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It is difficult to account for the waste and extravagance of working
people. It must be the hereditary remnant of the original savage. It
must be a survival. The savage feasts and drinks until everything is
gone; and then he hunts or goes to war. Or it may be the survival of
slavery in the State. Slavery was one of the first of human
institutions. The strong man made the weak man work for him. The warlike
race subdued the less warlike race, and made them their slaves. Thus
slavery existed from the earliest times. In Greece and Rome the righting
was done by freemen, the labour by helots and bondsmen. But slavery also
existed in the family. The wife was the slave of her husband as much as
the slave whom he bought in the public market.
Slavery long existed among ourselves. It existed when Caesar lauded. It
existed in Saxon times, when the household work was done by slaves. The
Saxons were notorious slave-dealers, and the Irish were their best
customers. The principal mart was at Bristol, from whence the Saxons
exported large numbers of slaves into Ireland so that, according to
Irish historians, there was scarcely a house in Ireland without a
British slave in it.
When the Normans took possession of England, they continued slavery.
They made slaves of the Saxons themselves whom they decreed villeins and
bondsmen.
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