“political and social rights of an Englishman.”[10] “The political and social rights of an Englishman.” We are fortunate in the possession of a man of genius who has also had personal experience of this particular life, and has left in literature a sharp-cut picture of the “political and social rights” interpreted into terms of daily experience. “‘By Jove,’ said Buggins, ‘it won’t do to give these here Blacks votes.’ ‘No fear,’ said Kipps. ‘They’re different altogether,’ said Buggins. ‘They ’aven’t the sound sense of Englishmen, and they ’aven’t the character. There’s a sort of tricky dishonesty about ’em.... They’re too timid to be honest. Too slavish. They aren’t used to being free, like we are; and if you gave ’em freedom, they wouldn’t make a proper use of it. Now _we_--Oh, _damn_!’ For the gas had suddenly gone out, and Buggins had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to read.” “What becomes of the good shop assistant when he grows old?” is a question almost as difficult to answer as the question, “What becomes of good Americans when they die?” The Government Committee could obtain no certain evidence. “I cannot say what does become of them. Some start in business on their own account; but now that the conditions are so changed, that is very difficult. They leave the drapery trade. Some get inferior situations. You may find old drapers’ assistants driving cabs to-day.” In South Wales, says one, “amongst the miners, I myself have come across an enormous number of old shop assistants.” The majority, like the majority of assistant masters in a slightly more exalted station of life, seem to slide out into all sorts of bypaths--in the one Empire building, tomato growing, or running preparatory schools whose competition and fate seems generally similar to that of the small retail drapery stores; in the other, “insurance agents, booksellers, and things of that kind.” But the work is genteel; sharply distinguished from that of the artisan: it is supposed to be especially suitable to boys and girls of delicate physique: and there are many who, from the beginning, would wish no otherwise than to be shepherded, tended, taken in and provided for, without the pains and risks of outside adventure. “We’re in a blessed drainpipe,” says Mr. Minton to Kipps cheerfully, “and we’ve got to crawl along it till we die.” Only to a percentage, at first, and then in effort, which every year diminishes, does the conviction come, as to “Kipps” in the night watches, when “all others in the dormitory are asleep and snoring,” that “the great stupid machine of retail trade had caught his life into its wheels, a vast irresistible force which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge to escape.” “Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown himself, and morning after morning he rose up and hurried downstairs in fear of a sixpenny fine.”[11]