would in a month be dead from sheer starvation were they exclusively
dependent upon the money earned by their own work; and (2) those who by
their utmost exertions are unable to attain the regulation allowance of
food which the law prescribes as indispensable even for the worst
criminals in our gaols.

I sorrowfully admit that it would be Utopian in our present social
arrangements to dream of attaining for every honest Englishman a gaol
standard of all the necessaries of life. Some time, perhaps, we may
venture to hope that every honest worker on English soil will always be
as warmly clad, as healthily housed, and as regularly fed as our
criminal convicts--but that is not yet.

Neither is it possible to hope for many years to come that human beings
generally will be as well cared for as horses. Mr. Carlyle long ago
remarked that the four-footed worker has already got all that this
two-handed one is clamouring for: "There are not many horses in
England, able and willing to work, which have not due food and lodging
and go about sleek coated, satisfied in heart." You say it is
impossible; but, said Carlyle, "The human brain, looking at these sleek
English horses, refuses to believe in such impossibility for English
men." Nevertheless, forty years have passed since Carlyle said that,
and we seem to be no nearer the attainment of the four-footed standard
for the two-handed worker. "Perhaps it might be nearer realisation,"
growls the cynic, "if we could only product men according to demand, as
we do horses, and promptly send them to the slaughter-house when past
their prime"--which, of course, is not to be thought of.

What, then, is the standard towards which we may venture to aim with
some prospect of realisation in our time? It is a very humble one, but