Abandon labor to its own tendencies, and the
subjection of three-fourths of the human race is assured.
But this is not all. The machine, or the workshop, after having
degraded the laborer by giving him a master, completes his
degeneracy by reducing him from the rank of artisan to that of
common workman.
Formerly the population on the banks of the Saone and Rhone was
largely made up of watermen, thoroughly fitted for the conduct of
canal-boats or row-boats. Now that the steam-tug is to be found
almost everywhere, most of the boatmen, finding it impossible to
get a living at their trade, either pass three-fourths of their
life in idleness, or else become stokers.
If not misery, then degradation: such is the last alternative
which machinery offers to the workman. For it is with a machine
as with a piece of artillery: the captain excepted, those whom it
occupies are servants, slaves.
Since the establishment of large factories, a multitude of little
industries have disappeared from the domestic hearth: does any
one believe that the girls who work for ten and fifteen cents
have as much intelligence as their ancestors?
"After the establishment of the railway from Paris to Saint
Germain," M.
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