mission to address the prisoners. The jailer, of
course, wanted to know what an unkempt labourer had to say to his
charges.

In order to convince him I had to deliver an exegesis before the desk!
The cells were iron cages with stone floors.

A young Englishman, who had just landed after a long sea voyage the
night before, was the first man to whom I talked. He claimed to have
been drugged and robbed in a saloon. The fact of his incarceration was
a small thing to him; what made him swear was the condition of his
cage. The excrements of probably half a dozen of his predecessors in
the cell lay around him, nauseating and suffocating him. Fire shot
from his eyes as he pointed to it. He was bitter, sarcastic, sneering,
and with evident and abundant cause.

Whatever I had to say to the men and women in that dungeon that
morning was driven from my mind and my lips.

The young man pushed all the resentment of his soul over into mine! I
spent that Sunday in working out a plan by which I could help
Pensacola to clean up this social ulcer.

There was a Tourist Club there and I offered to lecture for them. It
was arranged for the following Sunday afternoon. I called on the mayor
and he promised to preside. I interviewed several aldermen and they
promised to attend. I lectured for forty minutes on my experiences as
a labourer in the camps of the South, and for ten minutes at the close
described what I had seen in the city jail.

It was a somewhat heroic method of treatment, and I did not remain
long enough to see the effect, but I at least deprived them of the
plea of ignorance.

I found in Florida two Government officials who had done splendid work
in behalf of labour. I mean the labourers who were decoyed by false
promises and brutally abused on their arrival in the camps. They were
both modest men--men unlikely to enter politics for personal
advancement. I cut my articles out of the magazine and sent them to
President Roosevelt, calling his attention to the conditions and
commending these men to his notice. The result was that they were both
promoted to positions where their usefulness was increased and the
cause of labour considerably helped.

CHAPTER XXI

AT THE CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION

A group of literary people with whom I was acquainted had rented No. 3
Fifth Avenue, and were operating a cooeperative housekeeping scheme. I
became part of the plan and it was there that I first met the Rector
of the Churc