Though Justice should not be a respecter of persons, the courts must respect persons if they have different incomes. Trial by jury is trial by a jury of peers, not only the peers of the accused but of the accusers and of the whole body of citizens. This is in practice impossible in a civilized society of persons with unequal incomes, as the person with a large income has not the same interests and privileges as the person with a small one. As access to the courts of justice costs money the poor are cut off from them by their poverty or terrorized by the threats of the rich to drag them there. The abuses of divorce and alimony. Sale of husbands and wives. Blackmail. Abuses in the criminal courts. Corruption of the law itself at its source in Parliament by the rich majority there. Severity of the laws against theft practised by the poor on the rich. Complete exemption of the crime of rich idling, which is the form of theft practised by the rich on the poor. Inequality of income thus effects a divorce of law from justice, leading to an anarchic disrespect for the law and a general suspicion of the good faith of lawyers. 56 18 THE IDLE RICH Idleness does not mean inactivity. Over-exertion and “rest cures” of the rich. Their dangerous and exhausting sports. The flapper dances harder than the postman walks. Spartan training of the old rich. It is soon acquired by the new rich, who begin by trying to loaf. The diplomatic and military services as preserves for the energetic rich. The unpaid magistry. Estate management. Parliament. Effect of contraception and hotel life in service flats in extending the possibilities of complete uselessness and self-indulgence. Exceptional cases of eminent workers with unearned incomes. Florence Nightingale and John Ruskin. Not inactivity but consuming without producing is what is meant by economic idleness. Ironic vanity of the attempt to secure happiness and freedom by having plenty of money and nothing to do. 59 19 CHURCH, SCHOOL, AND PRESS The Church school in the village. Deference to the rich taught as loyalty and religion. Persecution of schoolmasters for teaching equalitarian morality. Corruption of the universities and of the newspapers. Difficulty of separating the mass of falsehood inculcated and advertized in the interest of the rich from the genuine learning and information in which rich and poor have a common interest. 63 20 WHY WE PUT UP WITH IT