has much in him. He is at any rate a healthy protest. As for the
virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot
possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy,
and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be
extraordinarily stupid. I can quite understand a man accepting
laws that protect private property, and admit of its accumulation,
as long as he himself is able under those conditions to realise
some form of beautiful and intellectual life. But it is almost
incredible to me how a man whose life is marred and made hideous by
such laws can possibly acquiesce in their continuance.

However, the explanation is not really difficult to find. It is
simply this. Misery and poverty are so absolutely degrading, and
exercise such a paralysing effect over the nature of men, that no
class is ever really conscious of its own suffering. They have to
be told of it by other people, and they often entirely disbelieve
them. What is said by great employers of labour against agitators
is unquestionably true. Agitators are a set of interfering,
meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of
the community, and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That
is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without
them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards
civilisation. Slavery was put down in America, not in consequence
of any action on the part of the slaves, or even any express desire
on their part that they should be free. It was put down entirely
through the grossly illegal conduct of certain agitators in Boston
and elsewhere, who were not slaves themselves, nor owners of
slaves, nor had anything to do with the question really. It was,
undoubtedly, the Abolitionists who set the torch alight, who began
the whole thing. And it is curious to note that from the slaves