"This organization [the organization of competition]," continues M. Blanqui, "tends to make all the profits of labor pass into the hands of capital. . . . It is at Reims, at Mulhouse, at Saint-Quentin, as at Manchester, at Leeds, at Spitalfields, that the existence of the workers is most precarious". . . .
Then follows a frightful picture of the misery of the workers. Men, women, children, young girls, pass before you, starved, blanched, ragged, wan, and wild. The description ends with this stroke:
The workers in the mechanical industries can no longer supply recruits for the army.
It would seem that these do not derive much benefit from M.
Dunoyer's white bread and soup.
M. Villerme regards the licentiousness of young working girls as INEVITABLE. Concubinage is their customary status; they are entirely subsidized by employers, clerks, and students. Although as a general thing marriage is more attractive to the people than to the bourgeoisie, there are many proletaires, Malthusians without knowing it, who fear the family and go with the current. Thus, as workingmen are flesh for cannon, workingwomen are flesh for prostitution: that explains the elegant dressing on Sunday. After all, why should these young women be expected to be more virtuous than their mistresses?
M. Buret, crowned by the Academy:
I affirm that the working class is abandoned body and soul to the good pleasure of industry.
The same writer says elsewhere:
The feeblest efforts of speculation may cause the price of bread to vary a cent a pound and more: which represents $124,100 for thirty-four million men.
I may remark, in passing, that the much-lamented Buret regarded the idea of the existence of monopolists as a popular prejudice. Well, sophist! monopolist or speculator, what matters the name, if you admit the thing?