But a knowledge of the cause does not make the fact more tolerable.

We are not at present concerned with the requirements of the industrial machine, but with the quantity of hopeless, helpless misery these requirements indicate.

The fact that under existing conditions the unemployed seem inevitable should afford the strongest motive for a change in these conditions.

Modern life has no more tragical figure than the gaunt, hungry labourer wandering about the crowded centres of industry and wealth, begging in vain for permission to share in that industry, and to contribute to that wealth; asking in return not the comforts and luxuries of civilized life, but the rough food and shelter for himself and family, which would be practically secured to him in the rudest form of savage society.
Occasionally one of these sensational stories breaks into the light of day, through the public press, and shocks society at large, until it relapses into the consoling thought that such cases are exceptional.

But those acquainted closely with the condition of our great cities know that there are thousands of such silent tragedies being played around us.