Those who are lacking, the weak of heart and head and
hand, as well as the rotten and hopeless, have remained to carry on the
breed. And year by year, in turn, the best they breed are taken from
them. Wherever a man of vigour and stature manages to grow up, he is
haled forthwith into the army. A soldier, as Bernard Shaw has said,
"ostensibly a heroic and patriotic defender of his country, is really an
unfortunate man driven by destitution to offer himself as food for powder
for the sake of regular rations, shelter, and clothing."
This constant selection of the best from the workers has impoverished
those who are left, a sadly degraded remainder, for the great part,
which, in the Ghetto, sinks to the deepest depths. The wine of life has
been drawn off to spill itself in blood and progeny over the rest of the
earth. Those that remain are the lees, and they are segregated and
steeped in themselves. They become indecent and bestial. When they
kill, they kill with their hands, and then stupidly surrender themselves
to the executioners. There is no splendid audacity about their
transgressions. They gouge a mate with a dull knife, or beat his head in
with an iron pot, and then sit down and wait for the police.
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