'What can be done for them?' I said, and at the moment, my eye fell upon a row of little children, from two to five years of age, seated upon the curb-stone.
They were chattering fast, and apparently carrying on some game, as happy as if they had been in the fields.
'Wouldn't you like to take all those little grubby things, and put them in a great tub and wash them clean?' I said.
'They'd fight like spiders,' rejoined Falconer.
'They're not fighting now.'
'Then don't make them. It would be all useless. The probability is that you would only change the forms of the various evils, and possibly for worse. You would buy all that man's glue-lizards, and that man's three-foot rules, and that man's dog-collars and chains, at three times their value, that they might get more drink than usual, and do nothing at all for their living to-morrow.—What a happy London you would make if you were Sultan Haroun!' he added, laughing. 'You would put an end to poverty altogether, would you not?'
I did not reply at once.
'But I beg your pardon,' he resumed; 'I am very rude.'
'Not at all,' I returned. 'I was only thinking how to answer you. They would be no worse after all than those who inherit property and lead idle lives.'
'True; but they would be no better. Would you be content that your quondam poor should be no better off than the rich? What would be gained thereby? Is there no truth in the words “Blessed are the poor”? A deeper truth than most Christians dare to see.—Did you ever observe that there is not one word about the vices of the poor in the Bible—from beginning to end?'