I gave him a shilling, but he did not speak; to all the other children who had built grottos I gave threepence each, and there was joy in that corner of Bethnal Green.
There is always something pathetic about play in the underworld.

We feel that there is something wanting in it, perhaps that something would come into it, if there were more opportunities of real and competitive play.
Keeping shops, or teaching schools may do for girls to play at, but a lad, if he is any good, wants something more robust.
I often find cripple boys playing "tip-cat," another game upon which the law has its eye, or hurrying along on crutches after something that serves as a football, and getting there in time, too, for a puny kick.
But that kick, little as it is, thrills the poor chap, and he feels that he has been playing.

I am sure that football is going to play a great part in the physical salvation of Tom, Dick and Harry, but they must have other places than the streets in which to learn and practise the game.
We have heard a great deal about the playing-fields of public schools; we are told that we owe our national safety to them; perhaps it is correct, but I really do not know.

But this I do know, that the non-provision of playing-fields, or grounds for the male youthful poor, is a national danger and a menace to activity, endurance, health and pluck.
Nothing saves them now but the freehold of the streets.

Rob them of this without giving them something better, and we shall speedily have a race of flat-footed, flat-chested, round-shouldered poor, with no brains for mental work, and no strength for physical work.