1/0 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



lower and middling classes, and the life of a 

 clerk in one of these shops is perpetual motion. 

 I questioned young men and young women 

 in these shops as to how they liked their work, 

 and as to why they did not try to get into some- 

 thing that offered them more time and better 

 air. In no case out of twenty or thirty persons 

 whom I addressed as particularly likely to 

 sympathize with the suggestion that such a life 

 in such a place was the life of a dog, did I 

 meet with a responsive note. It seemed to 

 these people that all was right ; it was a case of 

 where " ignorance is bliss." 



I remember again passing through Grand 

 Street early one morning last summer, on my 

 way to take the train for a far-off country 

 village. The morning was intensely uncom- 

 fortable, the forerunner of a terrible day, sure 

 to count its victims by the score. In front of 

 every shop along this thoroughfare were groups 

 of clerks busy piling up dry goods in more or 

 less artistic shape, intended to impress the 

 passers. I saw hundreds of men, many of them 

 gray-headed and able-bodied, who seemed to 

 find nothing unpleasant about their work. To 

 one or two I ventured the remark as I went 



