I felt very oppressed when I entered the Hackney Labour Exchange. I was asked my name, business, place and date of last employment and watched, with increasing alarm, my replies being entered in the book. When it was found that I could cook, signs of animation appeared on the official countenance, but my total lack of testimonials spoiled my chance. Though my soufflé were light as air, it would avail me nothing without a reference. My only hope, it seemed, was in itinerant charing, and I was given some three or four addresses and told to chance my luck. It is, I think, a testimony to the part externals play, throughout every phase of society, that during my experiences as an outcast I was never once challenged as to my bona fides. I was accepted at face value; my soiled raincoat covered a multitude of doubts, my shabby, pathetic little hat with a faded bunch of ribbon stopped all query, while my method of speech was by no means so out of the ordinary as people may suppose.