Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/110

102 must seek employment elsewhere. They will have to go after work, work will not come to them—it is the same in every trade. All businesses are liable to fluctuations, some to extinction. When the detonating cap was invented, the old trade of flint chipping on the Sussex downs began to languish; with the discovery of the lucifer match it expired altogether. When adhesive envelopes were introduced, the wafer-makers and sealing-wax makers were thrown out of work, and the former trade was killed outright. I was wont to harvest oak-bark annually, and put many hundreds of pounds in my pocket. Now the Americans have superseded tan by some chemical composition, and there is no further sale for bark. I am so many hundreds of pounds the poorer."

"Yes, papa, that is true enough, but you have a resisting power in you that others have not. You have your rents and other sources of income to fall back on; these poor tradesmen and miners and artizans have none. I have read that in Manitoba the secret of the magnificent corn crops is found in this, that the ground is frozen in winter many feet deep, and remains frozen in the depths all summer, but gradually thaws and sends up from below the released water to nourish the roots of the wheat, which are thus fed by an unfailing subterranean fountain. It is so with you, you are always heavy in purse and flush in pocket, because you also have your sources always oozing up under your roots."

"My dear Armie, my subterranean source—the manganese—is exhausted; for five years instead of being a source it has been a sink."

"Whereas," continued Arminell, "the poor and the artizan lie on shelfy rock, with shallow soil above it. A drought—a week of sun—and they are parched up and perish."

"My dear girl, the analogy is false. The difference