Here are a few of the Acts which Spencer denounced: An Act directing the Board of Trade to record the draught of sea-going vessels leaving port, and another to fix the number of life-boats and the life-saving appliances such vessels should carry. An Act making illegal a mine with a single shaft: The inspection of white lead works to compel the owners to provide overalls, respirators, baths, acidulated drinks, etc., for the workmen: Providing for the inspection of gas works: Making compulsory regulations for extinguishing fires in London; Taxing the locality for local drainage; That bake-houses should have a periodical lime washing, and a cleaning with soap and hot water at least once in six months; To secure decent lodgings for persons picking fruit and vegetables for public consumption; To provide free compulsory education and public schools; The Public Libraries Act; All the Factory Acts limiting child labor or enforcing the protection of dangerous machinery; The Preservation of Seabirds Act; The establishment of state telegraphy; Proposals to feed children; Government endowment of scientific research; etc. All these measures, and many others of similar nature, excited the indignation of the greatest prophet of Individualism because, forsooth, they modified somebody’s right to do as he pleased about something. Luckily for England, Mr. Spencer and a handful of his individualist disciples stood alone, while the electorate carried these laws through their highest tribunals. One can imagine the “joy of living” in an individualist arcadia fashioned after Mr. Spencer’s own heart. A working man would be able to take up the occupation of a sailor. He could embark on the rotten old tub of some greedy shipowner, insured for many times its value, loaded to the gunwales and sure to sink when it got out of sight of land to where the water was a little rougher than plate glass. Of course he would be living under a system of “voluntary co-operation” and “freedom of contract” and if he didn’t wish to go to sea he could stay at home and--starve. There would be very little work in port unloading ships, as so many of them would never return to be unloaded. When the insurance money was paid the shipowner could give a banquet and hold forth on the individual right of the sailor to get drowned in the interests of commerce without the government meddling about life boats and other expensive and nonsensical appliances.