There are, however, other impostors amongst the begging fraternity besides those who adopt the professional dress of vagrancy, and impudently endeavour publicly to proclaim their sham distress and privation. The terrible condition of want into which thousands of the working population of London were plunged the winter before last developed the “cadger” in question in a very remarkable degree. This personage is not a demonstrative cheat. His existence is due entirely to the growing belief in decent poverty, and in the conviction that in frosty “hard-up” times much more of real destitution is endured by those whose honest pride will not permit them to clamour of their wants, and so make them known. There can be no doubt but that this is perfectly true, and, despite all that horridly blunt philanthropists say to the contrary, it is a quality to be nurtured rather than despised. As everybody knows, of late years it _has_ been nurtured to a very large extent. At the East-end of the town, in Poplar and Shadwell, where, owing to the slackness in the trade pertaining to the building of ships, poverty was specially prevalent, quite a small army of benevolently-disposed private individuals were daily employed going from house to house, and by personal inquiry and investigation applying the funds at their disposal quietly and delicately, and to the best of then ability judiciously. There can be no question that by these means a vast amount of good was done, and many a really decent family provided with a meal that otherwise would have gone hungry; but an alarming percentage of evil clung to the skirts of the good. It is a positive fact that in the most squalid regions—those, indeed, that were most notorious for their poverty—the value of house-property increased considerably. The occupants of apartments, who during the previous summertime were unable to meet the weekly exactions of the collector, now not only met current demands, but by substantial instalments rapidly paid-up arrears of rent. Landlords who for months past had been glad to take what they could get, now became inexorable, and would insist on one week being paid before the next was due. They could afford to indulge in this arbitrary line of behaviour towards their tenants. Rents were “going up;” rooms that at ordinary times would realise not more than 2_s._ or 2_s._ 3_d._ each, now were worth 3_s._ 6_d._ Ragman’s-alley and Squalor’s-court and Great and Little Grime’s-street were at a premium. They were localities famous in the newspapers. Everybody had read about them; everybody had heard the story of the appalling heart-rending misery that pervaded these celebrated places. Day after day gentlefolks flocked thereto, and speedily following these visitations came tradesmen’s porters bearing meat and bread and groceries. To be a Squalor’s-alleyite was to be a person with undoubted and indisputable claims on the public purse, and to be comfortably provided for.