Every first Monday of the month a trainload of shabby, half-starved women moves southwards from London to one of our great Poor Law schools; and perhaps in the whole world, spite of poverty, hunger, and rags, there is no more joyous band. For two blessed hours they meet their children again, and though later they return weary, hungry, and heart-sore, nothing is allowed to mar the joy of the present, for the poor are great philosophers, and hold in practice as well as in theory that "an ounce of pleasure is worth a peck of pain."

Humour exudes from every pore; triumphs are related on all sides—triumphs over civil authorities, triumphs over Boards of Guardians, triumphs over "Organization ladies" and "cruelty men"; and methods are discussed as to the best way of triumphing over the school authorities and conveying sweets and cakes to the children.

"Yes, 'e kept 'is word and had me up, but I said as I was a widder, and had to keep the girl at 'ome to mind the sick children, and the beak dismissed the summons, and I came out and danced a jig under 'is nose. 'Done you again, old chap,' I says, and 'e looked fit to eat me.

"'E's a good sort, our chairman, with a terrible soft spot in his heart for widows. We allus says you have only got to put on a widow's crape and you can get what you like out of him; so Mrs. James upstairs—she's been a milliner, you know—she rigged me out with a little bonnet, and a long crape fall, and a white muslin collar, and she pulled my 'air out loose round my ears, and gave me a 'andkerchief with an inch border of black, and she says, 'There, Mrs. Evans, there ain't a bloke on the Board as won't say you are a deserving case,' and sure enough they went and did just as I told them as good as gold. If I'd my time over again I'd come into the world a widder born."

"Just what I says. When Spriggs was alive we were half-clemmed, but nothing could we get from the parish, 'cos they said 'e was an able-bodied man. Spriggs wasn't a lazy man, and 'e did try for work, and he wasn't a drunkard though 'e did fall down under the motor-bus, one of his mates standing 'im a drink on a empty stomach, which we all knows flies quicker to the 'ead. It don't seem right as married ladies a-carrying the kiddies should always go 'ungry, but it's the fact. Since Spriggs was took and the inquest sat on 'im we've had enough, but it's too late to save the little 'un, who was born silly, and Ernest was put away in Darenth, and I always says it was being starved, and the teacher always a-caning of 'im because 'e couldn't learn on an empty stomach."

"Best not to marry, I says, and then if 'e falls out of work we can go to the parish and get took in on our own, and you don't 'ave to keep 'im later on. Did you 'ear about Mrs. Moore? Mrs. Moore was our landlady, and 'er 'usband went off about three year ago with the barmaid at 'The Bell'; the perlice tells 'er as she must come in the 'Ouse whilst they looked for 'im, but she said she wouldn't, not if it was ever so, and she was glad to be rid of bad rubbish. So she went to 'er old missis, who lent her money to set up a lodging-house, and, being a good cook, she soon had a 'ouseful, and brings up the three little ones clean and well-behaved like ladies' children. Then the Guardians sent the other day to say as Moore had been taken off to Colney Hatch, mad with drink and wickedness, and she'd got to pay for 'im in there. Well, Mrs. Moore went to appear afore the Board. Lord! we 'alf split ourselves with laughing when she was a-telling us about it; she's got a tongue in 'er head, as cooks have, I notice; the heat affects their tempers; and she went off in one of 'er tantrums and fair frighted them.

"'I'm sure you'd like to pay for your 'usband, Mrs. Moore,' says the little man wot sits in the big chair.

"'I'm quite sure I shouldn't,' says Mrs. Moore; ''e's never been a 'usband to me, pawning the 'ome and drinking and carrying-on with other women shocking. 'E promised to support me, 'e did: "with all my worldly goods I thee endow," and lies of that sort, but I made no such promise, and I won't do it. Working 'ard as I can I just keep a roof and get food for the four of us, and if you takes a penny out of me I don't pay it, and I drops the job, and comes into the 'Ouse with Claude and Ruby and Esmeralda, and lives on the ratepayers, same as other women, which I 'as a right to, being a deserted woman for three years, while 'e kep 'is barmaids—or they kep 'im, which is probable if I knows Moore. And my young Claude being a cripple for life, 'is father kicking 'im when he was a crawler in one of 'is drunken fits. You may fine me and imprison me, and 'ang me by the neck till I am dead, but not a 'apenny shall you get out of me.'

"They told her to be quiet, but she wouldn't, and they pushed 'er out of the room and into the street, still talking, and quite a crowd came round and listened to 'er, and they all says, 'Quite right; don't you pay it, my gal,' and she didn't, and no one ain't asked 'er any more about it. She fair frighted that Board of Guardians, she says. She's a fine talker, is Mrs. Moore, and nothing stops 'er when she's once started."

"I'm another who's done better since mine died," said a frail little woman on crutches, with a red gash across her throat from ear to ear, "and 'e was a real good 'usband, as came 'ome regular and did 'is duty to us all till he lost his work through the firm bankrupting, and not a job could 'e get again. And somehow, walking about all day with nothing in 'is inside, and 'earing the kids always crying for bread, seemed to turn 'im savage and queer in 'is head. 'E took to sleeping with a carving-knife under the pillow, and hitting me about cruel. I knew it was only trouble, and didn't think wrong of the man, but I went to ask the magistrate for advice just what to do, as I thought 'is brain was queer, and yet didn't want 'im put away. And the beak said 'e didn't think much of a black eye, and I'd better go 'ome and make the best of 'im. Just what I did, but 'e got worse, and the Organization lady said as we must go to the 'Ouse, or she'd have the cruelty man on us. And Jack got wild and said 'e wasn't so cruel as to have bred paupers, and they should go with 'im to a better land, far, far away. That night 'e blazed out shocking, as you know, for it was all in Lloyd's News, and cut little Daisy's throat, and rushed at H'albert, killing them dead. I'd an awful struggle with 'im, but I jumped out of the window just in time, though my throat was bleeding fearful, and I broke both legs with the fall. The perlice came then, but it was too late; 'e'd done for 'imself and the two children, though I always give thanks to Mrs. Dore, who came in whilst 'e was wrestling with me, and took off the little ones and locked them up in the top-floor back. I done better since then—the Board's took Amy and Leonard, and I manage nicely on my twelve shillings a week, with only Cholmondeley and the baby to look after. But it don't seem right somehow."

"No, it ain't right; married ladies ought not to go short, but we always do. Boards and Organization ladies think as men keeps us. Granny says they most always did in her day, and rich people does still, I suppose, but it ain't the fashion down our street, and it falls 'eavy on the woman what with earning short money and being most always confined. My son says as it's the laws as is old, and ought to be swept somewhere into limbo, not as I understands it, being no scholard."

"Here we are at last! Ain't it a joyful sight to see the 'eavens and the earth, and no 'ouses in between; it always feels like Sunday in the country."