kept in repair by means of a special
rate--was the recreation ground, in which a plethoric and guardian-like
official spent his days in keeping the embryo ratepayers off the
sacrosanct municipal grass. You felt you were in the clutch of a
horrible machine, or rather of two machines, unallied perhaps, yet very
similar in operation, for both took as much as possible and grudged
giving anything in return. From nine till six you were part of the
mechanism of the City, wearing yourself out for the bare means of
subsistence, often without the slightest hope of further advancement,
always with the dread of dismissal as soon as your hair began to turn
grey, when a younger, cheaper man, or a German volunteer, would take
your place. There was nothing in the present, save the eternal
necessity for economy; nothing in the future, save the fear of
unemployment. At night, you returned home, to be gripped by the
municipal Frankenstein's monster, which you and your fellows had helped
to make. You were never free man, you never could be free; because in
London the price of freedom is usually starvation for your children and
prison for yourself, if you cannot satisfy the demands of the "Guardians
of the Poor."

Jimmy smiled grimly to himself as he noted the new Town Hall. He had met
a good many robber-politicians during his wanderings in the Dago
Republics; but all of them had, at least, the saving grace of frankness.
The aim and end of their policy was to arrive safely in Paris, with the
contents of the national treasury as their baggage. They did not hunger
after honours, such as knighthoods, or aspire to speak at Sunday
afternoon gathering in pseudo-places of worship. Certainly, they told a
number of flamboyant falsehoods before getting into office, but that was
the only respect in which they copied civilised political methods; and
they did run a risk from which their English counterparts would have
shrunk in a cold sweat of fear. The price of failure was death.

The one tour of inspection satisfied Jimmy. He saw the tragedy
underlying the lives of these people, saw it far more clearly, perhaps,
than they did themselves, for he had known so many other phases, whilst
they were inured to the drab monotony, most had been born to it, and so
its full meaning was mercifully hidden from them. They would have waxed
wrath at hearing it called a poor locality, in fact it was not one,
being eminently respectable, as any house agent could tell