'Her husband was a clerk,' Mr. Gray explained, 'who took to drink and robbed his employer. His father was a barrister, who died young. His grandfather was a well-known--almost a great lawyer. I know the whole family history. I learned it----' He stopped for a moment, as if his memory suddenly failed him--'somehow--a long time ago. It is a story which shows how our sins and follies fall upon our own children. This family sprang from the gutter. First, the working man: then his son the shopkeeper: then his grandson, who became a great lawyer: then his great-grandson, not so great a lawyer. He, you see, is the first of the family who begins life as a gentleman and is brought up among gentlemen: he inherited money: he had a practice: he married in the class called gentle, and had children. But he lost all his money, and in despair he killed himself. Cousinly affection is a cold thing at best. It helped the widow to a pittance, and sent her boys to a cheap school. At fifteen they had to take whatever employment they could get. Observe that this branch of the family was now going downhill very fast. The future of a boy who has been taught no trade and has entered no profession is black indeed. One of the boys went out to New Zealand, which has little to give a friendless boy: another enlisted, served three years, and has never got any work since. I believe he carries boards about the street. Another became a tenth-rate actor, and now starves on fifteen shillings a week, paid irregularly. Another--the youngest--was put into a merchant's office. He rose to a hundred and twenty pounds a year: he married a girl of the clerkly class--that woman you saw: he took to drink: he embezzled his master's money: he went to prison: he is now hopelessly ruined. He cannot get any lower in the social scale. What will his children do? They have no friends. They will grow up like the children around them: they will join the hopeless casuals: they will be hewers of wood. Property, my child, Property--has done this. He stole. In our society nobody will be tempted to steal. He drank--with us he would be kept judiciously under control until he could be trusted again. That would be the care of the State. He is another victim of Property. When his grandfather was framing Acts of Parliament for the protection of Property, he did not dream that he was making another engine for the oppression of his grandchildren.' Said the other Voice: 'We rise by our virtues. We sink by our vices. Let these people suffer. Their sufferings should make the rest of us wiser. Teach the children to rise again as their great-grandfather rose. Do not contend against the great Law which metes out suffering in return for vice.'