erchant services. In an English ship, they say, it is poor
grub, poor pay, and easy work; in an American ship, good grub, good pay,
and hard work. And this is applicable to the working populations of both
countries. The ocean greyhounds have to pay for speed and steam, and so
does the workman. But if the workman is not able to pay for it, he will
not have the speed and steam, that is all. The proof of it is when the
English workman comes to America. He will lay more bricks in New York
than he will in London, still more bricks in St. Louis, and still more
bricks when he gets to San Francisco. {3} His standard of living has
been rising all the time.

Early in the morning, along the streets frequented by workmen on the way
to work, many women sit on the sidewalk with sacks of bread beside them.
No end of workmen purchase these, and eat them as they walk along. They
do not even wash the dry bread down with the tea to be obtained for a
penny in the coffee-houses. It is incontestable that a man is not fit to
begin his day's work on a meal like that; and it is equally incontestable
that the loss will fall upon his employer and upon the nation. For some
time, now, statesmen have been crying, "Wake up, England!" It would show
more hard-headed common sense if they changed the tune to "Feed up,
England!"

Not only is the worker poorly fed, but he is filthily fed. I have stood
outside a butcher-shop and watched a horde of speculative housewives
turning over the trimmings and scraps and shreds of beef and mutton--dog-
meat in the States. I would not vouch for the clean fingers of these
housewives, no more than I would vouch for the cleanliness of the single
rooms in which many of them and their families lived; yet they raked, and
pawed, and scraped the mess about in their anxiety to get the worth of
their coppers. I kept my eye on one particularly offensive-looking bit
of meat, and followed it through the clutches of over twenty women, till
it fell to the lot of a timid-appearing little woman whom the butcher
bluffed into taking it. All day long this heap of scraps was added to
and taken away from, the dust and dirt of the street falling upon it,
flies settling on it, and the dirty fingers turning it over and over.

The costers wheel loads of specked and decaying fruit around in the
barrows all day, and very often store it in their one living and sleeping
room for the night. There it is exposed to the sickness and d