Page:London - The People of the Abyss.djvu/66

 42 which the officials looked upon it and rendered judgment. That an old woman of seventy-seven years of age should die of is the most optimistic way possible of looking at it It was the old dead woman's fault that she died, and having located the responsibility, society goes contentedly on about its own affairs.

Of the 'submerged tenth,' Mr. Pigou has said: "Either through lack of bodily strength, or of intelligence, or of fibre, or of all three, they are inefficient or unwilling workers, and consequently unable to support themselves They are so often degraded in intellect as to be incapable of distinguishing their right from their left hand, or of recognizing the numbers of their own houses; their bodies are feeble and without stamina, their affections are warped, and they scarcely know what family life means"

Four hundred and fifty thousand is a whole lot of people. The young fireman was only one, and it took him some time to say his little say. I should not like to hear them all talk at once. I wonder if God hears them?