or in some sense capitalists, who, realizing their defect and how it crushes them to the earth—realizing, at least, that they must live somehow, and that, so long as they may remain idle, their sustenance must come out of our earnings or our hoards—still look vacantly, stupidly on, and see them flounder ever in this tantalizing and ultimately devouring whirlpool, without stretching forth a hand to rescue and save them. As individuals, the few can do little or nothing; but as the State the whole might do much—every thing—for these poor, perishing stragglers. As I look out upon their ill-directed, incoherent, ineffective efforts to find work and bread, they picture themselves on my mind’s eye as disjointed fragments and wrecks of humanity—mere heads, or trunks, or limbs—(oftener “hands”)—torn apart by some inscrutable Providence, and anxiously, dumbly awaiting the creative word, the electric flash, which can alone recombine and restore them to their proper integrity and practical efficiency. That word no individual has power to speak; but Society, the State, the Commonwealth, may readily pronounce it. Let the State but decree—“There shall be work for every one who will do it; but no subsistence in pauper idleness for any save the incapable of working”—and all will be transformed. Take the orphan from the cellar, the beggar from the street, the petty filcher from the crowded wharves, and place them all where they must earn their bread, and in earning it acquire the capacity to labor efficiently for themselves—this is a primary dictate of Public Economy no less than of enlightened Philanthropy. Palaces vaster and more commodious than Paxton ever dreamed of might be built and furnished by the labor which now wears itself out in vain attempts to find employment—by the application of faculties now undeveloped or perverted to evil ends. Only let Society recognize and accept its duty to find work for all who can find none for themselves, and the realm of Misery and Despair will be three-fourths conquered at a blow by Industry, Thrift and Content.