Here, then, we have the construction of the Abyss and the shambles.
Throughout the whole industrial fabric a constant elimination is going
on. The inefficient are weeded out and flung downward. Various things
constitute inefficiency. The engineer who is irregular or irresponsible
will sink down until he finds his place, say as a casual labourer, an
occupation irregular in its very nature and in which there is little or
no responsibility. Those who are slow and clumsy, who suffer from
weakness of body or mind, or who lack nervous, mental, and physical
stamina, must sink down, sometimes rapidly, sometimes step by step, to
the bottom. Accident, by disabling an efficient worker, will make him
inefficient, and down he must go. And the worker who becomes aged, with
failing energy and numbing brain, must begin the frightful descent which
knows no stopping-place short of the bottom and death.
In this last instance, the statistics of London tell a terrible tale. The
population of London is one-seventh of the total population of the United
Kingdom, and in London, year in and year out, one adult in every four
dies on public charity, either in the workhouse, the hospital, or the
asylum.
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