"_drunken beast_," or the "_brute_," would be more likely. There are parts of great towns where decent people never go unless by sheer need, and where in the night they would not go unless accompanied by a policeman. Nothing can describe the aspect of the dark courts and streets, of the mean and filthy buildings, shops, and dens! Nastiness, foul smells, dirty shambles and garbage; doors and windows smashed and stuffed with rags; gutters festering with impurities; and the human vermin swarming like maggots in rotten flesh! Upon _this_ foundation the palaces of the rich and the vast stone Temples rest; one wonders that they do not sink into it. It is a great boast of the English Barbarians that "a slave cannot breathe in England." At first, when I heard this, I supposed that it meant that he would die under the conditions of life awaiting him--he would not be able to _breathe_--and therefore slaves were unable to live in the land. But the boast merely means that it is not permitted to add _black_ slaves from abroad; they cannot live in England; nor do I think they could. I do not comprehend the boast, unless on the ground that it would be an expensive as well as useless cruelty to land even _blacks_, merely to have the trouble and cost of burying their carcases. I have called these low-castes _Serfs_, disregarding the barbarian _fiction_ which calls them _free_. Not long since they were slaves under precise law; now they are so by universal custom. When they were legal _slaves_ they had some care and protection; there was _a tie_ existing between master and servant; hearty service and affectionate concern rendered the relation not merely supportable, but positively advantageous. The tie is severed; there is neither hearty service nor affectionate concern. The master possesses everything as before, but he is no longer _obliged_ to maintain his labourers. These are numerous; they must work or starve. Whilst they _work_ they get enough perhaps to live; no longer able to work, mere pauper-life in poorhouses and the pauper's grave await them. Nor do the masters even pay for these; they have cunningly contrived to have the expense borne by all who have anything to be taxed. Thus the severance of the ancient tie has only enriched the High-Castes and freed them from all obligation to care for the labourer, and sunk him into a condition of hopeless and debasing poverty. The freedom is all on the strong side; the _slavery_ more abject and less softened by humane sentiments.