On an April morning in forty-two—scarcely four years bygone,—a group of five or six destitute-looking men were standing on a well-known space in Leicester, where the frustrum of a Roman milestone (surmounted, in true Gothic style, with a fantastic cross) was preserved within an iron palisade, and where the long narrow avenue of Barkby Lane, enters the wide trading street called Belgrave Gate. The paleness and dejection of the men's faces, as well as the ragged condition of their clothing, would have told how fearfully they were struggling with poverty and want, if their words had not been overheard. "Never mind the lad, John," said the tallest and somewhat the hardest-featured man of the party; "he can't be worse off than he would have been at home, let him be where he will. What's the use of grieving about him? He was tired of pining at home, no doubt, and has gone to try if he can't mend his luck. You'll hear of him again, soon, from some quarter or other." "But I can't satisfy myself about him, in that way, George," replied the man to whom this rough exhortation was addressed; "if the foolish lad be drawn into company that tempts him to steal, I may have to hear him sentenced to transportation, and that would be no joke, George." "I see nothing so very serious, even in that," observed another of the group; "I would as lief be transported to-morrow as stay here to starve, as I've done for the last six months." "It would seem serious to me, though," rejoined John, "to see my own child transported." "Why, John, to men that scorn to steal, in spite of starvation," resumed George, "it's painful to see any child, or man either, transported: but where's the real disgrace of it? The man that pronounces the sentence is, in nine cases out of ten, a bigger villain than him that's called 'the criminal.' Disgrace is only a name—a mere name, you know, John." "I'm aware there's a good deal o' truth in that," replied John; "the names of things would be altered a good deal, if the world was set right: but, as wrong as things are now, yet I hope my lad will never steal, and have to be sentenced to transportation. I've often had to hear him cry for bread, since he was born, and had none to give him: but I would sooner see him perish with hunger than live to hear him transported, for I think it would break my heart;—and God Almighty forbid I ever should have to hear it!" "Goddle Mitey!" said George, pronouncing the syllables in a mocking manner, and setting up a bitter laugh, which was joined by every member of the group, except the mournful man who had just spoken; "who told thee there was one? Thy grandmother and the parsons? Don't talk such nonsense any more, John! it's time we all gave it over: they've managed to grind men to the dust with their priestcraft, and we shall never be righted till we throw it off!"