Betting-field.—Their Tactics.—The Road to Ruin VII. Waste of Charity. CHAPTER XXIII. METROPOLITAN PAUPERISM. Parochial Statistics.—The Public hold the p. 421 Purse-strings.—Cannot the Agencies actually at work be made to yield greater Results?—The need of fair Rating.—The Heart and Core of the Poor-law Difficulty.—My foremost thought when I was a “Casual.”—Who are most liable to slip?—“Crank-work.”—The Utility of Labour-yards.—Scales of Relief.—What comes of breaking-up a Home CHAPTER XXIV. THE BEST REMEDY. Emigration.—The various Fields.—Distinguish the p. 455 Industrious Worker in need of temporary Relief.—Last Words I.—Neglected Children. CHAPTER I. STARTLING FACTS. _The Pauper Population_.—_Pauper Children_.—_Opinions concerning their proper Treatment_.—_A Hundred Thousand Children loose in London Streets_.—_Neglected Babies_.—_Juvenile_ “_Market Prowlers_.” IT is a startling fact that, in England and Wales alone, at the present time, the number of children under the age of sixteen, dependent more or less on the parochial authorities for maintenance, amounts to three hundred and fifty thousand. It is scarcely less startling to learn that annually more than a hundred thousand criminals emerge at the doors of the various prisons, that, for short time or long time, have been their homes, and with no more substantial advice than “to take care that they don’t make their appearance there again,” are turned adrift once more to face the world, unkind as when they last stole from it. This does not include our immense army of juvenile vagrants. How the information has been arrived at is more than I can tell; but it is an accepted fact that, daily, winter and summer, within the limits of our vast and wealthy city of London, there wander, destitute of proper guardianship, food, clothing, or employment, a _hundred thousand_ boys and girls in fair training for the treadmill and the oakum shed, and finally for Portland and the convict’s mark.