one-third, and sometimes a half, less work than I am now forced to get through; and, even to manage that much, I shouldn't be idle a second of my time. It's quite a mystery to me how they _do_ contrive to get so much work out of the men. But they are very clever people. They know how to have the most out of a man, better than any one in the world. They are all picked men in the shop—regular "strappers," and no mistake. The most of them are five foot ten, and fine broad-shouldered, strong-backed fellows too—if they weren't they wouldn't have them. Bless you, they make no words with the men, they sack them if they're not strong enough to do all they want; and they can pretty soon tell, the very first shaving a man strikes in the shop, what a chap is made of. Some men are done up at such work—quite old men and gray, with spectacles on, by the time they are forty. I have seen fine strong men, of thirty-six, come in there, and be bent double in two or three years. They are most all countrymen at the strapping shops. If they see a great strapping fellow, who they think has got some stuff about him that will come out, they will give him a job directly. We are used for all the world like cab or omnibus-horses. Directly they've had all the work out of us, we are turned off, and I am sure, after my day's work is over, my feelings must be very much the same as one of the London cab-horses. As for Sunday, it is _literally_ a day of rest with us, for the greater part of us lay a-bed all day, and even that will hardly take the aches and pains out of our bones and muscles. When I'm done and flung by, of course I must starve.'" It may be said that, exhausting as this labour certainly is, it is not slavery; for the workman has a will of his own, and need not work if he does not choose to do it. Besides, he is not held by law; he may leave the shop; he may seek some other land. These circumstances make his case very different from the negro slave of America. True, but the difference is in favour of the negro slave. The London workman has only the alternative—such labour as has been described, the workhouse, or starvation. The negro slave seldom has such grinding toil, is provided for whether he performs it or not, and can look forward to an old age of comfort and repose. The London workman may leave his shop, but he will be either consigned to the prison of a workhouse or starved. He might leave the country, if he could obtain the necessary funds. Family work, or the conjoint labour of a workman's wife and children, is one of the results of the wretchedly rewarded slavery in the various trades. Mr Mayhew gives the following statement of a "fancy cabinet" worker upon this subject:—