Does anybody in
England know a curate who has a salary like that? I do not think it
would be possible to find one on the Clergy List. No one grudges the
labourers their extra food and high wages; I am only taking note of a
significant social circumstance. The curate earns nothing until he is
about three-and-twenty; if he goes through one of the older
universities, his education costs, up to the time of his going out
into the world, something very like two thousand pounds; yet, with all
his mental equipment, such as it is, he cannot earn so much as a
labourer of his own age. Certainly the humbler classes had their day
of bondage when the middleman bore heavily on them; they got clear by
a mighty effort which dislocated commerce, but we hardly expected to
find them claiming, and obtaining, payments higher than many made to
the most refined products of the universities! It is the way of the
world; we are bound for change, change, and yet more change; and no
man may say how the cycles will widen. Luxury has grown on us since
the thousands of wealthy idlers who draw their money from trade began
to make the stream of lavish expenditure turn into a series of rushing
rapids.
Pages:
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156