think himself ill-used by reason of his making no profits, seeing that he did nothing for the public to entitle him to a remuneration.  The poor handloom weavers—­I grieve to think of the hardships they suffer.  Well do I remember when, in 1813 or 1814, a good workman in this craft could realise 36s. a week.  There were even traditions then of men who had occasionally eaten pound-notes upon bread and butter, or allowed their wives to spend L.8 upon a fine china tea-service.  There being a copious production of cotton-thread by machinery, but no machinery to make it into cloth, was the cause of the high wages then given to weavers.  Afterwards came the powerloom; and weavers can now only make perhaps 4s. 6d. per week, even while working for longer hours than is good for their health.  The result is most lamentable; but it cannot be otherwise, for the public will only reward services in the ratio of the value of these services to itself.  It will not encourage a human being, with his glorious apparatus of intelligence and reflection, to mis-expend himself upon work which can be executed equally well by unthinking machinery.  Were the poor weavers able so far to shake themselves free from what is perhaps a very natural prejudice, as to ask what do we do to entitle us to any better usage from the public, they would see that the fault lies in their continuing to be weavers at all.  They are precisely as the innkeeper would be, if he kept his house open after the railway had taken all his customers another way.

There are many cases in the professional walks of life fully as deplorable as that of the weavers.  Few things in the world are more painful to contemplate than a well-educated and able man vainly struggling to get bread as a physician, an artist, or an author.  It is of course right that such a man should not be too ready to abandon the struggle as hopeless; for a little perseverance and well-directed energy may bring him into a good position.  But if a fair experiment has been made, and it clearly appears that his services are not wanted, the professional aspirant ought undoubtedly to pause, and take a full unprejudiced view of his relation to the world.  ‘Am I,’ he may say, ’to expect reward if I persist in offering the world what it does not want?  Are my fellow-creatures wrong in withholding a subsistence from me, while I am rather consulting my own tastes and inclinations than their necessities?’ It may then occur to him that the great law must somehow be obeyed—­a something must be done for mankind which they require, and it must be done where and how they require it, in order that each individual may have a true claim upon the rest.  To get into the right and fitting place in the social machine may be difficult; but there is no alternative.  Let him above everything dismiss from his mind the notion, that others can seriously help him.  Let him be self-helpful, think and do for himself, and he will have the better chance of success.