116 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



for street vending. It may have been — it prob- 

 ably was — mere fancy on my part to imagine 

 that the forlorn and frowsy man was reading 

 that page because he felt the desire in him to 

 get away from the aimless, sordid life of a city 

 unemployed into the clean, industrious life in 

 the country. But it was my pleasure to so 

 imagine, as a prompting to some thought of how 

 much is done to make unemployed, how little 

 done to save the unemployed, under the present 

 condition of things in England. 



England starts to make the unemployed at 

 a very early stage. In an enormous number 

 of households the earnings of the bread-winner 

 keep, as a matter of custom, very close to the 

 bare margin of subsistence. That leads to the 

 children being rushed into occupations at the 

 earliest possible age, so that they may support 

 themselves in part. The law compels school 

 attendance until fourteen (or thirteen if the 

 child is smart). Even that insufficient law is a 

 good deal disregarded. At the very earliest age 

 possible the child is pushed out on to the streets 

 to take his place as one of an army of errand 

 boys, street sellers, or mere vagrant hunters for 



