and
upon the much smaller one: "English Eightpenny Loaf, Wages Two Shillings
a Day." But the workers have not allowed themselves to be misled. They
know their lords and masters too well.

But rightly to measure the hypocrisy of these promises, the practice of
the bourgeoisie must be taken into account. We have seen in the course
of our report how the bourgeoisie exploits the proletariat in every
conceivable way for its own benefit! We have, however, hitherto seen
only how the single bourgeois maltreats the proletariat upon his own
account. Let us turn now to the manner in which the bourgeoisie as a
party, as the power of the State, conducts itself towards the
proletariat. Laws are necessary only because there are persons in
existence who own nothing; and although this is directly expressed in but
few laws, as, for instance, those against vagabonds and tramps, in which
the proletariat as such is outlawed, yet enmity to the proletariat is so
emphatically the basis of the law that the judges, and especially the
Justices of the Peace, who are bourgeois themselves, and with whom the
proletariat comes most in contact, find this meaning in the laws without
further consideration. If a rich man is brought up, or rather summoned,
to appear before the court, the judge regrets that he is obliged to
impose so much trouble, treats the matter as favourably as possible, and,
if he is forced to condemn the accused, does so with extreme regret, etc.
etc., and the end of it all is a miserable fine, which the bourgeois
throws upon the table with contempt and then departs. But if a poor
devil gets into such a position as involves appearing before the Justice
of the Peace--he has almost always spent the night in the station-house
with a crowd of his peers--he is regarded from the beginning as guilty;
his defence is set aside with a contemptuous "Oh! we know the excuse,"
and a fine imposed which he cannot pay and must work out with several
months on the treadmill. And if nothing can be proved against him, he is
sent to the treadmill, none the less, "as a rogue and a vagabond." The
partisanship of the Justices of the Peace, especially in the country,
surpasses all description, and it is so much the order of the day that
all cases which are not too utterly flagrant are quietly reported by the
newspapers, without comment. Nor is anything else to be expected. For
on the one hand, these Dogberries do merely construe the law according t