These  laws,  however,  wonld  be  only  indefinite,  incoherent,  and
more  or  less  effectual  explosions  of  wrath  and  discontent,  were  it
not  for  the  contemporaneous  evidence  of  wages  actually  paid,  evi-
dence which  I  have  been  able  to  supply,  ha-sing  long  been  an
assiduous  and  solitary  worker  in  this  field  of  research.  The  law
and  the  facts  illustrate  each  other.  But  I  must  say,  with  some
regret,  that  the  inferences  which  I  am  constrained  to  draw,
inferences  which  are  genuine  and  irrefutable  history,  have  not
increased  my  reverence  for  the  machinery  by  which  the  social  state
of  England  has  been  developed.  There  is,  I  must  confess,  a  sordid
aide  to  the  most  energetic  efforts  of  collective,  I  do  not  say
individual,  patriotism,  and  the  student  of  the  economical  history  of
England  has  to  prepare  himself  for  painful  experiences,  even  during
the  most  heroic  ages  of  our  political  history.  At  the  same  time,
men  are  not  to  be  blamed  for  taking  advantage  of  what  law  accords
them.  It  is  to  their  credit  that,  in  course  of  time,  they  became
more  merciful  than  the  law,  as  I  have  found  that  they  constantly
were.  They  never,  to  be  sure,  when  they  made  the  machinery  of
their  discipline,  and  what  they  called  law  and  order,  more  searching
and  more  severe,  declared  that  they  had  created  no  new  crime,  when
their  principal  and  successful  effort  was  to  render  it  impossible,  by
studiously  demoralizing  the  agents  of  law,  to  distinguish  between
innocence  and  guilt.
