722 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



they either refuse work or quickly turn themselves out of it. They 

 are simply good-for-nothings, who in one way or other live on the 

 good-for-somethings — vagrants and sots, criminals and those on the 

 way to crime, youths who are burdens on hard-worked parents, men 

 who appropriate the wages of their wives, fellows who share the gains 

 of prostitutes ; and then, less visible and less numerous, there is a cor- 

 responding class of women. 



Is it natural that happiness should be the lot of such ? or is it natu- 

 ral that they should bring unhappiness on themselves and those con- 

 nected with them ? Is it not manifest that there must exist in our 

 midst an immense amount of misery which is a normal result of mis- 

 conduct and ought not to be dissociated from it ? There is a notion, 

 always more or less prevalent and just now vociferously expressed, 

 that all social suffering is removable, and that it is the duty of some- 

 body or other to remove it. Both these beliefs are false. To separate 

 pain from ill-doing is to fight against the constitution of things, and 

 will be followed by far more pain. Saving men from the natural 

 penalties of reckless living eventually necessitates the infliction of 

 artificial penalties in solitary cells, on tread-wheels, and by the lash. I 

 suppose a dictum on which the current creed and the creed of science 

 are at one may be considered to have as high an authority as can be 

 found. Well, the command " if any would not work neither should 

 he eat " is simply a Christian enunciation of that universal law of Na- 

 ture under which life has reached its present height — the law that a 

 creature not energetic enough to maintain itself must die ; the sole 

 difference being that the law which in the one case is to be artificially 

 enforced is, in the other case, a natural necessity. And yet this par- 

 ticular tenet of their religion which science so manifestly justifies is 

 the one which Christians seem least inclined to accept. The current 

 assumption is that there should be no suffering, and that society is to 

 blame for that which exists. 



" But surely we are not without responsibilities, even when the suf- 

 fering is that of the unworthy ? " 



If the meaning of the word " we " be so expanded as to include 

 with ourselves our ancestors, and especially our ancestral legislators, I 

 agree. I admit that those who made, and modified, and administered, 

 the old poor-law, were responsible for producing an appalling amount 

 of demoralization, which it will take more than one generation to re- 

 move. I admit, too, the partial responsibility of recent and present 

 law-makers for regulations which have brought into being a permanent 

 body of tramps, who ramble from union to union ; and also their re- 

 sponsibility for maintaining a constant supply of felons by sending 

 back convicts into society under such conditions that they are almost 

 compelled again to commit crimes. Moreover, I admit that the phil- 

 anthropic are not without their share of responsibility ; since, while 

 anxiously aiding the offspring of the unworthy, they do nothing for 



