half-glance, begging you for pity to buy. Human misery finds no greater examples, nor any form of degradation deeper depths, than the lowest class of London--nor of London only, but of all the great towns. This degradation takes on every shape of misery and shame. Crime of every kind breeds in it--disease, despair, and death! Is it inseparable from human existence--must excellence in humanity be only for the few? London has for Misery its Charities--for Crime its vast Stone prisons. The latter are more accessible, and, for the offences of mere poverty, quite as desirable. Pauperism detests the alms-house--it hates subordination; and will, sometimes, starve before it seeks the bread of scornful wealth. Extreme indigence hardens--softness is turned to stone--human instinct feels wronged. "I wish work and pay, not idleness and pauper-bread." The cruel thing with the poor is, that at _first_, there is not debasement. Work is sought--but, continued inability to find work and honest bread, leads in the bad demon--which loves not, cares not, feels not--renders inhuman. In walking the streets one feels the cold nature of the English Barbarians--one sees its exhibition everywhere. It is intensified by Caste divisions: there is no real sympathy. An Englishman shows in the streets, and in all public places, the indifference of a brute. Nothing moves him, nothing makes him laugh, smile, or give any sign of emotion. In sports, nominally sportive, there is nothing of gaiety--only with the Low-Castes very coarse and rough brutishness; and with the Upper a repulsive cynicism. This mood gives to the life of the streets no pleasing animation--only, at best, mere animal movement, as if each beast was intent upon his own particular hunger. At the Play there is no show of genuine enjoyment--and the dance (somebody said to me once) might be a dance of Death, so far as any lively pleasure appears. The _Hansom Cab_--of which there are thousands--is a singular and characteristic thing. It is a vehicle of two wheels, drawn by one horse, and carries two passengers. The Barbarians, intent upon gain, allow the driver to urge his horse at speed through the crowded streets, giving no other warning than _hi-hi_! Everybody must look out _at his own peril_; for life and limb are unimportant compared with speed in business. One would not credit this--but as I have been nearly run over by these drivers more than once, not hearing the _hi-hi_! I can vouch for the existence of these privileged vehicles. The use of them is based upon the same rule, which allows of so many other things, to us inhuman or unjust--to say--that 'the convenience of trade' is paramount to trifling risks of life, limb, or soundness of abstract morality.