tting a strain on the imagination; and it seems as if the atmosphere
were reeking with the very essence of riches. A millionaire gives
nearly one thousand pounds for a puppy; he buys seventeen baby horses
for about three thousand pounds apiece; he gives four thousand guineas
for a foal, and bids twenty thousand pounds for one two-year-old
filly; his house costs a million or thereabouts. Minor plutocrats
swarm among us, and they all exhibit their wealth with every available
kind of ostentation; yet that obstinate question remains to be
answered--"Are we wealthy?" We may give the proletarians good advice
and recommend them to employ no extreme talk and no extreme measures;
but there is the new disposition, and we cannot get away from it. I
take no side; the poor have my sympathy, but I endeavour to understand
the rich, and also to face facts in a quiet way. Supposing that a ball
is being given that costs one thousand pounds, and that within sound
of the carriages there are twenty seamstresses working who never in
all their lives know what it is to have sufficient food--is not that a
rather curious position? The seamstresses are the children of mighty
Britain, and it seems that their mother cannot give them sustenance.
The excessive luxury of the ball shows that some one has wealth, but
does it not also seem to show that some one has too much? The clever
lecturers who talk to the populace now will not be content with the
old-fashioned answer, and an awkward deadlock is growing more nearly
imminent daily. Suppose we take the case of the sporting-man again,
and find that he pays three guineas per week for the training of each
of his fifty racers, we certainly have a picture of lavish display;
but, when we see, on the other hand, that nearly half the children in
some London districts never know what it is to have breakfast before
they go to school, we cannot help thinking of the palaces in which the
horses are stabled and the exquisite quality of the animal's food.
There is not a good horse that mother England does not care for, and
there are half a million children who rarely can satisfy their hunger,
and who are quartered in dens which would kill the horses in a week.
These crude considerations are not-presented by us as being
satisfactory statements in economics; but, when the smart mob orator
says, "What kind of parent would keep horses in luxury and leave
children to hunger?" "Is this wealthy England?" his audience reply i