Some time afterward the boy husband waited on me. He had got permission for a day out to look for work; naturally the authorities did not wish to keep him and his family. He wanted some help to enable him to get another home. I offered him help on the conditions that he and the girl separated for a time, he to go to lodgings and to work, his wife also to go to lodgings and to work, I undertaking to pay for the care of the children whilst she was at work, and also promising to help them with some goods in a year’s time if they kept to the agreement. But my conditions were not satisfactory to him. He went back to the workhouse, took his wife and children out, and they were afterwards charged with begging. I called on the parents of both husband and wife. ‘Oh, he has nothing to do with us,’ said the parents of the former; ‘he left us when he was sixteen.’ ‘What did he leave you for?’ I asked: ‘We had not got room for him,’ I was told. The girl also had left home when she was about fourteen. Neither had the parents room for her. Their story is unfortunately a very common story, for large numbers of boys and girls leave home because there is no room for them. Thousands of working men in London start a married life with an establishment consisting of one room, when with only common prudence they might as readily have two or three rooms decently furnished. Life is passable the first year, and during that year most of them might, if they would, enlarge their homes, for with a home of one room, and the husband not coming home to meals, the wife has very little to do, and is able for a time to earn money by her own labour. This she often does, but, as a rule, the public-house gets the benefit of it, consequently the home is not enlarged. Then the children begin to come; the wants of the parents increase, but their means lessen, yet by no means must the public-house be forsaken. I have seen many men completely astonished when I have suggested to them that they ought to have more room for themselves and family, and that the money spent in drink would easily provide it. The public-house has become part of their very life, and children may come in quick succession, the infants may grow into boys and girls, and the boys and girls into young men and young women, but the public-house must not be forsaken, and the amount spent on drink must not be curtailed. The sacred duty of the English working man is to see that the publican does not suffer. His wife may suffer, his children may suffer, they may herd together like animals, but his glorious institution must be upheld.