“Cousin Jack, who had been taught, and indeed now knew, that thieving was a wicked thing to do, was sorely puzzled how to advise his friend in this matter; for, having a great regard for Tommy, he wished to save him from the miserable state in which he himself had once been--skulking and wandering about the streets all day, picking up hits and scraps of food, even out of the gutters like the dogs, and at night sleeping in the corner, perhaps, of an open sheep-pen in the cattle-market, or crouching from the drenching rain by the side of a doorway; and when he contrasted that state of his existence with the comfort he had felt, and the attention he had received whilst in the jail and the reformatory, he knew not how to advise his poor cousin, knowing that poor Tom was, as he himself had been, almost perishing for want of a little good wholesome bread and butter, clean clothes, and a comfortable bed to lie in, which he well knew poor Tom would have if he could be sent to jail, as he had been. When he thought of all this he was sorely puzzled what to recommend; but at last he said: ‘Tom, you must not steal; so you had better go a-begging, and perhaps you may be lucky enough to be sent to jail for that, and then you will have everything done for you, as I have had, and come out better than me; for nobody will be able to say that you have been a thief. Yes; go and beg, Tom! But if this don’t answer, why, then, I suppose you _must_ go a-THIEVING, as I did.’” “It may be asked, Where were the parents of these poor boys all this time? Well, they could tell you at the Britannia public-house, only they don’t like to talk about such disagreeable matters there. But the fact is, Jack’s father used to _use_ that house, and was once a decent sort of man, and was at one time a ‘moderate drinker’; but upon one occasion he got mad drunk, and in that state of drunken insanity went home and killed his wife, was sent to jail, and died there. Tom’s father was transported for committing some crime after he had ‘been drinking’ at the Britannia; and Tom’s mother took a little drop at first to _comfort her_, and then drank herself to death.” The foregoing will remind many readers of the scheme of Mr. Jenkins’s “Ginx’s Baby.” But Cruikshank gives his views on popular education in his homely simple way:--