sed rest
for weary housekeepers and anxious political economists; but the latter
class at least have found their work made double and treble by the
results of such diet, while social reformers--above all, the advocates
of total abstinence--are discovering that till varied and savory food
and drink are provided the mass of the people will and must crave the
stimulant given by alcoholic drinks.

National dietaries and their results on character and life, fascinating
as the investigation is, have no place in the present paper, the design
of which is simply to show the existing state of the food-question
among the poor. Of these, poor Irish form far the larger proportion, a
German or French pauper being almost an anomaly. Thrift seems the
birthright of both the French and German peasant, as well as of the
middle class, and their careful habits, joined to the better rate of
wages in America, soon make them prosperous and well-to-do citizens. It
is in the tenement-houses that we must seek for the mass of the poor,
and it is in the tenement-houses that we find the causes which,
combined, are making of the generation now coming up a terror in the
present and a promise of future evil beyond man's power to reckon. They
are a class apart, retaining all the most brutal characteristics of the
Irish peasant at home, but without the redeeming light-heartedness, the
tender impulses and strong affections of that most perplexing people.
Sullen, malicious, conscienceless, with no capacity for enjoyment save
in drink and the lowest forms of debauchery, they are filling our
prisons and reformatories, marching in an ever-increasing army through
the quiet country, and making a reign of terror wherever their
footsteps are heard. With a little added intelligence they become
Socialists, doing their heartiest to ruin the institutions by which
they live. The Socialistic leader knows well with what he deals, and
can sound every chord of jealousy and suspicion and revenge lying open
to his touch. On the rich lies the whole responsibility of want and
disease and crime. Equalize property, and these three dark shadows flee
fast before the sunshine of prosperity. Character, intelligence, common
decencies and common virtues have nothing to do with present
conditions, and the ardent leveller of class-distinctions counts as his
enemy any one who seeks to give the poor a truer knowledge of how far
their earnings may be made to go toward securing better food