I have seen “Will Crooks” addressing an open-air meeting outside the Arsenal Gates at Woolwich, in a wonderful bye-election which startled many political pundits with a vision of new things. It was the working man of London for a moment self-conscious: hearing itself for the first time speak. Picture an enormous sea of drab persons, a multitude of cloth caps and shapeless clothing, and little white faces. On a kind of rock, standing out of the sea--a humble carrier’s cart--a short man with a black beard and long arm is addressing this great crowd. To many observers the vision is a vision of foreboding; the proletariat rising at last in the mere might of its incalculable numbers, to demand its share of life’s good things, and brutally trample down all opposition. What is he saying to them? He is playing on this vast gathering as on an instrument of music, and he is making it discourse most excellent harmonies. At one moment he is stringing together the stories it delights in, and you can see the ripple of laughter running amongst the listeners like the wind through the cornfields. He is recounting the difficulties of the Imperialist Missionary down in Poplar: to the first woman: “Don’t you know you belong to an Empire on which the sun never sets?” And the reply: “Wot’s the good of talkin’ like that? Why, the sun never rises on our court.” To the second: “You’ve got to learn to make sacrifices for the Empire.”--“Wot’s the good of talkin’ about sacrifices when we can’t make both ends meet as it is? Both ends meet! We think we’re lucky if we get one end meat and the other end bread.” To a third: “If you don’t agree, you’re Little Englanders.”--“If I’m to pay another twopence a pound for meat, my children will soon be Little Englanders!” Then in a moment he will change the note, and now he is telling them of a day in the life of the unemployed: the monotonous search for work, the kindness or insult at each application, the alternation of revolt and wretchedness, fury and apathy, the unwillingness to face the wife again in the evening with nothing with bad news. They all know it, they have mostly been through it; it is a shadow which hangs over them all. And a strange, impressive hush falls over the vast assembly, and men cough or rub their eyes, or turn away from each other’s faces. “Give ’em a chance,” he will suddenly cry, with uplifted arm, and the tension thus released finds relief in thunderous volleys of applause.