"Hitherto the comfortable classes have virtually answered the bitter complaints of the uncomfortable classes in some such terms as these: 'Poor people! we are very sorry for your suffering--we really feel for you--take this trifle--it will be some relief. We wish we could do more;--and now pray be quiet--don't distress us with your writhings and agonies--resign yourselves to the will of Providence, and bear hunger and cold in peace and seclusion;--above all, attempt no violence, or we must use violence to keep you quiet.' The answer of the uncomfortable classes to such admonitions, day by day becoming more unmistakable, is: 'Relieve us, relieve us! Make us comfortable, or show us how we may make ourselves comfortable: otherwise we must make you uncomfortable. We will be comfortable or uncomfortable together.' "'Vivre en travaillant, ou mourir en combatant.' In our last number, we ventured to offer a few indications as to what we considered a part, an important part, of the remedial measures to be resorted to for the prevention of human misery. We were then dealing with that question as a whole. We now propose to address ourselves to miseries of a class. "The sufferings of the distressed needle-woman have obtained an infamous notoriety--they are a scandal to our age and a reproach to our boasted civilization. They have been clothed in language at once truthful and impressive, full of pathos and yet free from exaggeration. Well known as Hood's immortal lines may be, we reproduce them here, because no narrative, no statistics of ours, could be more true nor half so much to the purpose: THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. "With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread. Stitch--stitch--stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt; And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch, She sang the 'Song of the Shirt!' "Work--work--work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work--work--work! Till the stars shine through the roof! It's O! to be a slave, Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If this is Christian work! "Work--work--work! Till the brain begins to swim; Work--work--work! Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam and gusset and band, Band and gusset and seam, Till o'er the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a dream! "O! men, with sisters dear! O! men, with mothers and wives, It is not linen you're wearing out! But human creatures' lives! Stitch--stitch--stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt; Sewing at once, with a double thread, A shroud as well as a shirt!