seemed to have turned out false. Helplessness, I had often heard of
it, had often talked about it, thought I knew all about it. Yes! in
others, but now began to understand it for myself. Gradually my
personal appearance faded. My once faultless linen became unkempt and
unclean. Down further and further went the heels of my shoes, and I
drifted into that distressing condition "shabby gentility." If the odds
were against me before, how much more so now, seeing that I was too
shabby even to command attention, much less a reply to my enquiry for
work.

Hunger now began to do its work, and I drifted to the dock gates, but
what chance had I among the hungry giants there? And so down the
stream drifted until "Grim Want" brought me to the last shilling, the
last lodging, and the last meal. What shall I do? Where shall I go?
I tried to think. Must I starve? Surely there must be some door still
open for honest willing endeavour, but where? What can I do? "Drink,"
said the Tempter; but to drink to drunkenness needs cash, and oblivion
by liquor demands an equivalent in the currency.

Starve or steal. "You must do one or the other," said the Tempter.
But recoiled from being a Thief. "Why be so particular?" says the
Tempter again "You are down now, who will trouble about you?
Why trouble about yourself? The choice is between starving and
stealing." And I struggled until hunger stole my judgment, and then I
became a Thief.

No one can pretend that it was an idle fear of death by starvation
which drove this poor fellow to steal. Deaths from actual hunger an
more common than is generally supposed. Last year, a man, whose name
was never known, was walking through St. James's Park, when three of