He was, he says,
moved to join them, but instead he remained watching. They were a dingy,
shabby, ineffective-looking multitude, for the most part incapable of
any but obsolete and superseded types of labour. They bore a few banners
with the time-honoured inscription: 'Work, not Charity,' but otherwise
their ranks were unadorned.
They were not singing, they were not even talking, there was nothing
truculent nor aggressive in their bearing, they had no definite
objective they were just marching and showing themselves in the more
prosperous parts of London. They were a sample of that great mass of
unskilled cheap labour which the now still cheaper mechanical powers had
superseded for evermore. They were being 'scrapped'--as horses had been
'scrapped.'
Barnet leant over the parapet watching them, his mind quickened by
his own precarious condition. For a time, he says, he felt nothing but
despair at the sight; what should be done, what could be done for this
gathering surplus of humanity? They were so manifestly useless--and
incapable--and pitiful.
What were they asking for?
They had been overtaken by unexpected things. Nobody had foreseen----
It flashed suddenly into his mind just what the multitudinous shambling
enigma below meant.
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80