THE SHEEP AND ITS SKIN 127 



danger to the healthy hard-working population, is it 

 possible to avoid asking such questions as these : — 



" How many tailors go to make a man ? " 



Is the product of our city slums, diseased in mind and 

 body, unfit practically to live, worth the sheep and the 

 oxen and the good grain it takes to keep the fires burning ? 



It will be said that if the fire could get enough fuel, the 

 mechanism might work better. Perhaps ; but it must not 

 be forgotten that the " body needs more than meat and the 

 flesh than raiment." 



So let us leave the vexed question alone and pass to the 

 great gift of the sheep's skin. 



Practically in our climate it is the gift of warmth and 

 comfort. Without it Teufelsdrockh could never have 

 shown Humanity as a Clothes-Horse, and were we at 

 this moment to strip every atom of wool from England 

 the result would be quaint indeed ! So much do we 

 owe in comfort and even decency to the sheep. Blue 

 books, statistical journals may tell us of six hundred and 

 fifty million pounds of wool imported into England during 

 a year, of twelve million pounds' worth or more of woollen 

 goods used during the same time, but what brings home 

 to us our indebtedness to the sheep is simply to imagine 

 ourselves and the room in which we sit deprived of wool. 

 Teufelsdrockh's " forked radish with a head fantastically 

 carved " seated on nothing would represent even so high 

 and mighty a personage as the Lord Chancellor ! 



Yet as a rule we wear our " natural wool" as if it were 

 indeed our own natural covering, and give no thought to 

 the animal from whose back we strip it. A stupid, foolish, 

 helpless animal, unable to repel the attack of any enemy 



