Starr.

At these meetings none of the 'respectable' working men were allowed to
ask any questions, or to object to, or find fault with anything that
was said, or to argue, or discuss, or criticize. They had to sit there
like a lot of children while they were lectured and preached at and
patronized. Even as sheep before their shearers are dumb, so they were
not permitted to open their mouths. For that matter they did not wish
to be allowed to ask any questions, or to discuss anything. They would
not have been able to. They sat there and listened to what was said,
but they had but a very hazy conception of what it was all about.

Most of them belonged to these PSAs merely for the sake of the loaves
and fishes. Every now and then they were awarded prizes--Self-help by
Smiles, and other books suitable for perusal by persons suffering from
almost complete obliteration of the mental faculties. Besides other
benefits there was usually a Christmas Club attached to the 'PSA' or
'Mission' and the things were sold to the members slightly below cost
as a reward for their servility.

They were for the most part tame, broken-spirited, poor wretches who
contentedly resigned themselves to a life of miserable toil and
poverty, and with callous indifference abandoned their offspring to the
same fate. Compared with such as these, the savages of New Guinea or
the Red Indians are immensely higher in the scale of manhood. They are
free! They call no man master; and if they do not enjoy the benefits
of science and civilization, neither do they toil to create those
things for the benefit of others. And as for their children--most of
those savages would rather knock them on the head with a tomahawk than
allow them to grow up to be half-starved drudges for other men.

But these were not free: their servile lives were spent in grovelling
and cringing and toiling and running about like little dogs at the
behest of their numerous masters. And as for the benefits of science
and civilization, their only share was to work and help to make them,
and then to watch other men enjoy them. And all the time they were
tame and quiet and content and said, 'The likes of us can't expect to
'ave nothing better, and as for our children wot's been good enough for
us is good enough for the likes of them.'

But although they were so religious and respectable and so contented to
be robbed on a large scale, yet in small matters, in the commonplace
an