ll, or take a scholarship at
Balliol, or take a seat at an opera, or propose a good law, or protest
against a bad one, as it was impossible to the serf. Where he differs
is in something very different. He has lost what was possible to the
serf. He can no longer scratch the bare earth by day or sleep on the
bare earth by night, without being collared by a policeman.

Now when I say that this man has been oppressed as hardly any other
man on this earth has been oppressed, I am not using rhetoric: I have
a clear meaning which I am confident of explaining to any honest
reader. I do not say he has been treated worse: I say he has been
treated differently from the unfortunate in all ages. And the
difference is this: that all the others were told to do something, and
killed or tortured if they did anything else. This man is not told to
do something: he is merely forbidden to do anything. When he was a
slave, they said to him, "Sleep in this shed; I will beat you if you
sleep anywhere else." When he was a serf, they said to him, "Let me
find you in this field: I will hang you if I find you in anyone else's
field." But now he is a tramp they say to him, "You shall be jailed if
I find you in anyone else's field: _but I will not give you a field_."
They say, "You shall be punished if you are caught sleeping outside
your shed: _but there is no shed_." If you say that modern
magistracies could never say such mad contradictions, I answer with
entire certainty that they do say them. A little while ago two tramps
were summoned before a magistrate, charged with sleeping in the open
air when they had nowhere else to sleep. But this is not the full fun
of the incident. The real fun is that each of them eagerly produced
about twopence, to prove that they could have got a bed, but
deliberately didn't. To which the policeman replied that twopence
would not have got them a bed: that they could not possibly have got a
bed: and _therefore_ (argued that thoughtful officer) they ought to
be punished for not getting one. The intelligent magistrate was much
struck with the argument: and proceeded to imprison these two men for
not doing a thing they could not do. But he was careful to explain
that if they had sinned needlessly and in wanton lawlessness, they
would have left the court without a stain on their characters; but as
they could not avoid it, they were very much to blame. These things
are being done in every part of England every day. They