129.  The beginning of all true reformation among the criminal classes depends on the establishment of institutions for their active employment, while their criminality is still unripe, and their feelings of self-respect, capacities of affection, and sense of justice, not altogether quenched.  That those who are desirous of employment should always be able to find it, will hardly, at the present day, be disputed; but that those who are undesirous of employment should of all persons be the most strictly compelled to it, the public are hardly yet convinced; and they must be convinced.  If the danger of the principal thoroughfares in their capital city, and the multiplication of crimes more ghastly than ever yet disgraced a nominal civilization, are not enough, they will not have to wait long before they receive sterner lessons.  For our neglect of the lower orders has reached a point at which it begins to bear its necessary fruit, and every day makes the fields, not whiter, but more stable, to harvest.

130.  The general principles by which employment should be regulated may be briefly stated as follows: 

I. There being three great classes of mechanical powers at our disposal, namely, (a) vital or muscular power; (b) natural mechanical power of wind, water, and electricity; and (c) artificially produced mechanical power; it is the first principle of economy to use all available vital power first, then the inexpensive natural forces, and only at last have recourse to artificial power.  And this because it is always better for a man to work with his own hands to feed and clothe himself, than to stand idle while a machine works for him; and if he cannot by all the labor healthily possible to him feed and clothe himself, then it is better to use an inexpensive machine—­as a windmill or watermill—­than a costly one like a steam-engine, so long as we have natural force enough at our disposal.  Whereas at present we continually hear economists regret that the water-power of the cascades or streams of a country should be lost, but hardly ever that the muscular power of its idle inhabitants should be lost; and, again, we see vast districts, as the south of Provence, where a strong wind* blows steadily all day long for six days out of seven throughout the year, without a windmill, while men are continually employed at a hundred miles to the north, in digging fuel to obtain artificial power.  But the principal point of all to be kept in view is, that in every idle arm and shoulder throughout the country there is a certain quantity of force, equivalent to the force of so much fuel; and that it is mere insane waste to dig for coal for our force, while the vital force is unused, and not only unused, but in being so, corrupting and polluting itself.  We waste our coal, and spoil our humanity at one and the same instant.  Therefore, wherever there is an idle arm, always save coal with it, and the stores of England will last all the longer.