Thus such an one becomes in a few weeks precisely in the same plight as those who arrive with literally nothing at all. Of those, said the Bishop of Bedford in his evidence before the House of Lords' Committee, "They almost stand in the market after arrival with barely any clothes to cover them, and without a penny in their pockets." In this veritable slave-market they hang about in droves, waiting for the sweater to come and hire them, which he does sometimes in person, sometimes by means of an agent, and sometimes by means of his wife. (What a terrible type of womanhood must be a sweater's wife!) Of course these poor creatures are at the sweater's mercy. They are ignorant of the country, of its language, of its laws, and are compelled to take any terms he may offer. To call the place where these transactions are carried on a "slave-market" is perhaps an abuse of terms, since, in a strictly literal sense, nobody buys and nobody sells; but that it is a traffic in human beings cannot be denied. Almost any Sunday morning during the spring, summer, and autumn months, at the corner of Goulston Street, Whitechapel, for instance, may be seen a varying number of men drawn up in a line against the wall. In front of them stands a man who engages--I will not say sells--them to the sweater, who gets his victims to sign a paper, binding them to work for so many weeks and at so much money in the sweating dens. It is a pitiful sight. Most of these men are newly-arrived foreign paupers, chiefly Polish Jews. The boat from Hamburg arrives every Saturday at the docks, and the agent who meets them conveys them to some Jewish shelter where they remain until Sunday morning, when he leads them to this place. Most of them as they stand there have the high boots and fur cap distinctive of the Russian peasant. Want and long service are plainly written on their emaciated forms, and along with these a certain patient and dogged intention of purpose. Often the sweater will give them at first only their food and lodgings, such as it is. The salary given them varies from two to three shillings per week; their food is horrible, so is their lodging. They will work fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen hours a day, and they will sleep in the den in which the work is done. They suffer hunger, cold, heat, and vermin. They are without the help of relations, acquaintances, or protection. They agree to pay back a certain sum if they break their engagement; and as this is impossible for them to do, they remain practically slaves, working for nothing, or next to nothing.