If it wasn't for private charity they'd die of starvation." "Yes," replied another; "that woman's punished, I can see." Now and then a case came on in which the guardians were surprised to see a man ask for relief whom everybody had supposed to be in good circumstances.

The first applicant, after I entered the room, was a man apparently under forty years of age, a beerhouse keeper, who had been comparatively well off until lately.

The tide of trouble had whelmed him over.

His children were all factory operatives, and all out of work; and his wife was ill.

"What; are you here, John ?" said the chairman to a decent-looking man who stepped up in answer to his name.