Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England!

A noisy dispute in a London inn gives Jasper W. Rogers an opening to challenge English assumptions about the Irish poor. After hearing an alarming account of two Irishmen fighting, he investigates and finds that the details have been distorted. His account moves from this small lesson in prejudice to the crowded rooms of St. Giles, where poverty, bereavement and ordinary courtesy demand more attention than easy accusations.

Written as an appeal to English sympathy, this pamphlet combines personal recollections with arguments about Irish hardship. In a Dublin street during bitter winter weather, Rogers watches a poorly clothed boy revive his freezing limbs and run off with a cheer. Such scenes reveal the endurance and quick humour he wants his audience to recognise. Readers interested in social history can follow how an advocate uses encounters, reported speech and comparisons with his own comfort to make distant suffering immediate.