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shilling in the pound, and would be sufficient.
"Why, where's the principle of this? Principle
says clearly, and proves by tables, that the
poor ratepayers of Whitechapel, Bermondsey,
Bethnal Green, and such places, shall pay
actually three times as much as the rate-
payers of Saint James's or Saint George's
Hanover Square, for feeding and housing
of the destitute, and that, moreover, when
they have done that, they shall feed three
or four mouths, where the richer parishes
feed one, with every shilling that is raised.
Three millions of property in four rich unions
maintain six or seven thousand poor in-door
and out-door. The same amount of property
in twelve poor unions is charged with its six
or seven thousand poor, and with yet seven
and thirty thousand more besides.

These are not even their own poor in
many thousand cases; not the poor men who
work, when they do work, for the rate-
payers by whom, when destitute, they are
supported. When Saint Katherine's Docks
were formed, more than a thousand poor
men's houses were pulled down; the docks
took possession of a parish, and dispersed
their paupers and their labourers into the
surrounding parishes of Whitechapel,
Aldgate, Saint George's-in-the-East, and
Shadwell. After five years, the people acquired
their settlement, and now the Saint Katherine's
Dock Company pays only seven hundred
a-year in poor-rates, while the London Dock
Company, next door, employing the same
class of men, paid last year more than nineteen
thousand pounds. The docks of one
company happen to occupy a parish; the
docks of the other company happen to occupy
portions of four parishesSaint George's East,
Shadwell, Wapping, and Aldgate.

Not long ago, there was the case in the
papers of a man summoned for non-payment
of his poor-rates who was himself actually
then in receipt of parish help; and the fact
which we stated (and which we have taken
with others from a pamphlet by the
incumbent of Saint George's-in-the-East) that
four thousand men are summoned for non-
payment of their poor-rates every quarter,
in the writer's own parish, shows how
many there must be who are almost
paupers, to whom we look mainly for the
funds that shall support our London

Alter this state of things, says the old-
world politician, and you open the door to an
irresponsible scattering away of money, to an
unconstitutional and alarming loss of control,
by the ratepayer, over the expenditure of
rates extracted from him.

In all seriousness let us hope that this
is not an unanswerable objection; that if
it hold good against the proposal made
in a certain bill which was brought
before the notice of the House of
Commons by Mr. Ayrton, on the twelfth of
last May, in a speech that would have
ensured the rejection of a better measureit is
yet within the compass of man's wit to prove
that whatever is inseparable from the constitution
of this country is allied not less
closely to kindliness and justice.


WHEREVER I go I carry with me my
speculative fancies about things and people
that I see. Perhaps it is a diseased or morbid
state of mind superinduced by much solitude;
but whether or no, I do not care to be
delivered from it, as it is company for me, and
engrosses me as completely as I have observed
that most chronic physical ailments engross
their owners. I am looking out upon the
Mall at Oldport, the pleasantest walk in the
outskirts of this garrisoned place, where I
am located for a change and holiday. Its
ancient trees form a dreamy shelter from the
fierceness of the summer sun, which the
lovely fields and open downs lack. Give me
shade and the sun shining beyond for
enjoyment; a glow just stirred by the air amongst
the leaves; not the blinding tropical glare in
which I see some people revelone lady
especiallya lady to whom, from her
unfailing daily appearance there, I have given
the name of the Lady on the Mall.

At one particular point of this public
promenade, about half-a-dozen of the stately,
full-foliaged elms have been removed
perhaps by natural decay,—but as probably by
some violent storm; and all the blaze of
noon seems to concentrate itself on the bare
spot. It is a bit of arid desert in a land of
greenness; the grass of the bank is scorched
brown, the sandy path is parched and cracked;
yet just there, when the heat is most fervent,
and everybody else is glad to creep into any
place for shelter, comes out the Lady on the
Mall to bask and sun herself.

I noticed her from the first day that I
entered on my lodgings. Soon after twelve
had struck by the church clock which regulates
all the clocks in Oldport, I saw her advancing
slowly under the trees until she reached the
open space; and there she sat down, and stared
at the dazzling sky for an hour or so; after
which she rose and walked back in the direction
from whence she had come. That
glowing atmosphere burnt on for a week,
deepening in intensity daily; but regularly,
as the hour drew round, appeared the Lady
on the Mall. That week was succeeded by
stormy weather; a terrible tempest broke
over the district, and left behind skirmishing
troops of clouds which dissolved in sudden
showers of extraordinary violence. But the
rain did not keep the lady in-doors. Sue was
out on the Mall just as usual; only, instead
of resting on the bank, she walked to and

It was in the course of one of these heavy
showers that I obtained my first close look
at her face. I was sitting at the open parlour