One of these days I am going to do a book about those London characters without reference to whom our daily newspapers are incomplete. I mean people like the late lamented Craig, the poet of the Oval Cricket Ground, Captain Hunnable, of Ilford, Mr. Algernon Ashton, Spiv. Bagster, of Westminster, that gay farceur, "D. S. Windell," Stewart Gray, the Nature enthusiast. But first and foremost must come--Spring Onions. On the southern side of the quarter is Sidney Street, of sinister memory. You remember the siege of Sidney Street? A great time for Little Russia. You may remember how the police surrounded that little Fort Chabrol. You may remember how the deadly aim of Peter the Painter and his fellow-conspirators got home on the force again and again. You remember how the police, in their helplessness against such fatalistic defiance of their authority, appealed to Government, and how Government sent down a detachment of the Irish Guards. There was a real Cabinet Minister in it, too; he came down in his motor-car to superintend manoeuvres and compliment gallant officers on their strategy. And yet, in that great contest of four men versus the Rest of England, it was the Rest of England that went down; for Fort Chabrol stood its ground and quietly laughed. They were never beaten, they never surrendered. When they had had enough, they just burnt the house over themselves, and ... hara-kiri.... Of course, it was all very wicked; it is impossible to justify them in any way. In Bayswater and all other haunts of unbridled chastity they were tortured, burnt alive, stewed in oil, and submitted to every conceivable penalty for their saucy effrontery. Yet, somehow, there was a touch about it, this spectacle of four men defying the law and order of the greatest country in the world, which thrilled every man with any devil in him. Peter the Painter is a hero to this day. * * * * * I had known the quarter for many years before it interested me. It was not until I was prowling around on a Fleet Street assignment that I learnt to hate it. A murder had been committed over a cafe in Lupin Street: a popular murder, fruity, cleverly done, and with a sex interest. Of course every newspaper and agency developed a virtuous anxiety to track the culprit, and all resources were directed to that end. Journalism is perhaps the only profession in which so fine a public spirit may be found. So it was that the North Country paper of which I was a hanger-on flung every available man into the fighting line, and the editor told me that I might, in place of the casual paragraphs for the London Letter, do something good on the Vassiloff murder. It was a night of cold rain, and the pavements were dashed with smears of light from the shop windows. Through the streaming streets my hansom leaped; and as I looked from the window, and noted the despondent biliousness of Bethnal Green, I realized that the grass withereth, the flower fadeth.