The magistrate
discharged him, with some tearful remarks about the world's
cruelty and the right of a man to be poor without being accounted
a criminal. Thus encouraged, the tramp went right back and broke
the windows of the house that had repelled him. I presume he is now
in the city by the lake holding up people who offend him by being
more industrious and consequently more prosperous than he.
For the general results of the victory so laboriously achieved I
must refer to [Footnote: Now, "The Battle with the Slum."] "A Ten
Years' War," in which I endeavored to sum up the situation as I saw
it. They are not worked out yet to the full. The most important
link is missing. That is to be a farm-school which shall sift the
young idler from the heap of chaff, and win him back to habits of
industry and to the world of men. It will come when moral purpose
has been reestablished at the City Hall. I have not set out here
to discuss reform and its merits, but merely to point out that the
way of it, the best way of bringing it on--indeed, the only way
that is always open--is to make the facts of the wrong plain.
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