And now I wish to criticise the powers that be. They _are_ the powers,
therefore they may decree whatever they please; so I make bold only to
criticise the ridiculousness of their decrees. All night long they make
the homeless ones walk up and down. They drive them out of doors and
passages, and lock them out of the parks. The evident intention of all
this is to deprive them of sleep. Well and good, the powers have the
power to deprive them of sleep, or of anything else for that matter; but
why under the sun do they open the gates of the parks at five o'clock in
the morning and let the homeless ones go inside and sleep? If it is
their intention to deprive them of sleep, why do they let them sleep
after five in the morning? And if it is not their intention to deprive
them of sleep, why don't they let them sleep earlier in the night?
In this connection, I will say that I came by Green Park that same day,
at one in the afternoon, and that I counted scores of the ragged wretches
asleep in the grass. It was Sunday afternoon, the sun was fitfully
appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with their wives and
progeny, were out by thousands, taking the air. It was not a pleasant
sight for them, those horrible, unkempt, sleeping vagabonds; while the
vagabonds themselves, I know, would rather have done their sleeping the
night before.
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