If those in the West-End and other places who have property in the slums would only look after it themselves, and not be content with taking the rents without seeing that the places for which they take their money are fit to house men and women, and not mere animals, great progress would be made. We should be happy to show them the best models on which to rebuild their houses, or they may see for themselves by observing the pretty two-storeyed houses now built, which constitute Hart's Lane, abutting on the Bethnal Green Road, and which, being always in demand, pay, we hope, the intelligent landlord who built them. But it is not merely that we are too thick on the ground; for a long time we were too much left to ourselves. Those that ate jam lived in one place and those that made it lived in another, and naturally therefore the "city of the poor," left to itself, generated standards, habits, and traditions of its own, some of which are the reverse of edifying. Take, for instance, the prevalence of drink and gambling. A young man came to me one night in East London with a face as pale as death. I had known him as a boy, but he had dropped out of our club system on growing too old for the boys' club, and had got drawn into a drinking set. "Save me!" he cried, as he fell upon his knees and took my hand. He had, he said, been led in the public-house to put his money on horses of which he knew nothing, and had finally spent nine pounds belonging to a shop club, of which he was treasurer. He had to meet his mates next morning; he was only twenty-one, of respectable parents, and engaged to a respectable girl, and with only three months to run out of his apprenticeship. "If you don't help me, sir, I am ruined for life!" I did lend him the money, to be repaid by instalments, but the story will show the dangers to our young population, and the need of strong and definite work among them from their earliest years. With a public-house at every corner, and a bookmaker's clerk waiting for them during dinner hour, what chance have the poor lads and girls unless someone will go down and live among them and teach them better things? I remember running-in a man who had the insolence to stand outside Oxford House and take money from boys and girls, as well as men and women, during dinner hour, and though he was fined five pounds at once, he had more than twenty pounds on him in coppers and small silver. The fine ought to be raised, as the present maximum--five pounds--is easily paid, and they think nothing of it, and go on again just the same next day. [Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd._) THE GREAT HALL AT THE PEOPLE'S PALACE.]