[1] See Carey’s translation of the ninth book of Dante’s ‘Purgatory,’ line 105. [↑]

[2] I assume the Cambridge quotation to be correct: in my old edition (1848), the distinction is between ‘weavers and lace-makers’ and ‘journeymen bricklayers;’ and making velvet is considered to be the production of a ‘commodity,’ but building a house only doing a ‘service.’ [↑]

[3] I do not mean that there are no other kinds, nor that well-paid labour must necessarily be unproductive. I hope to see much done, some day, for just pay, and wholly productive. But these, named in the text, are the two opposite extremes; and, in actual life, hitherto, the largest means have been usually spent in mischief, and the most useful work done for the worst pay. [↑]

[4] £992,740,328, in seventeen years, say the working men of Burnley, in their address just issued—an excellent address in its way, and full of very fair arithmetic—if its facts are all right; only I don’t see, myself, how, “from fifteen to twenty-five millions per annum,” make nine hundred and ninety-two millions in seventeen years. [↑]

FORS CLAVIGERA.

LETTER III.

Denmark Hill,
1st March, 1871.

My Friends,