seless servants. "The poor should not be emancipated," the old
reactionaries used to say, "until they are fit for freedom." But if
this downrush went on, it looked as if the poor would not stand high
enough to be fit for slavery.

So at least it seemed, doubtless in a great degree subconsciously, to
the man who had wagered all his wealth on the usefulness of the poor
to the rich and the dependence of the rich on the poor. The time came
at last when the rather reckless breeding in the abyss below ceased to
be a supply, and began to be something like a wastage; ceased to be
something like keeping foxhounds, and began alarmingly to resemble a
necessity of shooting foxes. The situation was aggravated by the fact
that these sexual pleasures were often the only ones the very poor
could obtain, and were, therefore, disproportionately pursued, and by
the fact that their conditions were often such that prenatal
nourishment and such things were utterly abnormal. The consequences
began to appear. To a much less extent than the Eugenists assert, but
still to a notable extent, in a much looser sense than the Eugenists
assume, but still in some sort of sense, the types that were
inadequate or incalculable or uncontrollable began to increase. Under
the hedges of the country, on the seats of the parks, loafing under
the bridges or leaning over the Embankment, began to appear a new race
of men--men who are certainly not mad, whom we shall gain no
scientific light by calling feeble-minded, but who are, in varying
individual degrees, dazed or drink-sodden, or lazy or tricky or tired
in body and spirit. In a far less degree than the teetotallers tell
us, but still in a large degree, the traffic in gin and bad beer
(itself a capitalist enterprise) fostered the evil, though it had not
begun it. Men who had no human bond with the instructed man, men who
seemed to him monsters and creatures without mind, became an eyesore
in the market-place and a terror on the empty roads. The rich were
afraid.

Moreover, as I have hinted before, the act of keeping the destitute
out of public life, and crushing them under confused laws, had an
effect on their intelligences which paralyses them even as a
proletariat. Modern people talk of "Reason versus Authority"; but
authority itself involves reason, or its orders would not even be
understood. If you say to your valet, "Look after the buttons on my
waistcoat," he may do it, even if you throw a boot at his