I kep a-thinkin' of this, and finally I tackled Elnathan about it, and he laughed, Elnathan did, and begun to talk about the swarms and herds of useless and criminal humanity a-cumberin' the ground, and he threw a lot of statisticks at me. But they didn't hit me. Good land! I wuzn't afraid on 'em, nor I didn't care anything about 'em, and I gin him to understand that I didn't. And in the cause of duty I kep on a-tacklin' him about them housen of hisen, and advisin' him to tear 'em down, and build wholesome ones, and in the place of the worst ones, to help make some little open breathin' places for the poor creeters down there, with a green tree now and then. And then agin he brung up the utter worthlessness, and shiftlessness, and viciousness of the class I wuz a-talkin' about. And then I sez--"How is anybody a-goin' to live pattern lives, when they are a-starvin' to death? And how is anybody a-goin' to enjoy religion when they are a-chokin'?" And then he threw some more statisticks at me, dry and hard ones too; and agin he see they didn't hit me, and then he kinder laughed agin, and assumed something of a jokelar air--such as men will when they are a-talkin' to wimmen--dretful exasperatin', too--and sez he-- "You are a Philosopher, Cousin Samantha, and you must know such housen as you are a-talkin' about are advantageous in one way, if in no other--they help to reduce the surplus population. If it wuzn't for such places, and for the electric wires, and bomb cranks, and accidents, etc., the world would git too full to stand up in." "Help to reduce the surplus population!" sez I, and my voice shook with indignation as I said it. Sez I-- "Elnathan Allen, you had better stop a-pilin' up your statisticks, for a spell, and come down onto the level of humanity and human brotherhood." Sez I, "Spozen you should take it to yourself for a spell, imagine how it would be with you if you had been born there onbeknown to yourself." Sez I, "If you wuz a-livin' down there in them horrible pits of disease and death--if you wuz a-standin' over the dyin' bed of wife or mother, or other dear one, and felt that if you could bring one fresh, sweet breath of air to the dear one, dyin' for the want of it, you would almost barter your hopes of eternity-- "If you stood there in that black, chokin' atmosphere, reekin' with all pestilental and moral death, and see the one you loved best a-slippin' away from you--borne out of your sight, borne away into the onknown, on them dead waves of poisinous, deathly air--I guess you wouldn't talk about reducin' the Surplus Population." I had been real eloquent, and I knew it, for I felt deeply what I said. But Elnathan looked cheerful under all my talk. It didn't impress him a mite, I could see. He felt safe. He wuz sure the squalor and sufferin' never would or could touch him. He thought, in the words of the Him slightly changed, that: "He could read his title clear to Mansions with all the modern improvements."