"We work or we starve," was again the unanswerable explanation.
In the house next door, embroidering rich cloaks, Hamilton found a family of which several of the members had a bad infectious skin disease. Chancing to meet a health inspector soon afterwards he told him about this family and gave him their address.
"I can stop it, as far as this family is concerned," the health officer said, "and I suppose I ought to. But you know what it means, I suppose?"
"What?" asked the boy.
"It means, if I take their work away, they will starve to death in a couple of weeks."
"And if you don't?"
"If I don't, they'll go on spreading disease. Oh, I'll have to put a stop to it, of course, but tell me what is going to happen to the family."
"They ought to go to a hospital," Hamilton said.
The health officer shook his head.
"They are not hospital cases," he said. "None of them need more medical attention than they can get in a dispensary, and every hospital to which they applied would treat them in an Out-Patient department. They would have to take in more work, or die."