d, ill-clothed, ill-lodged
and ill-bathed, and the gutter is their playground. They do not
develop properly in mind or body, when of age they are very poor assets
considered financially or industrially. They become permanent residents
of the underworld and produce after their kind.

So the underworld is kept populated from many sources. Widows with their
children are promptly kicked into it, others descend into it by a
slow process of social and industrial gravitation. Some descend by
the downward path of moral delinquency, and some leap into it as if to
commit moral and social death.

And surely 'tis a mad world! How can it be otherwise with all this
varied and perplexed humanity seething it, with all these social and
industrial wrongs operating upon it. But I see the dawn of a brighter
day! when helpless widow mothers will no longer be the spoil of the
sweater and the house "farmer." The dawn has broke! before these words
are printed thousands of toiling women in London's underworld will
rejoice! for the wages of cardboard box-makers will be doubled. The sun
is rising! for one by one all the terrible industries in which the
women of the underworld are engaged will of a certainty come within the
operations of a law that will stay the hand of the oppressors. And there
will be less toil for the widows and more food for the children in the
days that are to be.

But before that day fully comes, let me implore the women of the upper
world to be just if not generous to the women below. Let me ask them
not to exact all their labours, nor to allow the extremities of
their sisters to be a reason for under-payment when useful service is
rendered. Again I say, and I say it with respect and sorrow, that many
women are thoughtless if not unjust in their business dealings with
other women.

I am more concerned for the industrial and social rights of women than I
am for their political rights; votes they may have if you please. But
by all that is merciful let us give them justice! For the oppression of
women, whether by women or men, means a perpetuation of the underworld
with all its sorrows and horrors; and the under-payment of women has a
curse that smites us all the way round.

And if a word of mine can reach the toiling sisters in the netherworld,
I would say to them: Be hopeful! Patient I know you to be! enduring you
certainly are! brave beyond expression I have found you. Now add to your
virtues, hope!

For you have ne