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ABOUT PEOPLE.

week, and the temptations induced by such wages are tremendous. It is starvation pay which drives hundreds into immoral life. They may be wretched workwomen, but almost any labor is worth more than two dollars a week; and fuller pay would kindle ambition to produce better work. In all our large cities and towns the underbidding of wages is contemptible; goods, whether in the raw material or as made up, pass through hand after hand, in the modern subdivision of life, until the last producer — generally a woman, living in an attic or cellar — can barely earn enough to pay for rent and one decent meal a day. The poorer she is the less in one sense are her needs, as ignorance and poverty create their own boundaries of want. But along the whole descent to her condition are others who cannot eke out the means for their necessary wants; and, when we say we all have a right to life, liberty, and happiness, we forget how society constantly curtails the

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