I once had a room--which I had to leave because of its closeness to a noisy street--immediately over a basement in which one old bed-ridden man and two women lived. The man had been bed-ridden for more than thirty years, and still was alive; for more than thirty years! His wife and daughter supported him and themselves. The daughter made match-boxes, and was paid 2 1/4d. for each gross; but out of that generous remuneration she had to buy her own paste and thread. The mother lived over a wash-tub. They all worked, slept, and ate, in the one room, of course, and the man was never outside it for a moment. At the time of my arrival in that house, the daughter had recently taken to her bed. She was a middle-aged woman, far gone in consumption. It happened that a notorious inebriate, a woman, during one of her periodical visits to the local police court, told a missionary about my neighbours. He visited them, and was impressed, though accustomed to such sights. But he could do nothing to help, it seemed. They were very proud, and the mother washed very well; so well that she had work enough to keep her going day and night; and, working day and night, was able to earn an average of close upon eleven shillings weekly, of which only four shillings had to be paid in rent, and a trifle in medicine, soap, fuel, etc., leaving from five to six shillings a week for the two invalids and herself to live upon. So there was nothing to worry about, she said. She had stood at the tub for thirty years, and ... Well, the missionary spoke to other folk, and other folk were touched, and finally a lady and a gentleman came, with an ambulance and a carriage, and twenty golden sovereigns. The old woman's liberty was not to be interfered with. She herself was to have the spending of the money. She was to take her patients to the seaside, and rest for a few weeks, after her thirty years at the tub. I find a difficulty in setting the thing down, for I can smell the steamy odours of that basement now. This remarkable old woman quite civilly declined the gift, and explained how well she could manage without assistance; proudly adding that she had no fear of failing in her weekly subscription to the funeral club, so that her husband was happy in the knowledge that no pauper funeral awaited him. She was barely sixty-two herself, and had managed very well these thirty years and more, and trusted, with thanks, that she would manage to the end without charity. Argument was futile. So the lady and gentleman drove away with their bright sovereigns; and when my next removal came the old woman was still at her tub, the other two helpless ones still on their beds, and living yet. One need not consider the wild unwisdom of it; but in the astounding courage and endurance of it, I hold there is lesson and ensample for the bravest man in British history. And among the working poor such incidents cannot be very rare, because I knew of quite a number in my very brief experience.