The second cause which leads a certain number of elderly men to adopt a life of vagrancy is to be attributed to the action of Trades-Unions.  After a workman reaches a certain period of life he is no longer able to do a full day’s work.  As soon as this period of life arrives, and sometimes even before it does arrive, the artisan finds it becoming increasingly difficult to obtain employment.  The rate of wages in his trade is fixed by Trades-Union rules; every man, no matter what his qualifications may be, has to receive so much an hour, or the full Trade-Union wage for the district; no one is allowed to take a job at a lower figure.  No doubt Trades-Unionists find that this regulation works well an far as it relates to the young and the able-bodied, and as these always compose the great majority in every trade society, it is a regulation which is not likely to be rescinded or modified.  Nevertheless, it is a rule which often operates very unjustly in the case of men who are getting old.  These men may have been steady and industrious workmen all their lives, they may still be able to do a fair amount of honest work; but, as soon as that amount of work falls below the daily average of the trade, such men have to go; they are henceforth practically debarred from earning an honest livelihood at what has hitherto been the occupation of their working life.  Work may be abundant in the district, but it is useless for grey-haired men to apply; they cannot do the amount required, and as they are not permitted to work at a lower rate of wages than their fellows, the means of getting a living are arbitrarily taken out of their hands.  As a consequence of these Trades-Union enactments, cases are not infrequent in which workmen who have just passed middle life, or have sustained injuries, drift insensibly into vagrant habits.  These habits are acquired almost without their knowing it.  In the vague hope of perhaps finding something to do a man will wander from town to town existing as best he can; after the hope of employment has died away he still continues to wander, and thus forms an additional unit in the permanent army of beggars and vagrants.  Trade-Unionists would undoubtedly remedy a great wrong if some effective means were devised by them to meet cases of this character.  It should be remembered by those most opposed to any modifications of the present system that they may one day be its victims.  The hindrances in the way of putting an end to the injustice inherent in the present arrangements are not incapable of being overcome.  It is surely possible to devise a rule which, while leaving intact the essential features of the present system, will render it more flexible—­a rule to enable the maimed and the aged who cannot do a full day’s work to make, through the Union if need be, some special arrangement with the employers.  Such a rule, if properly safe-guarded to prevent abuse, would be of inestimable benefit to many a working man.