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, 



