brought by special trains, the exactly needful number to
each place! And to contrast all this with our present
agonizing system of independent small farming, -- a stunted,
haggard, ignorant man, mated with a yellow, lean, and sad-
eyed drudge, and toiling from four o'clock in the morning
until nine at night, working the children as soon as they
are able to walk, scratching the soil with its primitive
tools, and shut out from all knowledge and hope, from all
the benefits of science and invention, and all the joys of
the spirit -- held to a bare existence by competition in
labor, and boasting of his freedom because he is too blind
to see his chains!"

Dr. Schliemann paused a moment. "And then," he
continued, "place beside this fact of an unlimited food sup~
ply, the newest discovery of physiologists, that most of the
ills of the human system are due to overfeeding! And
then again, it has been proven that meat is unnecessary as
a food; and meat is obviously more difficult to produce
than vegetable food, less pleasant to prepare and handle,
and more likely to be unclean. But what of that, so long
as it tickles the palate more strongly?"

"How would Socialism change that?" asked the girl-
student, quickly. It was the first time she had spoken.

"So long as we have wage slavery," answered Schlie~
mann, "it matters not in the least how debasing and repul~
sive a task may be, it is easy to find people to perform it.
But just as soon as labor is set free, then the price of such
work will begin to rise. So one by one the old, dingy, and
unsanitary factories will come down -- it will be cheaper
to build new; and so the steamships will be provided with
stoking-machinery, and so the dangerous trades will be
made safe, or substitutes will be found for their products.
In exactly the same way, as the citizens of our Industrial
Republic become refined, year by year the cost of slaughter~
house products will increase; until eventually those who
want to eat meat will have to do their own killing -- and
how long do you think the custom would survive then?
-- To go on to another item -- one of the necessary accom~
paniments of capitalism in a democracy is political cor~

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