Viking
December 25th 07, 06:01 PM
city that we know today. It was a dark, dirty, miserable
place where hardly anybody had enough to eat and where hundreds and
thousands of poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to
sleep under. Children no older than you had to work twelve hours a day for
cruel masters who flogged them with whips if they worked too slowly and fed
them on nothing but stale breadcrusts and water. But in among all this
terrible poverty there were just a few great big beautiful houses that were
lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servants to look after them.
These rich men were called capitalists. They were fat, ugly men with wicked
faces, like the one in the picture on the opposite page. You can see that
he is dressed in a long black coat which was called a frock coat, and a
queer, shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat. This
was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it.
The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their
slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all
the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw them into prison, or
they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary
person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off
his cap and address him as 'Sir'. The chief of all the capitalists was
called the King, and--
But he knew the rest of the catalogue. There would be mention of the
bishops in their lawn sleeves, the judges in their ermine robes, the
pillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the cat-o'-nine tails, the Lord Mayor's
Banquet, and the practice of kissing the Pope's toe. There was also
something called the jus primae noctis, which would probably not be
mentioned in a textbook for children. It was the law by which every
capitalist had the right to sleep with any woman working in one of his
factories.
How
place where hardly anybody had enough to eat and where hundreds and
thousands of poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to
sleep under. Children no older than you had to work twelve hours a day for
cruel masters who flogged them with whips if they worked too slowly and fed
them on nothing but stale breadcrusts and water. But in among all this
terrible poverty there were just a few great big beautiful houses that were
lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servants to look after them.
These rich men were called capitalists. They were fat, ugly men with wicked
faces, like the one in the picture on the opposite page. You can see that
he is dressed in a long black coat which was called a frock coat, and a
queer, shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat. This
was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it.
The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their
slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all
the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw them into prison, or
they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary
person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off
his cap and address him as 'Sir'. The chief of all the capitalists was
called the King, and--
But he knew the rest of the catalogue. There would be mention of the
bishops in their lawn sleeves, the judges in their ermine robes, the
pillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the cat-o'-nine tails, the Lord Mayor's
Banquet, and the practice of kissing the Pope's toe. There was also
something called the jus primae noctis, which would probably not be
mentioned in a textbook for children. It was the law by which every
capitalist had the right to sleep with any woman working in one of his
factories.
How