that is the man who, earnestly longing for work, seeks it day by day, and fails to find it. Imagine his position, and imagine also, if you possibly can, the great qualities that are demanded if such a man is to go through a lengthened period of unemployment without losing his dignity, his manhood and his desire for work. I can tell at a glance the man who has had this experience. There is something about his face that proclaims his hopelessness, the very poise of his body and his peculiar measured step tell that his heart is utterly unexpectant. To-morrow morning, and every morning, thousands of men will rise early, even before the sun, and set out on their weary tramp and hopeless search for work. To-morrow morning, and every morning, thousands of men will be waiting at various dock-gates for a chance of obtaining a few hours' hard work. And while these wait, others tramp, seeking and asking for work.