MACAULAY'S New Zealander had arrived prematurely. London Bridge was not reduced to its centre pier, and St. Paul's Cathedral was certainly not in ruins. Still there was an uncanny look about town. On the Embankment electric tram-cars were running, but they seemed to be little patronised. Here and there he noticed a pedestrian leisurely going his way, but the side-walks appeared, to all intents and purposes, abandoned. At length he reached a garden-seat, upon which was sprawling a Typical Working Man. The New Zealander gave this interesting individual "Good morning," and made some common-place remark about the weather.
"Fine day!" returned the T.W.M., rather surlily. "Well, what does it matter to me? If it rains, I stay at home; if it don't, why I don't either."
"I am a stranger seeking for information," explained the New Zealander; "so I am sure you will excuse me if I ask you how much do you pay for your house?"
"Pay for my house!" ejaculated the T.W.M. "Why, nothing of course! And I pay nothing too for my sons at Oxford, and the girls at Cambridge. And I get my clothes free, and my food comes in gratuitously. Why, you must be a stranger if you don't know that! Why everything and anything is paid by the Government—out of the Income Tax."
"And don't you ever work?"
"Work! bless you, no. I can't afford to work! If I did, I should have to pay the Income Tax myself!" returned the T.W.M., with a grin.
"Then who does contribute to this evidently highly-important source of revenue?
"Why, the professional men, under Schedule D!" cried the hardy son of toil. "The authors with families, and the City clerks. All that set, you know. They pay the Income Tax, sure enough. It's as much as they can do to keep bodies and souls together. But somebody must pay—why not they?—pay for themselves—and for me!"
THE DUMB SHOW.—It sounds odd that the serious pantomime, L'Enfant Prodigue, the play without words, should be "the talk of London."