hour; but both broke the bargain, and each is a thief. In
piecework, which is what most of us do, the case is none the less
plain for being even less material. If you forge a bad knife, you
have wasted some of mankind's iron, and then, with unrivalled
cynicism, you pocket some of mankind's money for your trouble. Is
there any man so blind who cannot see that this is theft? Again,
if you carelessly cultivate a farm, you have been playing fast and
loose with mankind's resources against hunger; there will be less
bread in consequence, and for lack of that bread somebody will die
next winter: a grim consideration. And you must not hope to
shuffle out of blame because you got less money for your less
quantity of bread; for although a theft be partly punished, it is
none the less a theft for that. You took the farm against
competitors; there were others ready to shoulder the responsibility
and be answerable for the tale of loaves; but it was you who took
it. By the act you came under a tacit bargain with mankind to
cultivate that farm with your best endeavour; you were under no
superintendence, you were on parole; and you have broke your
bargain, and to all who look closely, and yourself among the rest
if you have moral eyesight, you are a thief. Or take the case of
men of letters. Every piece of work which is not as good as you
can make it, which you have palmed off imperfect, meagrely thought,
niggardly in execution, upon mankind who is your paymaster on
parole and in a sense your pupil, every hasty or slovenly or untrue
performance, should rise up against you in the court of your own
heart and condemn you for a thief. Have you a salary? If you
trifle with your health, and so render yourself less capable for
duty, and still touch, and still greedily pocket the emolument--
what are you but a thief? Have you double accounts? do you by any
time-honoured juggle, deceit, or ambiguous process, gain more from