The voice of the times--would that it had a Gladstone for its interpreter--is one that calls every one, be he patriot or business man, or even a pleasure-lover, to set himself to help in the eviction of poverty. If there be any fighting spirit--any chivalry left, here is the object for its attack; if there be any enlightened selfishness, here is the field for its exercise. Poverty, if it be not destroyed, will destroy the England of our hopes and our dreams. The curious thing is that the public mind which speaks through the Press hardly realizes what is meant by poverty. There is much talk on the subject--numberless volumes are issued, and charities are multiplied, but what is in the minds of speakers, writers, and givers is obviously destitution. They think of the ragged, broken creatures kept waiting outside the doors of the shelter, and they have mental pictures of squalid rooms and starving children. Many and many a time visitors have come to Whitechapel expecting to see whole streets occupied by the ragged and the wretched, and they have been almost disappointed to find such misery the exception. There are, indeed, many thousands of people destitute, but they form only a fraction of the poor, and could, as the Poor Law Commissioners have shown, be lifted out of the condition by action at once drastic and humane. Why that action has not even been attempted is one of the many questions which the Local Government Board has to answer. But my present point is that, if all the destitute were removed, the poverty which is at the back of our present discontent would remain. Mr. Seebohm Rowntree, whose opinion has been supported by subsequent social explorers and by scientific research, concludes that 3s. a week for an adult and 2s. 3d. for a child is necessary to keep the body in physical repair, the food being chosen simply to get the most nutrition for the least money, without any regard to appetite or pleasure. The rent for a family, even if one room be considered sufficient, can hardly be less than 4s. a week in a town, and if household sundries are to include fuel, light, and clothing for a family of five persons, 4s. 11d. is a moderate sum. It thus seems as if the smallest income on which it would be possible for an average family to exist is 21s. 8d. a week. Mr. Charles Booth, Mr. Rowntree, and other subsequent investigators have shown that 30 per cent. of the town population have an income below or hardly above that sum, and as the wages of agricultural labourers average in England 18s. 3d. a week, in Scotland 19s. 3d., and in Ireland 10s. 11d., it is fair to conclude that the estimate of the towns may be applied to the whole kingdom, and that at least 12,000,000 of the 45,000,000 people are living on incomes below the poverty line.