having devoted his life to work of the Shaftesbury type, exposes social
evils and clamors for their reform in every column except one; and that
one is occupied by the declaration of the paper's kindly theatre critic,
that the performance left him "wondering what useful purpose the play
was intended to serve." The balance has to be redressed by the more
fashionable papers, which usually combine capable art criticism with
West-End solecism on politics and sociology. It is very noteworthy,
however, on comparing the press explosion produced by Mrs Warren's
Profession in 1902 with that produced by Widowers' Houses about ten
years earlier, that whereas in 1892 the facts were frantically denied
and the persons of the drama flouted as monsters of wickedness, in
1902 the facts are admitted and the characters recognized, though it is
suggested that this is exactly why no gentleman should mention them in
public. Only one writer has ventured to imply this time that the poverty
mentioned by Mrs Warren has since been quietly relieved, and need
not have been dragged back to the footlights. I compliment him on his
splendid mendacity, in which he is unsupported, save by a little plea in
a theatrical paper which is innocent enough to think that ten guineas a
year with board and lodging is an impossibly low wage for a barmaid. It
goes on to cite Mr Charles Booth as having testified that there are
many laborers' wives who are happy and contented on eighteen shillings
a week. But I can go further than that myself. I have seen an Oxford
agricultural laborer's wife looking cheerful on eight shillings a week;
but that does not console me for the fact that agriculture in England
is a ruined industry. If poverty does not matter as long as it is
contented, then crime does not matter as long as it is unscrupulous. The
truth is that it is only then that it does matter most desperately.
Many persons are more comfortable when they are dirty than when they are
clean; but that does not recommend dirt as a national policy.