. . But below this normal state of
the average workman in town and country, there is found the great band
of destitute outcasts--the camp followers of the army of industry--at
least one-tenth the whole proletarian population, whose normal
condition is one of sickening wretchedness. If this is to be the
permanent arrangement of modern society, civilization must be held to
bring a curse on the great majority of mankind.
Ninety per cent.! The figures are appalling, yet Mr. Stopford Brooke,
after drawing a frightful London picture, finds himself compelled to
multiply it by half a million. Here it is:-
I often used to meet, when I was curate at Kensington, families
drifting into London along the Hammersmith Road. One day there came
along a labourer and his wife, his son and two daughters. Their
family had lived for a long time on an estate in the country, and
managed, with the help of the common-land and their labour, to get on.
But the time came when the common was encroached upon, and their
labour was not needed on the estate, and they were quietly turned out
of their cottage. Where should they go? Of course to London, where
work was thought to be plentiful.
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