six
o’clock
Religion is a luxury ; the working man has no luxuries . Now , you speak of the free evenings ; people always do , when they 're asking why the working classes do n't educate themselves . Do you understand what that free evening means ? He gets home , say , at six o'clock , tired out ; he has to be up again perhaps at five next morning . What can he do but just lie about half asleep ? Why , that 's the whole principle of the capitalist system of employment ; it 's calculated exactly how long a man can be made to work in a day without making him incapable of beginning again on the day following -- just as it 's calculated exactly how little a man can live upon , in the regulation of wages . If the workman returned home with strength to spare , employers would soon find it out , and workshop legislation would be revised -- because of course it 's the capitalists that make the laws .