"I can, of course, sit down and send a cheque to a church fund for the unemployed or to a charitable institution," I went on, "and in the majority of cases that is the wisest and best course to pursue. Organisation, especially expert organisation, can make even a small sum go further than can any amount of inexpert individual effort; in addition to which, nine out of ten of the people who happen to be charitably disposed are unable, for various reasons, to distribute their charity at first hand, and in person. I don't know that it is always desirable that they should do so. Their very kindness of heart makes them easy to be imposed upon; and promiscuous and amateur almsgiving is, I fear, often responsible for the springing up of a class of anything but amateur alms-cadgers and spongers. But I know the 'ins' and 'outs' of the East End of London. I'm not altogether unacquainted with the fact that the greater the need, the more pitiful and deserving the case, the harder is it to find. Your decent, deserving, hard-working man, whom ill-health and misfortune have brought to want, will creep away secretly to starve, in silence to suffer and to die, while your rascally loafer, who has never done an honest day's work in his life, seizes upon every opportunity of 'times being bad,' or of men being known to be out of work, to parade the streets, hymn-howling and copper-cadging for the wherewithal to spend in the public-house. I know something of the ways and wiles of gentlemen of this kidney, something of the silent suffering and dogged, splendid pride of the other class; and being myself, for the present, at least, a genuine member of the unemployed, and having, moreover, a system of my own invention for getting at the facts, I think I'll go east and investigate things for myself. For novel writing or other literary work my mind is just now too unsettled, and as I am not one who can for any length of time remain inactive, I will make the start this morning and this moment, and be off." Taking the train to Shadwell, I deliberately set to work to find the most squalid and poverty-stricken slum in the whole district. Then I entered the nearest baker's shop. It is curious how readily the poor sum up a new comer. The slatternly but not unkindly-looking woman who popped out from a back room saw at a glance that I had not called in the usual course of business, and as she came forward, her foolish, expressionless face lost something of its normal vacancy, until her vague eyes, indeterminate nose, open mouth and dropped chin, seemed for all the world to shape themselves into a human note of interrogation. "Yes, sir?" she inquired respectfully, with a slight inclination. "Good morning," I said, with an effort to make voice, manner, and expression as pleasant as possible. "Good morning. I hope I haven't disturbed you. I'm not a customer--for the present, at all events."