TEE FIELD-PLAY. 21 



new regulations has dropped from, say, six hundred 

 to a hundred and fifty. And what, oh blindest of 

 the blind, do you imagine has become of the remain- 

 ing four hundred and fifty ? Has your precious 

 folly extinguished them ? Are they dead ? No, 

 indeed. All over the country, hydraulic pressure, 

 in the name of science, progress, temperance, and 

 similar perverted things, is being put on the gun- 

 powder — or the dynamite, if you like — of society. 

 Every now and then some individual member of the 

 Army of Wretches turns and becomes the Devil of 

 modern civilization. Modern civilization has put out 

 the spiritual Devil and produced the Demon of Dyna- 

 mite. Let me raise a voice, in pleading for more 

 humane treatment of the poor — the only way, believe 

 me, by which society can narrow down and confine the 

 operations of this new Devil. A human being is not 

 a dog, yet is treated worse than a dog. 



Force these human dogs to learn to read with empty 

 stomachs — stomachs craving for a piece of bread while 

 education is crammed into them. In manhood, if un- 

 fortunate, set them to break stones. If imbecility super- 

 vene give them bread and water. In helpless age give 

 them the cup of cold water. This is the way to breed 

 dynamite. And then at the other end of the scale let 

 your Thames Embankment Boulevard be the domain 

 of the street rough; let your Islington streets be 

 swept by bands of brutes ; let the well dressed be 

 afraid to venture anywhere unless in the glare of gas 

 and electric light ! Manufacture it in one district, and 

 give it free scope and play in another. Yet never was 

 there an age in which the mass of society, from the 



