et. For our whole town,
and almost every man's bread and butter, rose and fell with the industry
or the idleness of our great iron manufactories. To my mind, the cause
of the trouble was twofold: first, that the proprietors were very rich;
and second, that the agitators were very scoundrels. For we had as happy
a class of working men in New Jedboro, take them on the whole, as the
God of work looked down upon. They were in receipt of fair and
considerable wages, their shops were clean and well ventilated, and
their hours reasonably short, especially if compared to those poor
creatures whom greed and selfishness keep behind the counters till
twelve o'clock on a Saturday night. And I have noticed that those who
howl the loudest about long hours are those who postpone their shopping
till ten or eleven of these same Saturday nights.

For the most part, they owned their own homes and the plots of ground
they gardened, and I do contend that the watering-can and the spade and
the pruning knife are a means of grace. Very many of them made twelve
shillings a day, which is three dollars in our good Canadian money, and
some of the highest paid made twice as much. And there was work for them
every working day and every working hour of the day.

The peace was broken when two sleek and well-dressed agitators came to
town, agents for the Central Organization, whose mild and pleasant duty
it was to tell free-born working-men when they were to work and when to
starve.

These gentlemen soon precipitated a general strike, in which they took a
highly sympathetic part, reviving the flagging courage of half-starving
wives and children, exhorting them to endure unto the end; and be it
said to their lasting credit, these aforesaid gentlemen toiled
faithfully to spread their new evangel, desisting only three times a
day, when they repaired to their six-course meals at the Imperial Hotel.

They pointed out, between meals, to the hungry men how well-pleasing was
their hunger in the sight of heaven, for it would help some
fellow-workmen three thousand miles away, and possibly be of benefit to
some few who had not yet been born. Hunger, they pointed out with lofty
ardour, might not be comfortable in every case, but it was glorious,
and in the line of immortal fame. All of this was somewhat marred by
their occasional gulping and hiccoughing, for six-course dinners are not
friendly to ethereal oratory. When one of them got through, the other,
havi