Surely they cannot be better dressed than they are in England, for you hardly know a working man here from an aristocrat?--It is precisely because I do know working men on a Sunday and every other day of the week from an aristocrat that I like their dress better in France; it is the ordinary dress belonging to their position, and it expresses momentarily what they are; it is the blue blouse which hangs freely over their frames, keeping them sufficiently protected from cold and dust; but here it is a shirt open at the collar, very dirty, very much torn, with ragged hair, and a ragged coat, and altogether a dress of misery. You think that they are better dressed abroad because they wear a blouse?--Because they wear a costume appropriate to their work. Are you aware that they make it an invariable custom to leave off the blouse on Sundays and on holidays, and that after they have finished their work they take off their blouse?--I am not familiar, nor do I profess to be familiar, with the customs of the Continent; I am only stating my impressions; but I like especially their habit of wearing a national costume. I believe the national costume of work in Switzerland to be at the root of what prosperity Switzerland yet is retaining. I think, for instance, although it may sound rather singular to say so, that the pride which the women take in their clean chemise sleeves, is one of the healthiest things in Switzerland, and that it is operative in every way on the health of the mind and the body, their keeping their costume pure, fresh, and beautiful. You stated that the working classes were better dressed abroad than in England?--As far as I know, that is certainly the fact. Still their better dress consists of a blouse, which they take off when they have finished their work?--I bow to your better knowledge of the matter. _Chairman._ Are you aware that a considerable number of the working classes are in bed on the Sunday?--Perhaps it is the best place for them. 167. _Mr. Kinnaird._ You trace the deterioration in the condition of the working classes to the increase of trade and manufactures in this country?--To the increase of competitive trades and manufactures. It is your conviction that we may look upon this vast extension of trade, and commerce, and competition, altogether as an evil?--Not on the vast extension of trade, but on the vast extension of the struggle of man with man, instead of the principle of help of man by man. _Chairman._ I understood you to say, that you did not object to trade, but that you wished each country to produce that which it was best fitted to produce, with a view to an interchange of its commodities with those of other countries?--Yes.