706 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



and strong; the sick and well; male and female; black and 

 white; all are subject to this stern master which Shy lock 

 has placed to rule over the working people of America. 

 No one can for a moment doubt that the tendencies of the 

 times is to concentrate wealth. The property is fast pass- 

 ing from the hands of the many into the possession of a 

 moneyed aristocracy. The same system prevails which 

 wrenched the lands from the possession of the English 

 farmers. 



Eighty years ago there was one farm owner in Eng- 

 land for every thirty-seven of the population, while now 

 there is but one owner in one thousand of the population, 

 and the ratio of the landlords is increasing year after year, 

 placing the great mass of the people beneath the reach of 

 hope and tending more than any other cause to the devel- 

 opment of the merely animal passions. 



The condition of the English and Irish peasantry to- 

 day truthfully mirrors the near future of American farmers 

 if land consolidation and landlordism is not abolished. 

 Already one-fourth of American farms are cultivated by 

 tenants who pay rent to masters of the soil. Million-acre 

 farms as naturally absorb hundred-acre ones as large bodies 

 at ract smaller ones. The result is inevitable. 



We clip the following from a Kansas daily paper : 



"Here is the condition of Cowley county, Kansas, on 

 October I5th, 1888. It does not include railroad mortgages 

 or bonds, but straight-out farm mortgages unsatisfied : 



Farm mortgages $4 5 33)9 I 5 



City mortgages 2,419,484 



Total $6,750,399 



No. of farm mortgages .... 3,518 



No. of city mortgages ..... I )3 I 



Bonds on county $1,000,000 



