, were mechanics!"

"That is the radical politician's view, my dear," answered the vicar.
"Let a man be apprenticed to a skilled trade, and carry a bricklayer's
hod, or a carpenter's rule. Let him only wear slops and work in an
engine-room, or use a mason's trowel--so long as he does these things
and receives his wages weekly, he is a `working-man;' and, must have the
hours of labour made to suit him, the legislation of the country altered
on his behalf, the taxation of the public judiciously contrived to steer
clear of him. He is the typical `working-man,' my dear, of whom
demagogues are always prating:--the fetish, before which so-called
`liberal' statesmen fall down and worship!

"But, your poor agricultural labourer, who lives in poverty, and dirt,
and misery--starving annually on a tenth portion of the wages that the
skilled mechanic gets--_he_ is no working-man; oh no! Nor the wretched
London clerk; he, also, is no working-man; nor the Government hack; nor
the striving, hard-worked doctor; besides, many professional men and
struggling tradesmen, who, for the larger portion of their lives, inch
and pinch to scrape out existence!

"None of these are working-men; although they work harder--and for many
more hours per diem than the mechanic--on, in most instances, a less
income than the happy protege of the radical law-maker gets by the
addition of his weekly wages at the year's end.

"And yet, the clerks, and the struggling tradesmen, and professional
men, have to pay poor-rates and house-rates, and all sorts of petty
taxes, from which the fetish `working-man' is free; besides the income-
tax, which never approaches him. The latter, often getting from three
to five pounds in wages, can dress as he pleases, live in a single room
for five shillings a week, pay no rates or taxes; and may, finally,
disport himself as he likes--leaving off work whenever the fancy strikes
him and resuming it again at his pleasure--without consulting the
convenience or the wishes of his employer, who is, through trades'
unions and special class legislation, entirely at his mercy!

"Clerks, shopkeepers, and struggling professional men, cannot do this,
however. _They_ have to conform to certain rules of society; and keep
up an appearance of respectability on, frequently, half the sum that the
mechanic gets in wages, as I've said already--while groaning under a
burden of taxation from which the great `liberal' fetish is completely
fr