which they can have no access
lying upon every hand of them, as though the world were under an
enchantment and God were dead!"[46]

The British working man, as he is generally known, is a manly and very
independent personage. As a rule his master is more afraid of him than
he is of his master. Yet, according to the picture drawn of him by the
Socialists, he is a timorous, cowardly, whining, pitiful creature who
has to cringe to his tyrannic employers:

See the toiler, how he slaves
For a trifle of his toil.
How disease and death he braves,
Yet the masters take the spoil;
And how often, cap in hand,
Trembling, pleading piteously,
He is forced to take his stand
In the mart of slavery.

Oh! ye tyrants of the earth,
Who make others' ruin your trade,
'Midst licentious love and mirth
Fashion, pomp, and church parade.
Do you never think, oh, tell
Of the hideous crime and shame
That has made this earth a hell
Of commercial fraud and shame?[47]

During the week the British workers work at most five and a half days
out of seven, and as a rule they work during from eight to ten hours a
day. Generally speaking, the pace at which British workmen work is not
forced. Except in a few special industries overwork among the working
men is practically unknown. Besides, the pace at which work is
performed is as a rule determined not by the employer, but by the
employees. Nevertheless we read, "It is monstrous that, while some
half million of men are vainly seeking employment, millions of their
fellows should have no respite from arduous ill-requited toil and
should be hastening to a premature death through overwork."[48] In
prose and verse the British workers are constantly told that they are
slaves[49] who are driven into starvation and suicide:

Let them brag until in the face they are black
That over oceans they hold their sway,
Of the flag of Old England, the Union Jack,
About which I have something to say.
'Tis said that it floats o'er the free; but it waves
Over thousands of hard-worked, ill-paid British slaves,
Who are driven to pauper and suicide graves--
The starving poor of Old England.

_Chorus._

'Tis the poor, the poor the taxes have to pay,
The poor who are starving every day,
Who faint and die on the King's highway--
The starving poor of Old England.