ess; and they
waxed fat upon it.

Every now and again came disclosures. Guardians were shown to have paid
ten shillings a score for such and such a commodity this year, and next
year to have refused a tender for the supply of the same article at 9s.
8d. a score, in favour of the tender of a relative or protege of one of
their number at 109s. 8d. a score. I remember the newspapers showing up
such cases as these during the week of my arrival in London. The public
read and shrugged shoulders.

"Rascally thieves, these guardians," said the Public; and straightway
forgot the whole business in the rush of its own crazy race for money.

"But," cried the Reformer to the Public, "this is really your business.
It is your duty as citizens to stop this infamous traffic. Don't you see
how you yourselves are being robbed?"

You must picture our British Public of the day as a flushed, excited
man, hurrying wildly along in pursuit of two phantoms--money and
pleasure. These he desired to grasp for himself, and he was being
furiously jostled by millions of his fellows, each one of whom desired
just the same thing, and nothing else. Faintly, amidst the frantic
turmoil, came the warning voices in the wilderness:

"This is your business. It is your duty as citizens," etc.

Over his shoulder, our poor possessed Public would fling his answer:

"Leave me alone. I haven't time to attend to it. I'm too busy. You
mustn't interrupt me. Why the deuce don't the Government see to it? Lot
of rascals! Don't bother me. I represent commerce, and, whatever you do,
you must not in any way interfere with the Freedom of Trade."

The band of the reformers was considerable, embracing as it did the
better, braver sort of statesmen, soldiers, sailors, clergy, authors,
journalists, sociologists, and the whole brotherhood of earnest
thinkers. But the din and confusion was frightful, the pace at which the
million lived was terrific; and, after all, the cries of the reformers
all meant the same thing, the one thing the great, sweating public was
determined not to hear, and not to act on. They all meant:

"Step out from your race a moment. Your duties are here. You are passing
them all by. Come to your duties."

It was like a Moslem call to prayer; but, alas! it was directed at a
people who had sloughed all pretensions to be ranked among those who
respond to such calls, to any calls which would distract them from their
objective in the pelting pursuit of m