tired to
eat their suppers, and tumble, fasting, to bed in the same foul
shirt which they've been working in all the day, never changing
their rag of calico from week's end to week's end, or washing the
skin that's under it once in seven years.'

'No wonder,' said Lancelot, 'that such a life of drudgery makes them
brutal and reckless.'

'No wonder, indeed, sir: they've no time to think; they're born to
be machines, and machines they must be; and I think, sir,' he added
bitterly, 'it's God's mercy that they daren't think. It's God's
mercy that they don't feel. Men that write books and talk at
elections call this a free country, and say that the poorest and
meanest has a free opening to rise and become prime minister, if he
can. But you see, sir, the misfortune is, that in practice he
can't; for one who gets into a gentleman's family, or into a little
shop, and so saves a few pounds, fifty know that they've no chance
before them, but day-labourer born, day-labourer live, from hand to
mouth, scraping and pinching to get not meat and beer even, but
bread and potatoes; and then, at the end of it all, for a worthy
reward, half-a-crown a-week of parish pay--or the workhouse. That's
a lively hopeful prospect for a Christian man!'

'But,' said Lancelot, 'I thought this New Poor-law was to stir them
up to independence?'

'Oh, sir, the old law has bit too deep: it made them slaves and
beggars at heart. It taught them not to be ashamed of parish pay--
to demand it as a right.'

'And so it is their right,' said Lancelot. 'In God's name, if a
country is so ill-constituted that it cannot find its own citizens
in work, it is bound to find them in food.'

'Maybe, sir, maybe. God knows I don't grudge it them. It's a poor
pittance at best, when they have got it. But don't you see, sir,
how all poor-laws, old or new either, suck the independent spirit
out of a man; how they make the poor wretch reckless; how they tempt
him to spend every extra farthing in amusement?'

'How then?'

'Why, he is always tempted to say to himself, "Whatever happens to
me, the parish must keep me. If I am sick it must doctor me; if I
am worn out it must feed me; if I die it must bury me; if I leave my
children paupers the parish must look after them, and they'll be as
well off with the parish as they were with me. Now they've only got
just enough to keep body and soul together, and the parish can't
give t