THE PROCEESIONS OF THE UNEMPLOYED.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1626, 29 April 1903, Page 37 (Supplement)

THE PROCEESIONS OF THE UNEMPLOYED.

Among many of the genuine unemployed the processions in London had a very bad name, large numbers refusing to join, stating that they objected to associate with tramps and loafers (says h writer in “Cornhill”). This was the invariable statement of men applying r o the Church Army for work. I do not set down all members of the procession as loafers and work-shirkers. That would be cruel and untrue. There .‘ire many brilliant exceptions and Mr G. R. Sims gives the following example: -“Let me give credit where credit is • I ue. The other day, at the corner of

St. James’s street, a woe-begon© unemployed held out his box to me, and I put my hand in my pocket to get some coppers. I was standing on the edge of the kerb at the time. After putting my contribution into the box I turned away. A moment afterwards the man came after me. ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘but you dropped a sixpence in the roadway when you pulled your hand out of your pocket!’ He held it towards me. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘you can keep it.’ He said. ‘Thank you,’ and put it in the collecting box. But I do question the wisdom of respectable working men associating themselves with numbers of worthless individuals, and thus tending to alienate public sympathy.”