At the same time, I should be very sorry for the reader to misunderstand me, as wishing to convey to him the impression that in every instance the gangs of men to be met with in the streets in winter-time are vagrants and impostors. It is not difficult to imagine a company of hard-up poor fellows genuinely destitute; mates, perhaps, on the same kind of work, resorting to this method of raising a shilling rather than apply at the workhouse for it. An out-o’-work navvy or a bricklayer would never think of going out to beg alone, whereas he would see no great amount of degradation in joining a “gang.” He thus sinks his individuality, and becomes merely a representative item of a depressed branch of industry. There can be no doubt that a sixpence given to such a man is well bestowed for the time being; but it would be much better, even though it cost many sixpences, if the labourer were never permitted to adopt this method of supplying his needs. In the majority of cases, it may be, the out-o’-work man who resorted to the streets to beg for money would, when trade improved, hurry back to work, and be heartily glad to forget to what misfortune had driven him; but there are a very large number of labourers who, at the best of times, can live but from hand to mouth as the saying is, and from whom it is desirable to keep secret how much easier money may be got by begging than working. To a man who has to drudge at the docks, for instance, for threepence an hour—and there are thousands in London who do so—it is a dangerous experience for him to discover that as much may be made on an average by sauntering the ordinary length of a street, occasionally raising his hand to his cap. Or he may know beforehand, by rumour, what a capital day’s work may be done at “cadging,” and in bitter sweat of underpaid labour complain that he is worse off than a cadger. It is as well to provide against giving such a man an excuse for breaking the ice.