are being kept out of their own. I believe the rich are for the most part selfish and despicable. I believe wealth has been generally piled up by cruel and unworthy means. I believe it is wrong in us to acquiesce in the wicked inequalities of our existing social state, instead of trying our utmost to bring about another, where right would be done to all, where poverty would be impossible. I believe such a system is perfectly practicable, and that nothing stands in its way save the selfish fears and prejudices of individuals. And I believe that even those craven fears and narrow prejudices are wholly mistaken; that everybody, including the rich themselves, would be infinitely happier in a world where no poverty existed, where no hateful sights and sounds met the eye at every turn, where all slums were swept away, and where everybody had their just and even share of pleasures and refinements in a free and equal community."

Despair

BY LADY WILDE

(Irish poetess, mother of Oscar Wilde; wrote under the pen-name of Speranza)

BEFORE us dies our brother, of starvation;

Around are cries of famine and despair!
Where is hope for us, or comfort or salvation-
Where-oh! where?

If the angels ever hearken, downward bending,
They are weeping, we are sure,

At the litanies of human groans ascending
From the crushed hearts of the poor.

I

We never knew a childhood's mirth and gladness,
Nor the proud heart of youth free and brave;
Oh, a death-like dream of wretchedness and sadness
Is life's weary journey to the grave!
Day by day we lower sink, and lower,

Till the God-like soul within

Falls crushed beneath the fearful demon power
Of poverty and sin.

So we toil on, on with fever burning

In heart and brain;

So we toil on, on through bitter scorning,

Want, woe, and pain.

We dare not raise our eyes to the blue heavens

Or the toil must cease

We dare not breathe the fresh air God has given
One hour in peace.

Inequality of Wealth

BY G. BERNARD SHAW

(See page 193)

AM not bound to keep my temper with an imposture

so outrageous, so abjectly sycophantic, as the pretence that the existing inequalities of income correspond to and are produced by moral and physical inferiorities and superiorities that Barnato was five million times as great and good a man as William Blake, and committed suicide because he lost two-fifths of his superiority; that the life of Lord Anglesey has been on a far higher plane than that of John Ruskin; that Mademoiselle Liane de Pougy has been raised by her successful sugar specula

tion to moral heights never attained by Florence Nightingale; and that an arrangement to establish economic equality between them by duly adjusted pensions would be impossible. I say that no sane person can be expected to treat such impudent follies with patience, much less with respect.

So he sang all day

Over the new-mown hay,
Till the sun went down,
And haycocks looked brown

I heard a Devil curse
Over the heath and the furze:
"Mercy could be no more
If there were nobody poor,
And pity no more could be

If all were happy as ye:
And mutual fear brings peace.
Misery's increase

Are mercy, pity, peace."

At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown.