Agricultural colonies; Poor -- Great Britain; Salvation Army; Unemployed -- Great Britain
Neither is it possible to hope for many years to come that human beings
generally will be as well cared for as horses. Mr. Carlyle long ago
remarked that the four-footed worker has already got all that this
two-handed one is clamouring for: "There are not many horses in
England, able and willing to work, which have not due food and lodging
and go about sleek coated, satisfied in heart." You say it is
impossible; but, said Carlyle, "The human brain, looking at these sleek
English horses, refuses to believe in such impossibility for English
men." Nevertheless, forty years have passed since Carlyle said that,
and we seem to be no nearer the attainment of the four-footed standard
for the two-handed worker. "Perhaps it might be nearer realisation,"
growls the cynic, "if we could only product men according to demand, as
we do horses, and promptly send them to the slaughter-house when past
their prime"--which, of course, is not to be thought of.
What, then, is the standard towards which we may venture to aim with
some prospect of realisation in our time? It is a very humble one, but
if realised it would solve the worst problems of modern Society. It is
the standard of the London Cab Horse. When in the streets of London a
Cab Horse, weary or careless or stupid, trips and falls and lies
stretched out in the midst of the traffic there is no question of
debating how he came to stumble before we try to get him on his legs
again. The Cab Horse is a very real illustration of poor broken-down
humanity; he usually falls down because of overwork and underfeeding.
If you put him on his feet without altering his conditions, it would
only be to give him another dose of agony; but first of all you'll have
to pick him up again. It may have been through overwork or
underfeeding, or it may have been all his own fault that he has broken
his knees and smashed the shafts, but that does not matter. If not for
his own sake, then merely in order to prevent an obstruction of the
traffic, all attention is concentrated upon the question of how we are
to get him on his legs again. Tin load is taken off, the harness is
unbuckled, or, if need be, cut, and everything is done to help him up.
Then he is put in the shafts again and once more restored to his
regular round of work. That is the first point. The second is that
every Cab Horse in London has three things; a shelter for the night,
food for its stomach, and work allotted to it by which it can earn its
corn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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