"Could some one who had emigrated from our shores sixty years ago return to-day he would scarcely recognize in the ordinary working men the sons or grandsons of the working men whom he knew. He would note that their dress and that of their families were much improved; they wear better clothes than their masters wore in 1837. They eat and drink better food and drink than was then within their reach; and, with the price of wheat which has ruled in recent years, they know nothing of the sharp pressure of want, the periodic returns of semi-starvation which then visited large masses of men. Such an observer would find that the working-man's house was more commodious and better furnished, and, if his tastes kept him from the publichouse, had its little store of luxuries and ornaments. Model dwellings are erected for him... If he is ill, hospitals which he does little to support receive him... Should he or his sons be studious, there are free libraries, institutions which, at convenient hours, give him sound instruction, and plenty of people disposed to applaud his efforts to better his lot or enlarge his intelligence. In short, he is better fed, better clothed, better housed, better paid, better educated, lives longer, probably, as a rule, weighs more than his father or grandfather."