Of course, if you had proper food and clothes and hadn't to work more than a reasonable number of hours every day, there is no natural reason why you should not live for another fifty or sixty years: but we'll say thirty.

Do you mean to say that you are able to contemplate with indifference the prospect of living for another thirty years under such conditions as those we endure at present ?' Easton made no reply.
'If you were to commit some serious breach of the law, and were sentenced next week to ten years' penal servitude, you'd probably think your fate a very pitiable one: yet you appear to submit quite cheerfully to this other sentence, which is--that you shall die a premature death after you have done another thirty years' hard labour.' Easton continued painting the skirting.
'When there's no work,' Owen went on, taking another dip of paint as he spoke and starting on one of the lower panels of the door, 'when there's no work, you will either starve or get into debt.

When--as at present--there is a little work, you will live in a state of semi-starvation.

When times are what you call "good", you will work for twelve or fourteen hours a day and--if you're VERY lucky--occasionally all night.

The extra money you then earn will go to pay your debts so that you may be able to get credit again when there's no work.' Easton put some putty in a crack in the skirting.
'In consequence of living in this manner, you will die at least twenty years sooner than is natural, or, should you have an unusually strong constitution and live after you cease to be able to work, you will be put into a kind of jail and treated like a criminal for the remainder of your life.' Having faced up the cracks, Easton resumed the painting of the skirting.
'If it were proposed to make a law that all working men and women were to be put to death--smothered, or hung, or poisoned, or put into a lethal chamber--as soon as they reached the age of fifty years, there is not the slightest doubt that you would join in the uproar of protest that would ensue.