month afterwards he appeared once more with a letter in which he said that he had not been able to 'push' himself forward from Erode to Madras and that he had been ill. He added: 'It is more prudent to go back to Trevandrum than play the part of a wandering Jew. Can you please be so charitably obliging to pay my fare to Madura.' (It was on the way to Trevandrum.) 'I have not a cash in hand to find my way as far there. I am totally a changed man; have entirely left taking any drink.' He was sent on to Madura with a ticket that was purchased for him, and we never saw him again.
Mathew was a fine, strong, ablebodied man, who was always on the tramp, professedly looking for employment, but in reality begging. He passed on from one place to another, staying a short time at each station until he had exhausted the patience and the charity of the kind-hearted English residents. He ought to have been working at some honest trade, but his long tongue stood in his light. No sooner did he get something to do than he talked himself out of it. If he committed a slight error and it was pointed out by his superior, he at once began to justify and excuse himself. His employer lost patience and dismissed him. My husband helped him now and then from the Poor Fund, and at his own request gave him a letter testifying to his sobriety and ability to work. At the end of it was a note to the effect that 'this letter is not intended to assist the bearer in begging, but is for the purpose of procuring employment.'
In a few months' time Mathew returned bringing the epistle. He handed it back with an injured expression, and explained that it was useless; no one would give him anything after reading it. Would his reverence be so good as to write another leaving out the last few lines about begging? That part spoilt the whole; it was
