worth reprinting. I have not the date of the number of the Gazette in which it appeared, but it was during the tailors' strike in London.
"To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette,
"Sir,—
"In your yesterday's article on strikes you have very neatly and tersely expressed the primal fallacy of modern political economy—to wit, that 'the value of any piece of labour cannot be defined'—and that 'all that can be ascertained is simply whether any man can be got to do it for a certain sum.' Now, sir, the 'value' of any piece of labour, that is to say, the quantity of food and air which will enable a man to perform it without losing actually any of his flesh or his nervous energy, is as absolutely fixed a quantity as the weight of powder necessary to carry a given ball a given distance. And within limits varying by exceedingly minor and unimportant circumstances, it is an ascertainable quantity. I told the public this five years ago—and under pardon of your politico-economical contributors—it is not a 'sentimental,' but a chemical fact.
"Let any half-dozen of recognised London physicians state in precise terms the quantity and kind of food, and space of lodging, they consider approximately necessary for the healthy life of a labourer in any given manufacture, and the
