This, the two - a
schoolboy and his sister - used in the early morning. Being
rather late one day, they found it engaged; and growing
impatient the boy banged at the door of the machine, with a
shout in schoolboy's vernacular: 'Come, hurry up; we want to
dip.' Much to the surprise of the guilty pair, an answer,
also in the best of English, came from the inside: 'Go away,
you naughty boy.' The occupant was the Imperial Princess.
Needless to say the children bolted with a mingled sense of
mischief and alarm.
About this time I joined a society for the relief of
distress, of which Bromley Davenport was the nominal leader.
The 'managing director,' so to speak, was Dr. Gilbert, father
of Mr. W. S. Gilbert. To him I went for instructions. I
told him I wanted to see the worst. He accordingly sent me
to Bethnal Green. For two winters and part of a third I
visited this district twice a week regularly. What I saw in
the course of those two years was matter for a thoughtful -
ay, or a thoughtless - man to think of for the rest of his
days.
My system was to call first upon the clergyman of the parish,
and obtain from him a guide to the severest cases of
destitution. The guide would be a Scripture reader, and, as
far as I remember, always a woman.
