One other case. It is the same hard winter human resources jobs. The scene: asmall garret in the roof, a low slanting little skylight, nowcovered six inches deep in snow. No fireplace here, noventilation, so put your scented cambric to your nose, mynoble Dives. The only furniture a scanty armful of – whatshall we call it? It was straw once. A starving woman and ababy are lying on it, notwithstanding. The baby surely willnot be there to-morrow. It has a very bad cold – and themucus, and the – pah! The woman in a few rags – just a few -is gnawing a raw carrot. The picture is complete. There’snothing more to paint. The rest – the whole indeed, that isthe consciousness of it – was, and remains, with the Unseen. You will say, ‘Such things cannot be’; you will say, ‘Thereare relieving officers, whose duty, etc., etc.’ May be. Iam only telling you what I myself have seen. There is moregoes on in big cities than even relieving officers can copewith. And who shall grapple with the causes? That’s thepoint. Here is something else that I have seen. I have seen afamily of six in one room. Of these, four were brothers andsisters, all within, none over, their teens. There werethree beds between the six. When I came upon them they wereout of work, – the young ones in bed to keep warm. I tookthem for very young married couples. It was the Scripturereader who undeceived me. This is not the exception to therule, look you, but the rule itself. How will you deal withit? It is with Nature, immoral Nature and her heedlessinstincts that you have to deal. With what kind of fork willyou expel her? It is with Nature’s wretched children, theBETES HUMAINES,Quos venerem incertam rapientes more ferarum,that your account lies. Will they cease to listen to hermaddening whispers: ‘Unissez-vous, multipliez, il n’estd’autre loi, d’autre but, que l’amour?’ What care they forher aside – ‘Et durez apres, si vous le pouvez; cela ne meregarde plus’ ? It doesn’t regard them either. The infallible panacea, so the ‘Progressive’ tell us, iseducation – lessons on the piano, perhaps? Doctor Malthuswould be more to the purpose; but how shall we administer hisprescriptions? One thing we might try to teach to advantage,and that is the elementary principles of hygiene. I am heartand soul with the Progressive as to the ultimate remedialpowers of education. Moral advancement depends absolutely onthe humanising influences of intellectual advancement. Theforeseeing of consequences is a question of intelligence. And the appreciation of consequences which follow is thebasis of morality. But we must not begin at the wrong end. The true foundation and condition of intellectual and moralprogress postulates material and physical improvement. Thegrowth of artificial wants is as much the cause as the effectof civilisation: they proceed PARI PASSU. A taste ofcomfort begets a love of comfort. And this kind of lovemilitates, not impotently, against the other; for self-interest is a persuasive counsellor, and gets a hearing whenthe blood is cool. Life must be more than possible, it mustbe endurable; man must have some leisure, some repose, beforehis brain-needs have a chance with those of his belly. Hemust have a coat to his back before he can stick a rose inits button-hole. The worst of it is, he begins – in BethnalGreen at least – with the rose-bud; andl Hong Kong shopping!