Martha goes to China

I had fun writing about Martha's visit to China, where she fell in with the Emperor and helped him to get away to a new life in America..........

Here is a short extract:

From Chapter 7 of "Guardian Angel";

Above the cellars of China, and elsewhere too, there were great cinder tips which gave off acrid fumes and occasionally burst into flames for reasons that I could not fathom. They were fed from the coke ovens and blast furnaces, and they covered more land than the iron works and housing areas combined. One or two of the older and cooler cinder tips held communities of troglodytes; homeless children had excavated tunnels and caves inside them, where they felt warm and safe. Safe from adult robbers and thugs, maybe. But God only knows how many of them were suffocated by fumes or crushed when their tunnels collapsed on top of them. Many of the boys belonged to a class known as “the Rodneys” and they survived on begging and petty thieving, sometimes on their own account and sometimes under the control of older and experienced criminals. They measured their status by the number of times they had been arrested and convicted; and they had no respect either for the police or the magistrates. I saw some of them in court, where they postured and bragged, swore at the magistrates and took pleasure in demonstrating that they were beyond control and beyond redemption. They actually seemed to enjoy their short spells in gaol, for there they were able to luxuriate in clean clothes, dry accommodation, and food in their bellies.

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