Hundreds of laborers crowded in a single shop lost all personal feeling with their one employer. Formerly the distance between journeyman and master was slight, and the passage from the one condition to the other could invariably be effected by diligence and ability. This change of condition now became absolutely impossible for the greater number. The majority of those engaged in manufactures must, in the nature of things, remain common laborers. A few, unusually gifted or favored, might hope to rise, but even for them it became ever more difficult to ascend the social ladder. On the one hand, the division of labor was carried so far that the labor performed by each was exceedingly simple. Instead of taxing the ingenuity, and thereby conducing to mental development, the endless repetition and sameness of the labor tended to make one stupid. On the other hand, inventions rendered it necessary not only to employ an ever-increasing number of machines, but to make use of those which were constantly becoming more expensive.* The gulf between employer and employed widened unceasingly. The employer, losing personal feeling with his laborers, too often forgot that they were men with natures like his own. Frequently, it must be acknowledged, he looked upon them as mere beasts of burden, and regarded their labor in the same light as any other commodity which was sold in the market-place. They were hired for the cheapest price, worked to the utmost limit of endurance, and, when used-up, thrown aside like any other old and worthless machine. The capitalist grew richer, and among the higher classes

* Cf. De Laveleye's "La Démocratie et l'Économie Politique" (Bruxelles, 1878), pp. 8, 9.

of society luxury and extravagance increased. The laborer, noticing all this, asked himself if his lot had in any respect improved. He was inclined to deny that it had. His daily bread was not earned with less toil, nor was he surer of an opportunity to work. His existence was as uncertain and as full of anxiety as ever. Being brought together in large shops with those in like condition, he talked over his wrongs and sufferings with them. A class-feeling was developed. The heartlessness and assumed superiority of those who had become suddenly, and often by mere chance, wealthy were looked upon with frowns and gloomy countenances foreboding no good. The harsh separation in material goods between these parvenus and the lower classes was accompanied by no mitigating circumstances. In the case of the old and wealthy families of a more ancient era the superiority in wealth appeared more just, on account of lapse of time and a certain superiority in intellect and manners. They were, to a considerable extent, superior beings in other respects than mere externals. The new rich looked down upon and despised the orders from which they had so recently escaped, and were, in turn, hated by those beneath them. A division of society into castelike classes was taking place. The rich were becoming richer; it was thought the poor were becoming poorer. Free competition imposed no restraints upon the powerful. They were at liberty to exploit the poor to their heart's content. The strength on the one side was so great, and the capability of resistance on the other so insignificant, that there could exist no real freedom of contract. As Sismondi said, the rich man labored to increase his capital, the poor man to satisfy the cravings of his stomach. The one can

wait, the demands of the other are imperative. To the laborers their state appeared like “ a hell without escape and without end" (Mehring). They were prepared to listen to those who should preach them a gospel of hope, even if it involved violent change. Revolution might help them; it could not render their lot more hopeless. They were ready to examine more critically the evils of society, when bidden to do so by their leaders. Verily, they did not need to search long to discover many sore spots on the social body. The luxurious immorality of the parvenus in European capitals made no attempt to conceal itself. When the laborers were told that their wives and daughters were considered rightful booty by the wealthy, they remembered women of their class who had fallen a prey to the fascination of wealth and the elegance of the higher classes, and were angry. The peace of many of them had been ruthlessly destroyed by some rich voluptuary. Perhaps a poor father, thinking of a fair daughter, whose employer in shop or factory had taken advantage of his position and her need to seduce her, gnashed his teeth in rage, and was ready to swear eternal vengeance against the bourgeoisie.*

*To many a thoughtless man, who has misused his wealth and social position to drag down women of the poorer classes, it would doubtless seem like a new revelation to have the truth brought home to him that the fathers, mothers, and brothers of his victims had precisely such feelings as his own father and mother, or himself, towards his sisters. But the socialistic agitation in Germany has brought out clearly the fact that this is true. Poor men hate the wealthy on account of their sins. Nearly all of the thousands and tens of thousands of fallen women in cities like New York and Berlin, it is said, come from the poorer classes. It is terrible to think of the anguish they have brought to parents whose only crime has often been poverty. If the wealthy use their superior advantages to

But these things were noticed by the more thoughtful among the higher classes. They were bitterly disappointed. The doctrines of political and economic liberalism had been expected to usher in the millennium, and instead of that they beheld the same wretched, unhappy, sinful world, which they thought they had left. If there had been progress in the general condition of humanity, it was so slight that it was a matter of dispute. Many, finding things in such a sad condition, one so different from what they had expected, affirmed boldly that we had been going from bad to worse.

In speaking of Lamennais, the distinguished French Christian socialist, the Rev. Mr. Kaufmann, an English clergyman, describes the grief that eminent man experienced, as he observed the economic development of society after the great French Revolution:* oppress and afflict the poor, terrible retribution will some day be exacted of them as a class, and the innocent will suffer with the guilty. The French Revolution should forever be a terrible warning to those to whom much has been committed.

Modern novelists have devoted themselves assiduously to the work of reform. Every oppressed class has found some one to sympathize with it and describe its wrongs. Married women, misused by their husbands; school children, maltreated by masters; orphans, wronged by tedious processes of law; the negro slave in our South-all have been made interesting, and excited our pity. The fourth estate, with which Dickens concerned himself more or less, has also found its novelist, whose skill reveals to us the laborer's views and feelings, so that we laugh when he laughs and weep when he weeps. I refer to Max Kretzer, whose latest and best work is "Die Betrogenen" (Berlin, 1882). For an excellent review of his writings, vide the Wochenblatt der Frankfurter Zeitung, 20 Aug., 1882.

For a further illustration of the views of social democrats concerning the crimes of the wealthy, vide a story in the newspaper Die Fackel (Chicago, 20 Mai, 1883) entitled "Die Geschichte einer Arbeiterin." *In Contemporary Review, April, 1882.

"It was Lamennais' fate to see three revolutionary waves pass over his country, and to watch with sorrow and bitterness of heart the disappointments to which they gave rise. He had seen the sore distress of the people whose condition the political changes of the first revolution left to all intents and purposes unimproved. It had, in fact, given rise to new social grievances. In destroying patriarchal relationships and feudal bonds of social union, it had handed over the masses to the tender mercies of free contract and competition. The introduction of machinery, with the rise of modern industry, had a pauperizing effect, and intensified popular discontent. Hence the various socialistic and communistic schemes for the liberation of the working-classes from the 'tyranny of capital,' and the attempts to promote the free association of labor by means of voluntary co-operation following in the wake of revolution.

"Every section of society was represented in this revolt against the excessive individualism of the laissezfaire system as the result of the new social contract. Among the saviours of society who rose rapidly one after another-Saint-Simon, on the part of aristocratic crétins impoverished by the revolution; Fourier, as the spokesman of the aggrieved lower middle-class, in danger of being crushed by the superior force of the plutocracy; Babœuf, representing the communistic materialism of the common people'-each in their own way had their theories of social reconstruction;

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whilst a small band of generously minded churchmen, with Lamennais at their head, made it their object to save society by means of spiritual regeneration." ! A reaction against liberalism set in. This was of two kinds. A romantic party, represented by Adam