The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-10-03
CHAPTER ri.
tsWork, Not Charity.r

@WorEs Not charity.r
 T ARNET wandered down into
 the 1hrongfng gayer parts of
 London in which year or so
 ago he had been numbered among the spanders.
 London, under the visible smoke law, by which any production of visible smoke with or without excuse was punishable by fine, had already ceased to be the somber. smoke dark ened city of the Victorian time; it had been, and indeed was, constantly be Ing rebuilt, and it's main streets were already beginning to take on those characteristics that distinguished them throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. The fnsanitary horse and the pIebeian bicycle had been banished from the roadway, which was now of resilient. glassIike surface, spot1ess1y clean; and the foot passenger was restricted to a narrow vestige of the ancient footpath on either side of the track and forbidden, at the risk of fine, if he survived. to cross the roadway. People descended from their automobiles upon this pave ment and went through the lower shops to the lifts and stairs to the new
 
 ran along the front of the houses at the. level of the first story and being joined by frequent bridges. gave the newer parts of London curiously Venetian appearance. In some streets there were upper and even third story rows. For most of the day and all night the shop windows were lit by electric light, and many establishments had made, as it were, canals of public footpaths through their premises in order to increase their window space. Barnet made his way along this night scene rather pprehensiyely, since the police had power to challenge and de mand the labor card of any indigent looking person, and if the record failed to show he was in employment dismiss him, to the traffic pavement below.
 But there WAS still enough of his for mer gentilfty about Barnet's appear ance and bearing to protect him from this; the police, too, had other things to think of that night and he was per mitted to reach the galleries about Leicester square-that great focus of London life and pleasure
 He gives 8 vivid description of the scene that evening. In the center was a garden raised on arches lit by fes- toons of lights and connected with the rows by eight graceful bridges, be- meath which hummed the inter1acing streams of motor traffic, pulsating as the current a1ternated between east and west and north and south. Above rose great frontages of intricate rather than beautiful re-enforced porcelain, studded with lights, barred by bold, H. luminated advertisements and glowing with reflections. There were the two hS oo1 n ! I7ic Shakespeare Memorial theater, in which the municipal players revolved perpetually through the cycle of Shake speare's plays, and four other great houses of refreshmeht and entertain ment, whose pinnacles streamed up into the blue obscurity of the night. The south side of the square was in dark contrast to the others; it was still being rebuilt, and a lattice of steel bars surmounted by the frozen gestures of monstrous cranes rose over the exca- vated sites of vanished Victorian build ings.
 This framework attracted Barnet'S s attention for a time to the exclusion of other interests. It was absolutely still; 1t had a dead rigidity, a stricken inac- tfon; no one was at work upon it and all it's machinery was quiet, but the contractors globes of vacuum light filI- ed it's every interstice with quiverfng green moonshine and showed alert but motionless-so1dier sentinels.
 He asked a passing stroller and was told that the men had struck that day against the use of an automatic riveter that would have doubled the individual efficiency and halved the number of steel workers.
 .'Shsnldn't wonder if they didn't get