'Shall I then be quite like them?' asked Elsie. 'Like them, Master? Oh!

not quite like them.'

'Not quite like them,' he said. 'No; you could never talk like them.'

He walked about among the people, who evidently knew him, because they made way for him, nodded to him, and pretended, such was their politeness, to pay no attention to the young lady who accompanied him.

'Every one of them is a study,' he continued. 'I could preach to you on every one as a text. Here is my young friend Alice Parden, for instance'--he stopped before a pale girl of seventeen or so, tall and slender, but of drooping figure, who carried a baby in her arms. 'Look at her. Consider. Alice is foolish, like all the Alices of this street.

Alice must needs marry her chap a year ago, when she was sixteen and he was eighteen. Alice should be still at her club in the evening and her work in the daytime. But she must marry, and she is a child mother.--Is he out of work still?' Alice nodded, and hugged her baby closer. Mr.

Edmund Gray shook his head in admonition, but gave her a coin, and went on. 'Now look at this good woman'--he stopped before a door where an Amazon was leaning--a woman five feet eight in height, with brawny arms and broad shoulders and a fiery furnace for a face--a most terrible and fearful woman.--'How are you this evening, Mrs. Moss? And how is your husband?'

Long is the arm of coincidence. Mrs. Moss was just beginning to repose after a row royal; she was slowly simmering and slowly calming. There had been a row royal, a dispute, an argument, a quarrel, and a fight with her husband. All four were only just concluded. All four had been conducted on the pavement, for the sake of coolness and air and s.p.a.ce.

The residents stood around: the controversy was sharp and animated: the lady bore signs of its vehemence in a bruise, rapidly blackening, over one eye, and abrasions on her knuckles. The husband had been conducted by his friends from the spot to the public-house at the corner, where he was at present pulling himself together, and forgetting the weight of his consort's fists, and solacing his spirit with strong drink.

'How is my husband?' the lady repeated. 'Oh! I'll tell you. I'll tell you, Mr. Gray, how my husband is. Oh! how is he? Go, look for him in the public-house. You shall see how he is and what he looks like.' She descended two steps, still retaining the advantage of the lowest. Then, describing a semicircle with her right arm, she began an impa.s.sioned harangue. The residents fled, right and left, not knowing whether in her wrath she might not mistake the whole of them, collectively, for her husband. The men in the public-house hearing her voice, trembled, and looked apprehensively at the door. But Mr. Gray stood before her without fear. He knew her better than to run away. The lady respected his courage, and rejoiced in a sympathetic listener. Presently she ran down: she paused: she gasped: she caught at her heart: she choked: she wept.

She sat down on the doorstep, this great strong woman, with the brawny arms and the fiery face, and she wept. The residents crept timidly back again and gathered round her, murmuring sympathy: the men in the public-house trembled again. Mr. Gray grasped her by the hand and murmured a few words of consolation; for indeed there were great wrongs, such as few wives even in this street expect, and undeniable provocations. Then he led his Scholar away.

At the next house he entered, taking Elsie with him to a room at the back where a woman sat making garments. She was a middle-aged woman, and though very poorly dressed, not in rags: the room was neat except for the garments lying about. She looked up cheerfully--her eyes were bright, her face was fine--and smiled. 'You here, Mr. Gray?' she said.

'Well, I was only thinking yesterday how long it is since you came to see me last. I mustn't stop working, but you can talk.'

'This is a very special friend of mine,' said the Master. 'I have known her for ten years, ever since I began to visit the street. She is always cheerful: though she has to live on sweating work and sweating pay. She never complains. She lives like the sparrows, and eats about as much as a sparrow: she is always respectable. She goes to church on Sundays: she is always neat in her dress. Yet she must be always hungry.'

'Ah!' said the woman, 'you'd wonder. Miss, if you knew how little a woman can live upon.'

'Oh! but,' said Elsie, 'to have always to live on that little!'

'She is the daughter of a man once thought well to do.'--'He was most respectable,' said the woman.--'He died, and left nothing but debts. The family were soon scattered, and--you see--this street contains some of those who have fallen low down as well as those who are born low down.

It is Misfortune Lane as well as Poverty Lane. To the third and fourth generation, misfortune, when it begins--the reason of its beginning is the wickedness of one man--still persecutes and follows the family.'

'Thank you, Miss,' said the woman. 'And if you will come again sometimes---- Oh! you needn't be afraid. No one would hurt a friend of Mr. Gray.' So they went out.

On the next doorstep and the next and the next, there sat women old and young, but all of these had the same look and almost the same features--they were heavy-faced, dull-eyed, thick-lipped, unwashed, and unbrushed. 'These,' said the Master, 'are the women who know of nothing better than the life they lead here. They have no hope of rising: they would be unhappy out of this street. They bear children: they bring them up, and they die. It is womanhood at its lowest. They want warmth, food, and drink, and that is nearly all. They are the children and grandchildren of women like themselves, and they are the mothers of women like themselves. Savage lands have no such savagery as this, for the worst savages have some knowledge, and these women have none. They are mutilated by our system. We have deprived them of their souls. They are the products of our system. In a better order these people could not exist: they would not be allowed parents or birth. The boy would still be learning his trade, and the girl would be working at hers. That little woman who meets her troubles with so brave a heart has been sweated all her life--ever since her misfortunes began: she takes it as part of the thing they call life: she believes that it will be made up to her somehow in another world. I hope it will.'

'All these people,' said the other Voice, 'are what they are because of the follies and the vices of themselves and their fathers. The boy-husband has no trade. Whose fault is that? The rickety boy and the rickety girl bring into the world a rickety baby. Whose fault is that?

Let them grow worse instead of better until they learn by sharper suffering that vice and folly bring their punishment.'

'You see the children,' continued the Master, 'and the mothers. You do not see any old men, because this sort mostly die before they reach the age of sixty. Those who are past work and yet continue to live go into the House. The girls you do not see, because those who are not forced to work all the evening as well as all the day are out walking with their sweethearts. Nor the men, because they are mostly in the public-house.

They are all hand-to-mouth working men: they live by the job when they can get any. When they are out of work, they live upon each other. We hide this kind of thing away in back streets like this, and we think it isn't dangerous. But it is. Formerly, the wreckage huddled together bred plagues and pestilences, which carried off rich and poor with equal hand, and so revenged itself. In other ways, the wreckage revenges itself still.'

'This kind of people,' said the other Voice, 'may be dangerous. We have a Police on purpose to meet the danger. They would be quite as dangerous if you were to give them free dinners and house them without rent. The cla.s.s represents the untameable element. They are always a danger. To cry over them is silly and useless.'

They walked down the street. Everybody knew Mr. Edmund Gray. He had a word for all. It was evident that he had been a visitor in the street for a long time: he had the air of a proprietor: he entered the houses and opened doors and sat down and talked, his disciple standing beside him and looking on. He asked questions and gave advice--not of a subversive Socialistic kind, but sound advice, recognising the order that is, not the order that should be.

All the rooms in this street were tenanted, mostly a family to each. In many of them work was going on still, though it was already eight o'clock. Sometimes it would be a woman sitting alone in her room like a prisoner in a cell, st.i.tching for dear life: sometimes three or four women or girls sitting all together, st.i.tching for dear life: sometimes a whole family, little children and all, making matches, making canvas bags, making paper bags, making card-boxes, all making--making--making for dear life. And the fingers did not stop and the eyes were not lifted, though the visitors opened the door and came in and asked questions, to which one replied in the name of all the rest.

It is an old, old story--everybody knows the slum: people go to gaze upon it; it is one of the chief sights of Victorian London, just as a hundred and fifty years ago it was one of the sights to see the women flogged at Bridewell. Not such a very great advance in civilisation, perhaps, after all.

'It is a hive--the place is swarming with life,' said the girl, who had never before seen such a street.

'Life means Humanity. All these people are so like you, my Scholar, that you would be surprised. You would not be like them if you were dressed in these things, but they are like you. They want the same things as you--they have the same desires--they suffer the same pains. What makes your happiness? Food--warmth, sufficiency, not too much work. These are the elements for you as well as for them. In my system they will have all these--and then perhaps they will build up, as you have done, an edifice of Knowledge, Art, and Sweet Thoughts. But they are all like you. And most in one thing. For all women of all cla.s.ses, there is one thing needful. These girls, like you, want love. They all want love. Oh, child! they are so like you, so very like you--these poor women of the lowest cla.s.s. So very like their proud sisters.' He paused for a moment.

Elsie made no reply. 'You see,' he continued, 'they are so hard at work that they cannot even lift their eyes to look at you--not even at you, though they seldom see a girl among them so lovely and so well dressed.

One would have thought--but there is the Whip that drives--that dreadful Whip--it hangs over them and drives them all day long without rest or pause. Their work pays their rent and keeps them alive. It just keeps them alive, and that is all. No more. It must be hard to work all day long for another person--if you come to think of it. Happily, they do not think. And all this grinding poverty--this terrible work, that one family may be able to live in a great house and to do nothing.'

'They are working,' said the other Voice, 'because one man has had the wit to create a market for their work. His thrift, his enterprise, his clearness of sight, have made it possible for these girls to find the work that keeps them. If they would have the sense not to marry recklessly, there would be fewer working girls, and wages would go up.

If their employer raised their wages only a penny a day, he would benefit them but little and would ruin himself. They must learn--if they can--the lesson of forethought by their own sufferings. No one can help them.'

As Mr. Edmund Gray walked into the houses and out again Elsie went with him, or she waited outside while he went in. Sometimes she heard the c.h.i.n.k of coin: sometimes she heard words of thanks. The Socialist, whatever he taught, practised the elementary form of charity possible only for those who have money. Elsie remarked this little point, but said nothing.

'What you see here,' said the Master, 'is the lowest cla.s.s of all--if one ever gets to the lowest level. For my own part, I have seen men and women so wretched that you would have called them _miserrimi_--of all created beings the most wretched. Yet have I afterwards found others more wretched still. In this street are those who make the lowest things: those who can make nothing, and have no trade, and live on odd jobs: and those who can neither make nor work, but thieve and lie about.'

'I see all that; but, dear Master, what will your new order do for such people? Will it make those who will not work industrious?'

'It will give every producer the fruits of his own labour: it will teach a trade to every man, and find men work. And those who cannot work, it will kill, or lock up until they die. They shall have no children.

Perhaps it will kill them all. It might be better. We will have no human failures in our midst. That street is full of lessons, all calling aloud for the destruction of Property.'

Then the other Voice spoke: 'The presence of the human failure is a lesson always before us--a warning and a lesson to rich and poor alike.

As he is, so all may be. None are so rich but they may be brought to poverty: none so poor but they may be poorer. So far from hiding away the wreckage, it is always in our sight. It prowls about the streets: we can never escape it. And it fills all hearts with terror: it spurs all men to industry and invention and perseverance. The human failure inspires a never-ending hymn in praise of Property.'

Elsie's guide stopped to greet a woman whom he knew. She had the usual baby on her arm. She was a sad-faced woman, with some refinement in her looks: she was wretchedly dressed, thin, pale, and dejected.

'The same story?'

'Yes, sir. It's always the same,' she sighed hopelessly. 'But he would work if he could get anything to do. n.o.body will employ a man who's had a misfortune. It's hard--because such a thing may happen to anybody.

It's like measles, my husband says. He can't get drunk because there's no money. That's my only comfort.'

He gave her some money, and she pa.s.sed on her way.

'Her husband was a clerk,' Mr. Gray explained, 'who took to drink and robbed his employer. His father was a barrister, who died young. His grandfather was a well-known--almost a great lawyer. I know the whole family history. I learned it----' He stopped for a moment, as if his memory suddenly failed him--'somehow--a long time ago. It is a story which shows how our sins and follies fall upon our own children. This family sprang from the gutter. First, the working man: then his son the shopkeeper: then his grandson, who became a great lawyer: then his great-grandson, not so great a lawyer. He, you see, is the first of the family who begins life as a gentleman and is brought up among gentlemen: he inherited money: he had a practice: he married in the cla.s.s called gentle, and had children. But he lost all his money, and in despair he killed himself. Cousinly affection is a cold thing at best. It helped the widow to a pittance, and sent her boys to a cheap school. At fifteen they had to take whatever employment they could get. Observe that this branch of the family was now going downhill very fast. The future of a boy who has been taught no trade and has entered no profession is black indeed. One of the boys went out to New Zealand, which has little to give a friendless boy: another enlisted, served three years, and has never got any work since. I believe he carries boards about the street.

Another became a tenth-rate actor, and now starves on fifteen shillings a week, paid irregularly. Another--the youngest--was put into a merchant's office. He rose to a hundred and twenty pounds a year: he married a girl of the clerkly cla.s.s--that woman you saw: he took to drink: he embezzled his master's money: he went to prison: he is now hopelessly ruined. He cannot get any lower in the social scale. What will his children do? They have no friends. They will grow up like the children around them: they will join the hopeless casuals: they will be hewers of wood. Property, my child, Property--has done this. He stole.

In our society n.o.body will be tempted to steal. He drank--with us he would be kept judiciously under control until he could be trusted again.

That would be the care of the State. He is another victim of Property.

When his grandfather was framing Acts of Parliament for the protection of Property, he did not dream that he was making another engine for the oppression of his grandchildren.'

Said the other Voice: 'We rise by our virtues. We sink by our vices. Let these people suffer. Their sufferings should make the rest of us wiser.

Teach the children to rise again as their great-grandfather rose. Do not contend against the great Law which metes out suffering in return for vice.'

'Those,' continued the Socialist Professor, 'who do most to make a few men rich are the real enemies of what they suppose themselves to be defending. Given a thousand women sweated for one man, and there presently arises indignation either among the women or among the bystanders. From indignation we get revolution, because the employer never gives way. He cannot. He would lose, if he did, his wealth, which is his Heaven. If you divide the thousand women into companies of ten, each company under its own sweater, and all the sweaters under other sweaters, you make a hierarchy of sweaters, culminating in one at the top. That was the old state of things. The man at the top was a Chief, a Patriarch: he knew his people: he sweated them, but kindly: he tossed them crumbs: he looked after the sick and the old. Now all this is changing. The old family tie--such as it was--is dissolved. The man at the top has disappeared: a Board of Directors has taken his place: there is nothing left but the Board and its employees. The men who work are no longer interested in the business of the firm, except so far as their pay is concerned. Their pay will go up and the dividends will go down.

And with every increase of wages so much Property is destroyed. Let every thing--everything--be turned into Companies to help the destruction of Property.'

Said the other Voice: 'Property is strengthened by being diffused.

Companies organise labour: they give capital its proper power: they are not easily intimidated: they interest all who can save anything. Let us turn into Companies every industrial and distributive business in the country.'

'All times of change,' the Master went on, 'are times of interest. We are living at a time when great changes are impending--the greatest changes possible. Before great changes there is always a period of unconscious preparation. The minds of people are being trained. Without any perception of the fact, old ideas are dying out and new ones are coming into existence. When the Revolution actually arrives, everybody is ready for it and n.o.body is surprised. It was so with the Reformation.

For a hundred years and more the idea of the Great Revolt had been slowly growing in men's minds. When it came at last, there was no surprise and there were few regrets. For a hundred years and more the ideas of the French Revolution had been talked about by philosophers: these ideas sank down among the people. n.o.body was surprised, not even the n.o.bles themselves, when the end came. So with our Revolution. It is coming--it is coming--its ideas are no longer timidly advanced--here and there--by a fanatic here or a philosopher there: they are lying in the hearts of the people ready to spur them into action: they are helping on the cause by successive steps, every one of which means nothing less than the abolition of Property. These things are new to you, child. You were only born yesterday or the day before. I was born a hundred years ago or thereabouts. Consider again'--he leaned against a lamp-post for greater ease, and discoursed as one addressing an audience--'Consider, I say, this great question of Companies and their results. Formerly, one man made things which he took to market--sold or exchanged, and went home again. He, by himself, did everything. Then one man made and another man sold. The next improvement was for twenty men to work, for one to receive and to collect their work, and for another to sell it. In this way the twenty remained poor, and the two became rich. So they went on, and trade flourished, and the twenty producers more and more fell into the power of the two, who were now very rich and strong. Now the merchants are forming themselves into companies, and the companies are amalgamating with each other, and the small people may contemplate ruin.

For these--now merchants, shopkeepers, manufacturers, workmen--there will be nothing but service in the companies; no possibility of acquiring Property, nothing but service all their lives. Now do you see how that helps the cause? They will become accustomed to work, but not for themselves: they will grow accustomed to work for a bare living and no more: they won't like either: but they will ask why the second should go with the first: the two great obstacles to Socialism will be removed.

Then--either the step I spoke of just now--the abolition of the dividends--or, which is just as likely, a revolution, when the servants of the companies shall make the State take over all and work them for the good of all. Some there are who think that the workman will have hope and power for union crushed out of him. I think not; but if so--woe to the rich! The Jacquerie and the French Revolution will be spoken of as mild ebullitions of popular feeling compared with what will happen then. But I think not. I do not believe that the working man will sink again. He has got up so far. But he needs must climb higher.

'You think it would be impossible'--by this time a small crowd had got round them, but the speaker still addressed his disciple as if no one else at all was listening--'for the State to take over the great producing and distributing companies. But it has been done already. The State has the Post and the Telegraph Services. They will deal with railways, steamers, coaches, cabs, omnibuses, trams, ca.n.a.ls, water, gas, electric light, breweries, bakeries, factories, shops, just as they have dealt with these two. The State can take it all. The State will take the management of all. But, you say, the shares of the company will become Funds. They will, and the Funds will pay interest--but the interest will become rapidly lower and lower, so that what was once five per cent. is now but two and a half, and before long shall be two--one and a half--one--and nothing at all. There will be no cry of spoliation, because the holders of stock will be forced gradually into looking more and more to their own efforts, and because widows and sick people and old people, to whom the stocks were once so useful, will be all provided for by the State as a matter of right, and without any of the old humiliation of pauperdom. Pauper! Oh, heavenly word! Child, in the world of the future--the world which you will help to mould, we shall all be paupers,--every one.'