In South Africa the colonial teaches the islander how to shoot,
and the officers muddle and blunder; while at home the street people play
hysterically at mafficking, and the War Office lowers the stature for
enlistment.
It could not be otherwise. The most complacent Britisher cannot hope to
draw off the life-blood, and underfeed, and keep it up forever. The
average Mrs. Thomas Mugridge has been driven into the city, and she is
not breeding very much of anything save an anaemic and sickly progeny
which cannot find enough to eat. The strength of the English-speaking
race to-day is not in the tight little island, but in the New World
overseas, where are the sons and daughters of Mrs. Thomas Mugridge. The
Sea Wife by the Northern Gate has just about done her work in the world,
though she does not realize it. She must sit down and rest her tired
loins for a space; and if the casual ward and the workhouse do not await
her, it is because of the sons and daughters she has reared up against
the day of her feebleness and decay.
CHAPTER XVI--PROPERTY VERSUS PERSON
In a civilisation frankly materialistic and based upon property, not
soul, it is inevitable that property shall be exalted over soul, that
crimes against property shall be considered far more serious than crimes
against the person.
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