Statistics have shown that the number of inmates in our prisons increases with every rise in the price of food. If a combination increases the price of flour a cent a pound and ten thousand men are sent to jail throughout the world, in the judgment of infinite wisdom and justice who will be held responsible for the crime? Every time that the trust raises the price of coal some poor victims are sent to jail, and at every raise in the price of oil some girls are sent out upon the streets to get their bread by a life of wretchedness and shame. That these property laws are purely arbitrary is shown by the slightest thought. The criminal statutes forbid extortion and swindling, and yet the largest part of business is extortion, and much of the balance is swindling. When the law forbids extortion and swindling, it simply forbids certain forms and methods of these acts, and these forms and methods are the ones not practiced by the ruling class. They are so small and insignificant as not to constitute business but only petty annoyance to the ruling class. To go directly to a victim and by threats of violence compel him to pay more for some commodity than it is really worth is generally extortion, but this is a very clumsy and infrequent act. Real extortion is taking for any service more than it is fairly worth by means of agencies created by the extorter to despoil his victim, and this is the business of the business world. Nearly every street-car line and every gas plant in the world operates its business by means of special privileges, and from one-half to three-fourths of the money they receive is extorted from that portion of the community that has no redress. The railroad companies, who, through watered stocks and bonds and combinations, charge the consumer twice and more the value of the service given, touch the pocket of everyone who lives in a modern state. The production of iron, clothing, many kinds of food, in fact the largest part of what is used in daily life, is controlled by combinations whose sole purpose is extortion; they scheme to absolutely control the market and take from the consumers what they have. And yet for this extortion which reaches every home and despoils every fireside, the law furnishes no redress. Either it does not come within the provisions of the law or else those who are charged with its enforcement do not care to reach this sort of extortion which is the only kind that really affects the world. In either case it shows that the penal code is made and enforced by the ruling class, not upon themselves, but to keep the weak at the bottom of the social scale.