The Law and the Poor

EX

ODUC

Queen reigns over the great

he younger stranger, "f

Egremont was silent,

rant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who

," said Egremon

h and th

li: "Sybil, or

nation, have but few. Not that I should like to call this a law book, for two reasons: firstly, it

nothing but the law on the subject of which it treats. There are many books on Poor Law, there are hundr

use it is far more practical and interes

ent in drama or poetry, but that that may be successfully done someone must do the rough spade work of digging the material out of the dirt heaps in which it lies, and presenting it in a more or

me by Samuel Plimsoll's agitation to rescue merchant seamen from the horrible abuses practised by a certain class of shipowner. My father, Ser

ere was the usual parliamentary indifference, the customary palavering and pow-wowing in committees until, after six or seven years of constant fighting, the public conscience was awakened, and, in 1875, Disrael

rnment with being parties to the system which sent brave men to death in the winter seas and left widows and orphans helpless at home, "i

dered ships and their parliamentary owners and, in his own words, "to unmask the villains" who sent poor me

factory. The Government were obliged to bring

oseph Chamberlain aroused my youthful enthusiasm, and I spen

law in the interests of the poor, and he left behind him mournful but earnest disciples who have not yet found such another leader. The Workmen's Compensation Act will always, I think, be regarded

e poor and the real wants of the latter. I agree that such a book as this would be better written by one who had actual

the study and practice of the law with a working man's knowledge and ideals, and gaining a lawyer's power of expre

volume is of any small service to him, it

as grown into a more ambitious project, and is now, I trust, a fairly com

I have dispensed with all footnotes, but I have added an appendix of references in

hese my labours in the even balance of your indifferent

D A.

eno