My conclusions may seem hard, and even cruel, but they are
based on what I believe to be the best kindness, and they are
supported by a somewhat varied experience. I shall waive the charge of
cruelty in advance, and proceed to plain downright business.
You want to clear away rookeries and erect decent dwellings in their
place? Good and beautiful! I sympathise with the intention, and I wish
that it could be carried into effect instantly. Unhappily reforms of
that sort cannot by any means be arranged on the instant, and
certainly they cannot be arranged so as to suit the case of the
Hopeless Poor. Shall I tell you, dear sentimentalist, that the
Hopeless brigade would not accept your kindness if they could? I shall
stagger many people when I say that the Hopeless division like the
free abominable life of the rookery, and that any kind of restraint
would only send them swarming off to some other centre from which they
would have to be dislodged by degrees according to the means and the
time of the authorities. Hard, is it not? But it is true. Certain
kinds of cultured men like the life which they call "Bohemian." The
Hopeless class like their peculiar Bohemianism, and they like it with
all the gusto and content of their cultured brethren.
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