There is not a good horse that mother England does not care for, and
there are half a million children who rarely can satisfy their hunger,
and who are quartered in dens which would kill the horses in a week.
These crude considerations are not-presented by us as being
satisfactory statements in economics; but, when the smart mob orator
says, "What kind of parent would keep horses in luxury and leave
children to hunger?" "Is this wealthy England?" his audience reply in
a fashion of their own. Reasoning does not avail against hunger and
privation. I am forced to own that, for my part, the awful problem of
poverty seems insoluble by any logical agent; but the man of the mob
does not now care for logic than ever he did before, and he has
advisers who state to him the problems of life and society with
passionate rhetoric which eludes reason.
The whole world hangs together, and Chicago may be called a mere
suburb of London. English people did not understand the true history
of the genesis of poverty until the developments of society in America
showed us with terrific rapidity the historical development of our own
poverty. The fearful state of things in American cities was brought
about in a very few years, whereas the gradual extension of our
poverty-stricken classes has been going on for centuries.
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