Here we have the intermediate and
anomalous position of the institution of Property. The sentiment still
exists, even among the poor, or perhaps especially among the poor. But
it is attached to toys rather than tools; to the minor products rather
than to the means of production. But something of the sanity of
ownership is still to be observed; for instance, the element of custom
and continuity. It was an _old_ cherry-briar; systematically smoked by
Father in spite of all wiles and temptations to Woodbines and gaspers;
an old companion possibly connected with various romantic or diverting
events in Father's life. It is perhaps a relic as well as a trinket.
But because it is not a true tool, because it gives the man no grip on
the creative energies of society, it is, with all the rest of his
self-respect, at the mercy of the thing called the sack. When he gets
the sack from the water-works, it is only too probable that he will
have to pawn his old cherry-briar.

6.--_'Cos he might set the water-works on fire._ And that single line,
like the lovely single lines of the great poets, is so full, so final,
so perfect a picture of all the laws we pass and all the reasons we
give for them, so exact an analysis of the logic of all our
precautions at the present time, that the pen falls even from the
hands of the commentator; and the masterpiece is left to speak for
itself.

Some such analysis as the above gives a better account than most of
the anomalous attitude and situation of the English proletarian
to-day. It is the more appropriate because it is expressed in the
words he actually uses; which certainly do not include the word
"proletarian." It will be noted that everything that goes to make up
that complexity is in an unfinished state. Property has not quite
vanished; slavery has not quite arrived; marriage exists under
difficulties; social regimentation exists under restraints, or rather
under subterfuges. The question which remains is which force is
gaining on the other, and whether the old forces are capable of
resisting the new. I hope they are; but I recognise that they resist
under more than one heavy handicap. The chief of these is that the
family feeling of the workmen is by this time rather an instinct than
an ideal. The obvious thing to protect an ideal is a religion. The
obvious thing to protect the ideal of marriage is the Christian
religion. And for various reasons, which only a history of England
could expl