There are parts of great towns where decent people never go unless by sheer need, and where in the night they would not go unless accompanied by a policeman. Nothing can describe the aspect of the dark courts and streets, of the mean and filthy buildings, shops, and dens! Nastiness, foul smells, dirty shambles and garbage; doors and windows smashed and stuffed with rags; gutters festering with impurities; and the human vermin swarming like maggots in rotten flesh! Upon this foundation the palaces of the rich and the vast stone Temples rest; one wonders that they do not sink into it.
It is a great boast of the English Barbarians that "a slave cannot breathe in England." At first, when I heard this, I supposed that it meant that he would die under the conditions of life awaiting him—he would not be able to breathe—and therefore slaves were unable to live in the land. But the boast merely means that it is not permitted to add black slaves from abroad; they cannot live in England; nor do I think they could. I do not comprehend the boast, unless on the ground that it would be an expensive as well as useless cruelty to land even blacks, merely to have the trouble and cost of burying their carcases.
I have called these low-castes Serfs, disregarding the barbarian fiction which calls them free. Not long since they were slaves under precise law; now they are so by universal custom. When they were legal slaves they had some care and protection; there was a tie existing between master and servant; hearty service and affectionate concern rendered the relation not merely supportable, but positively advantageous. The tie is severed; there is neither hearty service nor affectionate concern. The master possesses everything as before, but he is no longer obliged to maintain his labourers. These are numerous; they must work or starve. Whilst they work they get enough perhaps to live; no longer able to work, mere pauper-life in poorhouses and the pauper's grave await them. Nor do the masters even pay for these; they have cunningly contrived to have the expense borne by all who have anything to be taxed. Thus the severance of the ancient tie has only enriched the High-Castes and freed them from all obligation to care for the labourer, and sunk him into a condition of hopeless and debasing poverty. The freedom is all on the strong side; the slavery more abject and less softened by humane sentiments.
Now there are a few, who have some dim perceptions of these so obvious features to a disinterested spectator. They see that it is a poor compensation to the wretched misery which holds thousands hopelessly in its grasp, to point out an occasional accident of escape—where some one, more gifted and more fortunate than his fellows, happens to rise into comfort and slight esteem! These noble men, the harbingers of light, who try to see and to act honestly, in spite of early prejudice and habit, perceive that there is no hope for these serfs, unless they can be moved with a higher interest. They think they discover a chance to move them by offering them knowledge, without, or nearly without, cost. But it is doubtful if they be not too low, too brutal, to care for knowing anything. Then, "they must be forced to send the children, to be taught—they must be whipped to School." This is resented as an outrage on the freedom of the serf—as an invasion of his family rights—as a positive, additional, tax and burden. For he gets something from the petty work, or from the begging or thieving of the children, and now the Master takes that! Yet, probably, this is one needful thing—to take the children into the hands of the State, in every case where the natural guardian is unfit to properly care for them. But the State cannot half take them. It cannot take anything of the present pittance, and claim to have compensated by giving words instead. It is cruel to say to him who starves in body, "Starve—I feed the mind!" A poor parent cannot receive even knowledge in exchange for bread. And it cannot be asked of him, in his low estate, to exchange the little added support of the child's wage for the, to him, useless words of knowledge. In the face of want one cares only for bread! Therefore, the State which teaches must also feed the poor—or see to it that the honest poor be first fed. If the parent can only feed by the help of the child, the State must not arbitrarily assume to be Master and Judge—saying, "Come to school—and starve, if must be."
The High-Caste, secretly, clog and obstruct all attempts to raise the low. Learning belongs to the master—ignorance to the serf. It is enough for him to obey and work. There will always be poor, and vicious poor. It is better to merely watch and guard against an Evil, for which there is no remedy. To give instruction to the low-orders, is to arm demagogues with a dangerous weapon. "'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing'—it only enables the multitude to see just what it suits the purpose of the Agitator to show! There is nothing but evil in these grand measures. All must be left to individual effort; and to the Priests. These must work as comes in their way; instructing those who wish, and encouraging those who dutifully obey, and attend to the labours imposed upon them by divine Providence" (Meaning, that Jah has ordained, from all time, that some must be "Hewers of wood and drawers of water"—a quotation from the Sacred Writings).
In this manner, the High-Caste, when it condescends to the subject at all, dismisses it. Indeed, this Caste, the Master-Caste, really feels no other concern in the low orders, but a concern for their peaceful subjection. To this point they direct so much care, as to have always trained bands of braves, and strong, picked, well-ordered men, called Police, ready at hand. So, in case the wretched, degraded, and despised serfs and thieves, should dare to raise any stir, disturbing the ease and enjoyment of the luxurious High-Caste, they may be shot down without mercy!
Necessarily, the elevation of the low-classes will be very gradual. Many of the Priests, wishing to enlarge and maintain the influence of the Superstition, actively exert themselves among the honest and industrious poor. And some of these Bonzes are as benevolent as the traditions of their Caste and of their Idolatry will permit.
It is doubtful if the present condition of the masses of the English Barbarians be so manly and independent as ages ago—when they were sufficiently intelligent to move in their own cause, and were really of some importance in the State. Unfortunately, they did remove from their necks the pressure of immediate, personal service, only to accumulate upon them, as a Class, the whole weight of the landed and trading interests. As a whole, therefore, they are more servile, more abject, and more dependent; and the few individuals who may raise themselves above the level of their class cannot even flatter themselves in this to have gained. There never was a time when these individuals did not exist—it is not clear that their numbers have increased.