i 9 2 LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS 



the violent and lawless. This Raad in- 

 terested me extremely; it was so wise and so 

 conscientious. The Colonial Parliament 

 might really have learnt quite a lot of useful 

 things from it. 



We are a curious people. The solicitude 

 we are apt to evince for the posterior of a 

 blackguard is really marvellous — considering 

 how little we have for the victims of an indus- 

 trial system under which hundreds of thousands 

 of men, women and children are leading lives of 

 the most degrading slavery. We see, with com- 

 placency, whole generations growing stunted 

 and vacant-eyed under stress of their bitter 

 lot; we know — or should know, for we have 

 been told it often enough — that one of 

 the pillars in the edifice of our commercial 

 prosperity is the sweated woman in the garret, 

 — old, haggard and hopeless at thirty. She 

 stitches or pastes for fourteen hours a day in 

 the blind, numbing effort to keep her blighted 

 soul in her stunted body, and we complacently 

 draw the dividends her long-drawn torture 

 helps to swell. But we forget it is that wo- 

 man's grandchildren who may have to defend 

 ours from the Huns. 



Yes, — a fatal habit of acquiescing in de- 

 moralising conditions permits us to look" on at, 



