_(With apologies to the shade of HANS ANDERSEN.)_
It was late on a bitterly cold showery evening of Autumn. A poor
little girl was wandering in the cold wet streets. She wore a hat on
her head and on her feet she wore boots. ANDERSEN sent her out without
a hat and in boots five sizes too large for her. But as a member
of the Children's Welfare League I do not consider that right. She
carried a quantity of matches (ten boxes to be exact) in her old
apron. Nobody had bought any of her matches during the whole long day.
And since the Summer-Time Act was still in force it was even longer
than it would have been in ANDERSEN's time.
The streets through which she passed were deserted. No sounds, not
even the reassuring shrieks of taxi-whistles, were to be heard, for
it costs you forty shillings now (or is it five pounds?) to engage a
taxi by whistle, and people simply can't afford it. Clearly she would
do no business in the byways, so she struck into a main thoroughfare.
At once she was besieged by buyers. They guessed she was the little
match-girl because she struck a match from time to time just to show
that they worked. Also, she liked to see the blaze. She would not have
selected this branch of war-work had she not been naturally fond of
matches.
They crowded round her, asking eagerly, "How much a box?" Now her
mother had told her to sell them at a shilling a box. But the little
girl had heard much talk of war-profits, and since nobody had given
her any she thought she might as well earn some. So she asked five
shillings a box. And since these were the last matches seen in England
it was not long before she had sold all the ten boxes (including
the ones containing the burnt ends of the matches she had struck to
attract custom).
The little girl then went to the nearest post-office and purchased two
pounds' worth of War Loan. The ten shillings which remained she took
home to her mother, and since the good woman did not understand the
principles of profiteering she was well pleased.
But alas for the little girl! one of her customers, doubting the
honesty of her intentions, had informed the policeman. She was
subsequently taken into custody, and the magistrate is now faced with
the problem as to whether she is a good little girl in that she put
money into War Loan, or a bad little girl in that she followed the
example of the profiteers.
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