I have looked upon the vast army of police which New York City maintains to protect life and so-called "vested rights," and I have concluded that there is something wrong in the social system which can only be kept intact by the expenditure of so much productive force, for this vast army, which stands on the street corners and lurks in the alley ways, "spotting," suspicious persons, "keeping an eye" on strangers who look "smart," this vast army contributes nothing to the production of wealth. It is, essentially, a parasite. And yet, without this army of idlers, life would be in constant danger and property would fall prey not only to the vicious and the desperate, but to the hungry men and women who have neither a place to shelter them from the storms of heaven, nor food to sustain nature's cravings from finding an eternal resting place in the Potter's Field. And, even after every precaution which selfishness can devise, courts of law and police officers are powerless to stay the hand of the pariahs whom society has outlawed--the men and women who are doomed to starve to death and be buried at the expense of society. The streets of every city in the Union are full of people who have been made desperate by social adjustments which prophets laud to the skies and which philosophers commend as "ideal," as far as they go. One-half the producing power of the United States is to-day absolutely dependent upon the cold charity of the world; one fourth does not make sufficient to live beyond the day, while the other one-fourth only manages to live comfortably at the expense of the most parsimonious economy. It is becoming a mooted question whether labor-saving machinery has not supplanted muscle-power in the production of every article to such a marvelous extent as to make thoughtful men tremble for the future of those who can only hope to live upon the produce of their labors. The machine has taken the place, largely, of man in the production of articles of consumption, of wear and of ornamentation; but no machine has, as yet, been invented to take the place of human wants. The markets of the world are actually glutted with articles produced by machine labor, but there are no purchasers with the means to buy, to consume the additional production caused by machinery and the consequent cheapening of processes of producing the articles of consumption, ornamentation, etc. When men have work they have money; and when men have money they spend it. Hence, when the toilers of a land have steady employment trade is brisk; when business stagnation forces them into idleness vice and crime afflict the country.