TE are to speak of East London. I will presently offer a geographical definition of East London, though it is a city whose boundaries change from day to day. We shall, however, have little to do with geography or politics or governments; we shall have to do wholly with humanity; we must study to produce on the subject before us a document altogether human.

The dominant note of East London is that it is a hive of working bees. There are, it is true, a few drones in it. They are not the fat and luxurious drones of the other London, those who live in luxury without labor, and are down-laden with the curse of idleness. Our drones, the East London drones, are the residuum, the lees of humanity, who cannot and will not work; they are miserable, half-starved, skulking drones. They beg, they thieve, they do anything with a willing mind so long as it is not work. They dwell in the slums; they are, in the language of the day, the "submerged," but all the king's horses and all the king's men cannot drag them out of the slough, nor can any rivernot Abana or Pharpar, or even the Jordan itself-cleanse the Augean stable of their mind. The Helping Hand grows tired of pulling and tugging at them; they will not come; they sink back into their Male-bolge; the black mud closes over their heads. Let them be.

It is a city of working bees. As we linger and loiter among the streets multitudinous, we hear, as from a hive, the low, contented murmur of continuous and patient work. There are two millions of working-people in this city. The children work at school; the girls and boys, the men and women, work in factory, in shop, and at home; in dock and in wharf and in warehouse, all day long and all the year.round, these millions work. They are clerks, accountants, managers, foremen, engineers, stokers, porters, stevedores, dockers, smiths, craftsmen of all kinds. They are girls who make things, girls who sew things, girls who sell things. There are among them

many poor, driven, sweated creatures, and the sweaters themselves are poor, driven, sweated creatures; for sweating once begun is handed on from one to the other as carefully and as religiously as any holy lamp of learning. They work from early morning till welcome evening. The music of this murmur, rightly understood, is like the soft and distant singing of a hymn of praise. For the curse of labor has been misunderstood; without work man would be even as the beasts of the field. It is the necessity of work that makes him human: because he must, he devises and discovers and invents; because he would die if he did not work, he has to subdue the animal within him. The animal is solitary; the man must be gregarious. He must make a friend of his brother; he must obey the stronger; he must make laws; he must fight with nature, and compel her to give up her secrets. It is only by means of work that man can rise; it is his ladder; in the sweat of his face he eats his bread-yea, the bread of life. It is not with any pity that we should listen to this murmur. It should be with pure contentment and gratitude; for the murmur, though it speaks partly of the whir of ten thousand wheels and partly of those who stand and serve those wheels, speaks also of this blessed quality of work, that it enables men to use the body for the sake of the soul. Men must work.

Imagine, if you can, what would follow if you held up your hand and said: "Listen, all. There will be no more work. You may stop the engines, or they may run down of their own accord. You may take off your aprons and wash your hands. You may sit down for the rest of your lives. Your food will be waiting for you when you want it. Eat, drink, and be happy if you can." If they can! But can they, with nothing to dono work to do, only, like the sheep in the field, to browse, or, like the wolves of the forest, to rend and tear and slay?

If you can use your eyes as well as your ears, look about you. It is like looking at