Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/88

 what you are, and only too thankful if you can get work to break your back, and catch the rheumatism over."

"But do you mean to say that their labor is so severe and incessant?"

"It's only God's blessing if it is incessant, sir, for if it stops, they starve, or go to the house to be worse fed than the thieves in gaol. And as for its being severe, there's many a boy, as their mothers will tell you, comes home night after night, too tired to eat their suppers, and tumble, fasting, to bed in the same foul shirt which they've been working in all the day, never changing their rag of calico from week's end to week's end, or washing the skin that's under it once in seven years."

"No wonder," said Lancelot, "that such a life of drudgery makes them brutal and reckless."

"No wonder, indeed, sir: they've no time to think; they're born to be machines, and machines they must be; and I think, sir," he added bitterly, "it's God's mercy that they daren't think. It's God's mercy that they don't feel. Men that write books and talk at elections call this a free country, and say that the poorest and meanest has a free opening to rise and become prime minister, if he can. But you see, sir, the misfortune is, that in practice he can't; for one who gets into a gentleman's family, or into a little shop, and so saves a few pounds, fifty know that they've no chance before them, but day-laborer born, day-laborer live, from hand to mouth, scraping and pinching to get not meat and beer even, but bread and potatoes; and then, at the end of it all, for a worthy reward, half-a-crown-a-week of parish pay—or the work-house. That's a lively hopeful prospect for a Christian man!"

Into the booth they turned; and as soon as Lancelot's