Though the absolute sum received by the regularly employed navvy is greater than the wage of a laborer or even skilled mechanic in Italy, yet the former has a more trying and inclement climate; his wants, fancied or real, are more numerous; he is less able to maintain health and happiness on eighty cents a day than is done in Italy on half that sum. The condition of the irregularly employed navvy is, of course, even more deplorable.

The docks of London, Liverpool, and the other large seaports are crowded with these miserable men awaiting the uncertain chance of a few hours' employment. Through the fogs and drizzling rains of the long English winters they stand shivering around, and when a vessel arrives to be unloaded, a hundred men apply for work where only ten are needed. In a word, this class of men, though willing, even anxious to work, may be regarded as in a state little short of beggary. Within the last few years charitable societies have turned their attention in some degree towards this large and needy class, and now, at many places, especially at the London Docks, they have established stands where is furnished at a nominal price a plain, nourishing meal consisting ordinarily of hot soup, beef hash, lentils, coffee, and bread. Were it not for this charity it would be difficult to understand how the London and Liverpool and other dockyard navvy succeeds in existing-existing, for that he does not live the following table will show:

London Dockyard Laborer.

Family numbers five: parents and three children.

Condition.-Occupy two small rooms, uncomfortable and unclean. Family dress miserably; all drink too much. Father receives ten cents per hour when employed, but does not average above five or six hours per working-day. Wife goes out house-cleaning, scrubbing, etc. The children are for the most part left to care for themselves—are growing up, apparently, to become either beggars or criminals.

Earnings of the father..

Earnings of the mother..

Total earnings per year..

Per Year. $145 00

91 25

$236 25

Herc, it will be seen, is a family of five persons living on fifty-one cents a day, using in a year only twenty-two dollars' worth of clothing, and practising economy in every way, yet at the end of the year coming out $35.14 in debt.

Is free-trade responsible for this miserably paid class of labor?

"Yes," say Protectionists. "England has free-trade, she also has pauper labor; ergo, free-trade causes pauper labor."

This neat and nimble logic is too much for my sluggish reason to grasp. I examined the official statistical reports and learned that if England has paupers now under free-trade, it had many more forty years ago under protection, notwithstanding the population was less then than now. Speaking in round numbers, while the population in 1860 was under 29,000,000, and in 1885 was over 35,000,000, the number of paupers has decreased from 850,000 in 1860 to 780,000 in 1885; the number of criminals convicted in 1860 was 14,000, in 1885 only 11,000. Savings-bank deposits have increased from £40,000,

000 in 1860 to £90,000,000 in 1885. The national debt in 1860 was £822,000,000, in 1885 only £740,000,000. Exports in 1860 amounted to £165,000,000, in 1885 to £296,000,000. Shipping in 1860 amounted to 4,600,000 tons, in 1885 to 7,400,000 tons.

In other words, with an increase in population of 7,000,000, the national debt has been decreased by £82,000,000, the number of paupers has been decreased by 70,000; exports have increased by £131,000,000; the tonnage of English vessels has been increased by 2,800,000 tons; the prices of all necessaries of life have become lower; wages have risen-and all within the last twenty-five years under a free-trade policy.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ENGLISH ENGINES AND ROADS.-A SOCIALIST MEETING IN LIVERPOOL.-ODD ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF TEMPERANCE AND IRISH

HOME RULE.-HINTS TO PEDESTRIANS.-SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF THE TRAMP TRIP."

66

THE trains between London and Liverpool are drawn by huge engines, with driving-wheels six and a half and seven feet in diameter. The rate of speed ranges between fifty and sixty miles an hour. In England, and also in some of the European States, the law of the road is just the reverse of ours. Railwaytrains, carriages, trucks, etc., all go to the left, not to the right. Keep to the left (not right) as the law directs," is the sign one sees on stations and guide-posts.

I attended an open-air meeting in Liverpool. The speaker was an Irishman. He employed a novel argument in favor of Irish home rule.

"Give Ireland home rule," he said, from his stand on a barrel top," and you English workmen will have less competition. Thousands of Irishmen will return to their own country. Instead of three Irishmen looking for one man's place, there will be only one Englishman where the employer wants three."

The crowd seemed impressed by this argument, but hooted when the speaker went into a rhapsody over Ireland, "the land of morality, of virtue, and piety."

The orator who followed the home rule advocate was a Socialist. He described a visit to the mansion of the Duke of Westininster at Chester:

"Some of the chairs cost ninety guineas. The ceiling of one room cost fifteen thousand pounds. Those chairs are yours. You made them; why do you not keep them? You

is yours.

get only thirty shillings a week; the duke's income is fifteen thousand pounds a week. Does he earn that money? No; it Shoemakers work fourteen hours a day making shoes; their own shoes let water in at one end and out at the other. All we want is to keep a fair share of what we ourselves produce. Through all the ages we have built palaces and dwelt in hovels [cries of "Iear, hear!"]. The duke's dogs and horses are better fed than the men who built his palace. I would take away some of the duke's fifteen thousand pounds a week and the Queen's fourteen hundred pounds a day, and add to the four shillings a day of the laborer, the artisan, the mcchanic. It is they who carn that money; it is they who should keep it."

The vast crowd that listened to this man's address was composed in great part of hard, honest toilers. They listened attentively, and occasionally cried, "Hear, hear !" in token of approbation. Straws show which way the wind blows. There is an undercurrent in England that in time will come to the surface and sweep away king and dukes and purse-proud employers.

The Socialist speaker had not used tobacco for seventeen years.

"I do not use it," he said, "because I am determined not to help the robbing Government by paying tobacco duty."

He advised workmen to eschew both whiskey and tobacco for the same reason. His advice was good; the reason, however, seemed to me to savor of absurdity.

Perhaps few or none who have accompanied me in these pages on my “Tramp Trip" will care to make such a trip in person. I will nevertheless add a few hints on pedestrianism. The first and most important item is the outfit. Unless that be selected with judgment the trip will seem more like work than pleasure. Two or three pounds more or less are ordinarily of no moment; but when it comes to packing two or three pounds extra on your back five hundred or a thousand miles,