our Shelter men saw him suddenly stumble and fall. They thought he was
drunk, but found he had fainted. They carried him to the bridge and
gave him to the police. They took him to St George's Hospital, where
he died. It appeared that he had, according to his own tale, walked up
from Liverpool, and had been without food for five days. The doctor,
however, said he had gone longer than that. The jury returned a
verdict of "Death from Starvation."

Without food for five days or longer! Who that has experienced the
sinking sensation that is felt when even a single meal has been
sacrificed may form some idea of what kind of slow torture killed that
man!

In 1888 the average daily number of unemployed in London was estimated
by the Mansion House Committee at 20,000. This vast reservoir of
unemployed labour is the bane of all efforts to raise the scale of
living, to improve the condition of labour. Men hungering to death for
lack of opportunity to earn a crust are the materials from which
"blacklegs" are made, by whose aid the labourer is constantly defeated
in his attempts to improve his condition.

This is the problem that underlies all questions of Trades Unionism and
all Schemes for the Improvement of the Condition of the Industrial Army.
To rear any stable edifice that will not perish when the first storm
rises and the first hurricane blows, it must be built not upon sand,
but upon a rock. And the worst of all existing Schemes for social
betterment by organisation of the skilled workers and the like is that
they are founded, not upon "rock," nor even upon "sand," but upon the
bottomless bog of the stratum of the Workless. It is here where we
must begin. The regimentation of industrial workers who have got