vet, or by going quickly from place to place;
and every coin spent in useless ornament, or useless motion, is so much
withdrawn from the national means of life. One of the most beautiful
uses of railroads is to enable A to travel from the town of X to take
away the business of B in the town of Y; while, in the mean time, B
travels from the town of Y to take away A's business in the town of X.
But the national wealth is not increased by these operations. Whereas
every coin spent in cultivating ground, in repairing lodging, in making
necessary and good roads, in preventing danger by sea or land, and in
carriage of food or fuel where they are required, is so much absolute and
direct gain to the whole nation. To cultivate land round Coventry makes
living easier at Honiton, and every acre of sand gained from the sea in
Lincolnshire, makes life easier all over England.

4th, and lastly. Since for every idle person some one else must be
working somewhere to provide him with clothes and food, and doing,
therefore, double the quantity of work that would be enough for his own
needs, it is only a matter of pure justice to compel the idle person to
work for his maintenance himself. The conscription has been used in many
countries to take away laborers who supported their families, from their
useful work, and maintain them for purposes chiefly of military display
at the public expense. Since this has been long endured by the most
civilized nations, let it not be thought they would not much more gladly
endure a conscription which should seize only the vicious and idle,
already living by criminal procedures at the public expense; and which
should discipline and educate them to labor which would not only maintain
themselves, but be serviceable to the commonwealth. The question is
simply this: we must feed the drunkard, vagabond, and thief; but shall we
do so by letting them steal their food, and do no work for it? or shall
we give them their food in appointed quantity, and enforce their doing
work which shall be worth it, and which, in process of time, will redeem
their own characters and make them happy and serviceable members of
society?

I find by me a violent little fragment of undelivered lecture, which puts
this, perhaps, still more clearly. Your idle people (it says), as they
are now, are not merely waste coal-beds. They are explosive coal-beds,
which you pay a high annual rent for. You are keeping all these idle
pers