“A very sad thing happened here last week. Our leading man died suddenly from heart disease leaving his wife and two children totally destitute. If he had been a big London actor, for half his life in receipt of a salary of, say, three thousand a year, the theatrical press would have teemed with piteous appeals to the public, all his friends would have written to the papers generously offering to receive subscriptions on his behalf, and all the theaters would have given performances at double prices to help pay his debts and funeral expenses. As, however, he had never earned anything higher than about two pounds a week, Charity could hardly be expected to interest herself about the case; and so the wife supports herself and her children by taking in washing. Not that I believe she would ask for alms, even were there any chance of her getting them, for, when the idea was only suggested to her, she quite fired up, and talked some absurd nonsense about having too much respect for her husband’s profession to degrade it into a mere excuse for begging.... “This company also went wrong. It was a terrible year for theaters. Trade was bad everywhere, and “amusements” was the very first item that people with diminishing incomes struck out of the list of their expenditure. One by one I parted with every valuable I had about me, and a visit to the pawnshop, just before leaving each town, became as essential as packing. I went through the country like a distressed ship through troubled waters, marking my track by the riches I cast overboard to save myself. My watch I left behind me in one town, my chain in another; a ring here, my dress suit there; a writing-case I dropped at this place, and a pencil-case at that. And so things went on--or, rather, off--till the beginning of May, when this letter, the last of the series, was written: