248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



perceiving tlie absurdity into wliicli tliey fall by the concession. 

 Logically, we say that if one can earn a dollar in one hour, he can 

 earn the same the next hour, and the next, and so on to the limit 

 of his endurance. But, if we begin at the other end of the line 

 of argument, and say that one can do as much and get as much 

 pay in ten hours as in twelve, and then say that he can get as 

 much pay in eight as in twelve, and then again as much in six, 

 there is no logical stop anywhere till the bottom is reached. The 

 stubborn fact of time is kicked out of the back door. It is the 

 same as saying that a man works six hours, earns three dollars, 

 and then works six more at the same work for nothing ; while the 

 same i)ersons who say it have to admit that, if the man worked 

 six hours in one day and six hours the next day, he would get as 

 much pay for the sebond six as for the first six. Time is too tough 

 a customer to be disposed of in that manner, and we must deal 

 with him as a fact that has come to stay. 



I think the most stupid are now able to see that one's ability 

 to provide for his wants depends primarily upon his labor, and 

 that time is a principal element in the case. He must have it 

 and he must use it, and his j)rosperity, other things being equal, 

 will be much or little as time is wisely used or neglected. The 

 law of prosperity has not been repealed by any of the edicts of 

 the leagues and unions. Not a fact or princij^le has been abol- 

 ished or suspended. An hour lost is the loss of the product of 

 labor that might have been performed in that hour, and it falls 

 on the man who owned the hour, and not on another man or set 

 of men. He does not escape his loss by the absurd theory that he 

 lost it after four o'clock of Monday, instead of before ten Tues- 

 day morning. It is an absolute loss, whatever the day when it 

 was made. If the man worked for himself, as the saying is, he 

 would see it was a total loss and nothing else ; but, working for 

 another, he fancies the other man is the loser, or else, by some 

 hocus-pocus, it is shifted upon society. If men worked by the 

 piece they would see how it is. Let two men start together in 

 life as shoemakers, with a view to do their best in getting on in 

 the world, as Henry Wilson did sixty years ago. They are equal 

 in skill and endurance, and can work twelve hours at a fair stroke 

 without impairing health. Working by the piece, they find they 

 can earn sixteen and two thirds cents per hour, or at the rate of two 

 dollars a day. There is no dilTerence between them in jjuri^ose, 

 and only the small difference in the method of getting on, that 

 James thinks he will sooner get in comfortable circumstances by 

 working twelve hours a day, and John imagines that nine hours 

 will answer the purpose just as well. At the end of the year of 

 three hundred days they find that James has earned six hundred 

 dollars, and John has earned but four hundred and fifty dollars. 



