l success, but so far it promises well and is
an interesting experiment which deserves to be watched. In any case
the experience derived from the working of this law shows that in
Austria, at least, the workman in search of employment has up till
recently been too often confounded with the habitual beggar, a
confusion highly detrimental to the real interests of the State. One
of the main objects of every well ordered Poor Law system should be to
create as wide a gulf as possible between the begging class and the
working-class; it should do everything possible to prevent anything
like a solidarity of interests between these two sections of the
community; it should dissociate the worker from the vagrant in every
conceivable manner, so that the working population cannot possibly
fail to see that the State draws a sharp line of distinction between
them and the refuse of the land. It was a wise remark of Goethe's
that, if you want to improve men you must begin by assuming that they
are a little better than what they seem; and it is a principle which
is applicable to communities and classes as well as to individuals.

Before dismissing the question of the relations between vagrancy and
destitution there is one more point which still requires to be
considered. According to English law, prostitution is set down as a
form of vagrancy, and the number of persons convicted of this offence
is to be found included in the statistics of vagrancy. We shall,
therefore, consider prostitution in this connection as a form of
vagrancy, and proceed to examine the extent to which it is produced by
destitution. If this grave social disorder were entirely due to a want
of the elementary needs of life on the part of the unhappy creatures
who practice it, we should find an utter absence of it in America and
Australia. In these two important portions of the globe, woman's work
is at a premium; it is one of the easiest things imaginable for
females to get employment; no one willing to work need remain idle a
single day, and the bitter cry of householders, in those quarters of
the world, is that domestic servants are not to be had. But, in spite
of the favourable position in which women stand, as far as work is
concerned in America and Australia, what do we find? Do we find that
there is no such thing as a fallen class in Melbourne and New York? On
the contrary, it is often a subject of bitter complaint by American
and Australian citizens that their