Of all heart-breaking toil the hunt for work is surely the worst.
Yet at any moment let a workman lose his present situation, and he is
compelled to begin anew the dreary round of fruitless calls. Here is
the story of one among thousands of the nomads, taken down from his own
lips, of one who was driven by sheer hunger into crime.

A bright Spring morning found me landed from a western colony.
Fourteen years had passed since I embarked from the same spot.
They were fourteen years, as far as results were concerned, of
non-success, and here I was again in my own land, a stranger, with anew
career to carve for myself and the battle of life to fight over again.

My first thought was work. Never before had I felt more eager for a
down right good chance to win my way by honest toil; but where was I to
find work. With firm determination I started in search. One day
passed without success and another, and another, but the thought
cheered me, "Better luck to-morrow." It has been said, "Hope springs
eternal in the human breast." In my case it was to be severely tested.
Days soon ran into weeks, and still I was on the trail patiently and
hopefully. Courtesy and politeness so often met me in my enquiries for
employment that I often wished they would kick me out, and so vary the
monotony of the sickly veneer of consideration that so thinly overlaid
the indifference and the absolute unconcern they had to my need. A few
cut up rough and said, No; we don't want you. "Please don't trouble us
again (this after the second visit). We have no vacancy; and if we
had, we have plenty of people on hand to fill it."

Who can express the feeling that comes over one when the fact begins to
dawn that the search for work is a failure? All my hopes and prospects