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The real cause is that, in these new countries, where there is a boundless extent of fertile land, nothing is easier than for the labourer to pass from the place which is overstocked with labour to the place which is understocked; and that thus both he who moves and he who stays always have enough. This it is which keeps up the prosperity of the Atlantic States of the Union.

The accounts of all travellers, inconsistent in many other respects, agree in the low wages of labour, and in the difficulty which a labourer finds in bringing up a family in China. If by digging the ground a whole day he can get what will purchase a small quantity of rice in the evening, he is contented. The condition of artificers is, if possible, still worse.

His step, his dreamy eyes, the poise of his forehead raised slightly towards the skies, were things which showed his personality as clearly as the mighty forearm or the plethora of buttons bespoke the labourer or the costermonger. With a great sense of pity the American watched them pass, while the skirl of the bagpipes lessened in the distance.

The least he could do was a glass of French beer all round, with a franc to the dock labourer who straightened his handle-bars and tucked in a loose spoke, and for all this the War Office if it was the War Office, for it may, quite possibly, have been Lord Northcliffe or Mr. Bottomley, or some other controller of our national life was directly responsible.

The king who amuses himself at the expense and ruin of his subjects is the contemptible person, not the labourer who digs the soil for the planting of corn which shall help to feed his fellows.

The fact that a fresh being has entered upon life, with all its glorious possibilities, is not a subject for joy. "Well, John," the farmer says to his man, "your wife has been confined, hasn't she? How's the young one?" "Aw, sir, a' be main weak and pickèd, an' like to go back thank God!" replies the labourer with intense satisfaction, especially if he has two or three children already.

From the poor idol-ridden labourer, offering cakes to the Queen of Heaven to coax her into sending him a good harvest, to the tyrant king who had built his palace of cedar and painted it with vermilion, he had a bitter word for every man. The lying priest tried to silence him; and Jeremiah answered him, that his wife should be a harlot in the city, and his children sold for slaves.

These views not, I think, very clear or consistently worked out lead apparently to the conclusion that the fertility is indeed a blessing, but on condition of being confined to a few. The result, in any case, is the orthodox theory of rent. The labourer gets less than he would if the products of the soil were equally distributed.

Blackbird and thrush came, but always passed the window itself quickly, though they stayed without fear within a few inches of it on either hand. There was an old oak table in the centre of the room a table so solid that young Aaron, the strong labourer, could only move it with difficulty.

But, after all, he is not to be despised: he is an excellent labourer, most learned in buying and selling pigs, he can play the bagpipe beautifully; he is rich, is willing to go to any expense to please her, nay, even to pay the barber double that his hair may be nice and fuzzy from the crimping irons; and if only he were to get himself tight hose and a silk jerkin, he would be as good as any Florentine burgess.