uch people into the
direst want. Moreover, they cannot combine to raise wages, because they
are scattered, and if one alone refuses to work for low wages, there are
dozens out of work, or supported by the rates, who are thankful for the
most trifling offer, while to him who declines work, every other form of
relief than the hated workhouse is refused by the Poor Law guardians as
to a lazy vagabond; for the guardians are the very farmers from whom or
from whose neighbours and acquaintances alone he can get work. And not
from one or two special districts of England do such reports come. On
the contrary, the distress is general, equally great in the North and
South, the East and West. The condition of the labourers in Suffolk and
Norfolk corresponds with that of Devonshire, Hampshire, and Sussex. Wages
are as low in Dorsetshire and Oxfordshire as in Kent and Surrey,
Buckinghamshire and Cambridgeshire.

One especially barbaric cruelty against the working-class is embodied in
the Game Laws, which are more stringent than in any other country, while
the game is plentiful beyond all conception. The English peasant who,
according to the old English custom and tradition, sees in poaching only
a natural and noble expression of courage and daring, is stimulated still
further by the contrast between his own poverty and the _car tel est
notre plaisir_ of the lord, who preserves thousands of hares and game
birds for his private enjoyment. The labourer lays snares, or shoots
here and there a piece of game. It does not injure the landlord as a
matter of fact, for he has a vast superfluity, and it brings the poacher
a meal for himself and his starving family. But if he is caught he goes
to jail, and for a second offence receives at the least seven years'
transportation. From the severity of these laws arise the frequent
bloody conflicts with the gamekeepers, which lead to a number of murders
every year Hence the post of gamekeeper is not only dangerous, but of ill-
repute and despised. Last year, in two cases, gamekeepers shot
themselves rather than continue their work. Such is the moderate price
at which the landed aristocracy purchases the noble sport of shooting;
but what does it matter to the lords of the soil? Whether one or two
more or less of the "surplus" live or die matters nothing, and even if in
consequence of the Game Laws half the surplus population could be put out
of the way, it would be all the better for the