HOW THE POOR LIVE.
55
housed, and the callous neglect of their rights as citizens by
the governing class is responsible.
They are handicapped in the race from start to finish.
And under these circumstances, such charity, such humanity,
and such patience and long-suffering as exist among them
are indeed worthy of admiration.
The natural instinct of man is to evil, and when I read in
little tracts and clerical addresses of the awful depravity of
their more fortunate fellow-countrymen. In any other land
but ours, the mighty mass of helots would long ago have
broken their bonds and swept over the land in vast revolutionary hordes. They did not always know their power,
and had not enough knowledge to appreciate their wrongs.
Education is opening their eyes, and their lips will not be
slow to express their new-born sentiments. It will be well
to meet the movement half-way and yield to them that
I CAN DO THAT THERE LITTLE BIT ON MY 'ED."
the " heathen in our midst," I am tempted to ask what the
reverend gentlemen and shocked philanthropists expect. I
say, with a full knowledge of their surroundings, that the
lower classes of our great cities are entitled to the highest
credit for not being twenty times more depraved than they
are.
They are a class which contains the germs of all that goes
to make up good citizenship, and the best proof of it is the
patience with which they endure the systematic neglect of
reform and humane recognition which some day they may
all too noisily demand.
Here am I up on a platform and thumping away at the
table and spouting what I have no doubt many excellent
persons will think is rank communism, though it is nothing
of the sort. Peccavi, I apologise. The fumes of the
misery I have passed through the last two months have got
into my head and made me talk wildly. Let me resume
my labour more in the character of a missionary or special
HOW THE POOR LIVE.
55
housed, and the callous neglect of their rights as citizens by
the governing class is responsible.
They are handicapped in the race from start to finish.
And under these circumstances, such charity, such humanity,
and such patience and long-suffering as exist among them
are indeed worthy of admiration.
The natural instinct of man is to evil, and when I read in
little tracts and clerical addresses of the awful depravity of
their more fortunate fellow-countrymen. In any other land
but ours, the mighty mass of helots would long ago have
broken their bonds and swept over the land in vast revolutionary hordes. They did not always know their power,
and had not enough knowledge to appreciate their wrongs.
Education is opening their eyes, and their lips will not be
slow to express their new-born sentiments. It will be well
to meet the movement half-way and yield to them that
I CAN DO THAT THERE LITTLE BIT ON MY 'ED."
the " heathen in our midst," I am tempted to ask what the
reverend gentlemen and shocked philanthropists expect. I
say, with a full knowledge of their surroundings, that the
lower classes of our great cities are entitled to the highest
credit for not being twenty times more depraved than they
are.
They are a class which contains the germs of all that goes
to make up good citizenship, and the best proof of it is the
patience with which they endure the systematic neglect of
reform and humane recognition which some day they may
all too noisily demand.
Here am I up on a platform and thumping away at the
table and spouting what I have no doubt many excellent
persons will think is rank communism, though it is nothing
of the sort. Peccavi, I apologise. The fumes of the
misery I have passed through the last two months have got
into my head and made me talk wildly. Let me resume
my labour more in the character of a missionary or special
