somewhat in detail, the conditions under which
the English working-class lives, it is time to draw some further
inferences from the facts presented, and then to compare our inferences
with the actual state of things. Let us see what the workers themselves
have become under the given circumstances, what sort of people they are,
what their physical, mental, and moral status.

When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another, such injury that
death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in
advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But
when society {95} places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that
they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is
quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it
deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under
conditions in which they _cannot_ live--forces them, through the strong
arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues
which is the inevitable consequence--knows that these thousands of
victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed
is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised,
malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which
does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the
death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of
omission than of commission. But murder it remains. I have now to prove
that society in England daily and hourly commits what the working-men's
organs, with perfect correctness, characterise as social murder, that it
has placed the workers under conditions in which they can neither retain
health nor live long; that it undermines the vital force of these workers
gradually, little by little, and so hurries them to the grave before
their time. I have further to prove that society knows how injurious
such conditions are to the health and the life of the workers, and yet
does nothing to improve these conditions. That it _knows_ the
consequences of its deeds; that its act is, therefore, not mere
manslaughter, but murder, I shall have proved, when I cite official
documents, reports of Parliament and of the Government, in substantiation
of my charge.

That a class which lives under the conditions already sketched and is so
ill-provided with the most necessary means of subsistence, cannot be
healthy an