Who has not a catalogue of these men in his list?
who can tell whence comes the occasional clean shirt, who supplies the continual means of drunkenness, who wards off the daily-impending starvation?
Their life is a wonder from day to day: their breakfast a wonder; their dinner a miracle; their bed an interposition of Providence.

If you and I, my dear sir, want a shilling tomorrow, who will give it us?
Will OUR butchers give us mutton-chops?
will OUR laundresses clothe us in clean linen ?--not a bone or a rag.

Standing as we do (may it be ever so) somewhat removed from want,[*] is there one of us who does not shudder at the thought of descending into the lists to combat with it, and expect anything but to be utterly crushed in the encounter?
* The author, it must be remembered, has his lodgings and food provided for him by the government of his country.
Not a bit of it, my dear sir.

It takes much more than you think for to starve a man.

Starvation is very little when you are used to it.