the poor boy seemed to be getting worse and worse, and at the same time all these worthy gentlemen becoming more and more excited; some calling out for ‘Fancy bread,’ some for ‘French rolls,’ others for ‘German black bread,’ and all refusing to pay any part towards the bread and butter, unless cut after their own fashion, when they were reminded by one of the party that there was not the least necessity to trouble themselves about paying for what the boy might have, as it could be charged to the county. To which they all replied, rather sharply, that, as to that, if they did not think it right to pay out of their own individual pockets, neither did they think it right that the public money should be used for purposes which they could not individually approve of. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ cried the doctor, ‘pray let the child have something. Is it not dreadful to let this poor boy perish before our eyes, when there are the means of relief within reach? For mercy’s sake, let him have something to keep him alive!’ ‘Well,’ replied one of the magistrates (who was chairman of the Sessions), ‘as you see he cannot have the bread and butter, you must prescribe something else for him.’ ‘Dear, dear me!’ said the doctor, ‘I am really shocked at such inconsistency. Will you let him have a little brandy, then!’ ‘Oh yes I’ they all cried out together, ‘let him have some brandy--by all means give him some brandy!’” The brandy made Ragged Jack drank; and presently, being still hungry, he is tempted to steal a roll from a baker’s shop, and dragged to the Town Hall, where the magistrates, who had left him upon the pavement taking brandy, give him a month’s imprisonment, and detention in a reformatory school.’ The chaplain was kind to him, and said, “Yes, now that Jack was a convicted thief, he had plenty of good wholesome bread and butter.” In the reformatory he was educated, and taught a trade, and sent to a distant town where his antecedents would not be against him. On his way he met his cousin, Tom Rag--“a boy as ragged and wretched as he used to be himself.” Tom wants to know how Jack has managed to get such nice clothes and a basket of tools, that he may go and do likewise.