Competition.

In speaking of the proletariat it is a common disingenuous trick to class or name together the ignorant, idle, and incapable, as if those adjectives were synonymous, or little more than merely complementary. Far from that, no fact more urgently demands the attention of just men than that a defect of nature or the fault of others may easily entail upon a proletaire precisely the same suffering, want, and degradation as his own vice, or idleness, or folly.

The inferior or less able man, in piteous plight, is cheered on by Manchester, Mr. Smiles, author of "Self-help," and the Gospel of the Almighty Dollar. He must have a becoming pride. He must engage in a free field of competition, and take his fair chance with the rest. The trouble is that he has no chance to take, there being no chance at all about the matter. Visit a race-course where two horses of known and tried capacities contend for the same stakes, the one swift and the other slow, and try to back the swift horse. You cannot do it upon any terms. Any odds bar one! So bawl the book-makers. Such is the slang of the trade. Just so when a dull man and a smart man compete, the smart man's victory is assured. Philosophically there may be room for doubt, but the discomfiture of the dull man has that high degree of probability which is vulgarly called certainty. However, the idea is that, as the saying goes, the world is wide and there is room for all; but there lies the fatal error. It is only in the best of times that there is room for all. Perhaps there may not generally be a very large percentage of hands out of employ, but there is usually a larger increment upon insufficient wages. At any rate, it is a ghastly fact that numbers of people annually perish of starvation. That such is the case may easily be proved. For instance, a severe winter always largely augments the death-rate, yet bright frosty weather is healthy for the well-fed and well-clad classes. Were it not for this circumstance, that multitudes of men prefer death to degradation, State poor relief would be impossible.

If hard be the lot of the inferior man, much worse is that page 7 of the inferior woman. The poor girl without advantages, what a prospect is hers! She is to be crucified between two thieves. She must either marry any sot or ruffian who gives her the opportunity, or else commit herself to the tender mercies of a mill-owner, who will treat her as the knackers do old horses—work her to death in order to line his own pockets. It needs not to be said that girls of the most delicate age are often wholly unfit for severe and wearing drudgery.