THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 229 



human society is organised ; and, among other things, 

 it subserves the high end of calling forth the best 

 traits of human nature, and emphasising the claims 

 that his poorer brother has upon the richer and more 

 fortunate man. It is, moreover, a mark that could 

 not fail to be vouchsafed, of our modern civilisation, 

 that the State should recognise as obligatory upon it 

 the duty of providing for such of its citizens as cannot 

 by reason of their helplessness find in the labour 

 market the means of procuring a livelihood. The 

 existence of this helpless class cannot be attributed to 

 population outstripping the means of subsistence, 

 seeing that the members of it are unable from obvious 

 causes to take any part in the struggle of life. They 

 cannot, therefore, be regarded as pressed down or 

 driven to the wall by the stronger, or, to use the 

 appropriate Darwinian expression, by those who are 

 possessed of more fortunate variations. 



Besides the paupers who are maintained as a fixed 

 burden upon the community, there is the class of 

 able-bodied vagrants or tramps, the victims of their 

 own disinclination to do any form of work, who 

 individually earn by begging, chiefly from the labour- 

 ing classes, what is equivalent to an average working 

 man's wage. These number, I believe, not much 

 under one hundred and fifty thousand in the United 

 Kingdom. Inured to all weathers, avoiding ablutions, 

 evil-smelling, roaming from place to place in their 

 boundless freedom, though they obtain their means of 

 living by presenting an appearance of abject misery, 



