[_He walks up and
down silently for a few moments._] I sincerely trust such a thing will
not occur again.--Who gets all the blame for it? Why, of course the
manufacturer. It's entirely our fault. If some poor little fellow sticks
in the snow in winter and goes to sleep, a special correspondent arrives
post-haste, and in two days we have a blood-curdling story served up in
all the papers. Is any blame laid on the father, the parents, that send
such a child?--Not a bit of it. How should they be to blame? It's all the
manufacturer's fault--he's made the scapegoat. They flatter the weaver,
and give the manufacturer nothing but abuse--he's a cruel man, with a
heart like a stone, a dangerous fellow, at whose calves every cur of a
journalist may take a bite. He lives on the fat of the land, and pays the
poor weavers starvation wages. In the flow of his eloquence the writer
forgets to mention that such a man has his cares too and his sleepless
nights; that he runs risks of which the workman never dreams; that he is
often driven distracted by all the calculations he has to make, and all
the different things he has to take into account; that he has to struggle
for his very life against competition; and that no day passes without
some annoyance or some loss.
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