overworked. "There are several ways of bringing the unhappy employees to this state of servile subjection. One is to browbeat, to bully, and to intimidate, till their nerve be gone and their spirit be broken. But why stand it, you ask? Why not throw off these chains, and seek work at the hands of some employer who is considerate and just. The reason is that such an employer is not easy to find, and, when found, the chances are a hundred to one against his having a vacancy on his staff. "Every man in a situation knows that there are thousands out, and that, were he to resign his post, it would be filled, almost at a moment's notice, and at any wage which an employer chose to offer. Such knowledge as that gives pause to the man who is minded to assert his independence, for out of his meagre salary it is almost impossible to save; and to be out of work even for a week or two, with nothing to fall back upon, means not only starvation for him and his, but means that every week he is out, the longer is he likely to remain so. It means shabby clothes; for how, without money, can he buy new clothes to keep up the appearance which is of so much importance to him when applying for a post? It means that in an incredibly short time he begins to look shabby and broken-down--begins to look, in fact, like one of life's derelicts, and, of life's derelicts, employers are apt to fight shy. "Another reason why a man hesitates to throw off his chains is that some employers have been known to refuse a character to the clerk or assistant who has asserted his independence, and the independence of his class, by discharging himself; and at the man who comes seeking work, without a 'character,' no other employer will look. For an employee to dare to prove that he has been overworked and underpaid by discharging himself, and finding new employment, where the work is less and the rate of pay higher, would be an example (your employer argues) which would demoralise the whole staff. Such a state of things approaches to sacrilege, blasphemy, anarchy. It must not be permitted. Of the man who dares so to act, so to set employers as a class at defiance, an object-lesson must be made, lest so dangerous an example infect the workers who remain. I have known cases where, to such a man, not only has a character been refused, but where a trumped-up charge of theft, or insubordination, or other misconduct, has been brought against him, that he and his fellow-slaves may be taught the salutary lesson that, against Capital, Labour has no chance; against the employer, the employee has no appeal. It is slavery, a thousand times worse than that of the Chinese coolies about which some good folk have such tender consciences.