Take, let us say, the ease of the recent railway disaster, and the
acquittal of the capitalists' interest. It is not a scientific problem
for us to investigate. It is a crime committed before our eyes; committed,
perhaps, by blind men or maniacs, or men hypnotised, or men in some other
ways unconscious; but committed in broad daylight, so that the corpse is
bleeding on our door-step. Good lives were lost, because good lives do
not pay; and bad coals do pay. It seems simply impossible to get any
other meaning out of the matter except that. And, if in human history
there be anything simple and anything horrible, it seems to have been
present in this matter. If, even after some study and understanding of
the old religious passions which were the resurrection of Europe, we
cannot endure the extreme infamy of witches and heretics literally burned
alive--well, the people in this affair were quite as literally burned
alive. If, when we have really tried to extend our charity beyond the
borders of personal sympathy, to all the complexities of class and creed,
we still feel something insolent about the triumphant and acquitted man
who is in the wrong, here the men who are in the wrong are triumphant and
acquitted. It is no subject for science. It is a subject for poetry.
But for poetry of a terrible sort.
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