"The deuce they do!"—that was a foolish exclamation. "Do you mean that they use this to mix with flour and sugar?"
The man laughed pityingly. "Of course they do. It makes 'em healthier. Flour and sugar is healthier and goes further with a little of this 'ere limestone dust mixed in—you see. It's cheaper too. This stuff is sold for fifty cents a hundred, and flour, you know, costs six dollars a hundred. Don't you see?"
The benighted infidel did see, and he indulged in some internal ejaculations; but he fled from the simple and sincere hills of Berkshire, and sought a solace in the coarse vulgarity and vice of Boston.
But I am neglecting to say what our society proposes to do; and when I have told you of course we shall expect you to subscribe.
"The Cheap Labor Society" proposes to introduce from Africa and China, in batches of one thousand each, as rapidly as possible, able-bodied men who will work cheap.
"To develop the resources" of the country is the end and aim of all honorable men. In other words, we want cheap men so that we may make cheap shoes, cheap hats, cheap mutton, and—cheap women.
We who are now here—we do not wish to work at all. Work is a curse. The Bible has said so, and every noble-minded man has said so, and the clergy has said so, and we know it is and must be so. But yet there are people existing in the depths of Africa and China who it is believed will work rather than starve; and these we propose to bring as rapidly as our means will permit.
We head our appeal, as you see, "Work wanted for a thousand starving men," because we know that we can get more work out of men who are just on the edge of starvation than from any other, and in that way we shall "develop our resources" most effectively and rapidly.
It is quite true that we already produce more cotton cloth and more boots and shoes than we can possibly sell; but we know—for have we not political economy to teach us?—that when we get them cheap enough, say to one-half their present starvation prices—every man, and every woman, and every child will wear two shirts, and two hats, and two pairs of shoes; and thus we shall have in a superior way that blessedness of which poets write—the making "two blades of grass grow where one grew before." Now, I ask any liberal-minded man if "two pairs of shoes in place of one" is not higher and nobler than two blades of grass? That goes without talking.
If work be indeed the curse of curses, why, let the sons of Ham (Africa) and the sons of Shem (Asia) do it; for it is well known they are accursed, and have been since the days of "good old Noah"; besides which, having colored skins, we know just how to mark the helots; can import them as fast as needed; can put all labor upon them, and can thus keep our own Japhetic skins and hands clean and white.