The ways of the manufacturing districts, which seem unpleasing to those who do not really know them, are described with a faithful yet kindly pen, and we see that each life has its trials and its temptations.

In the South all is not sunshine, and the life of the labourer can be very hard—­“a young person can stand it; but an old man gets racked with rheumatism, and bent and withered before his time; yet he must work on the same, or else go to the workhouse.”

In the North men are often at enmity with their masters, and fight them by means of the strike.  “State o’ trade!  That’s just a piece of masters’ humbug.  It’s rate o’ wages I was talking of.  Th’ masters keep th’ state o’ trade in their own hands, and just walk it forward like a black bug-a-boo, to frighten naughty children with into being good.  I’ll tell yo’ it’s their part—­their cue, as some folks call it—­to beat us down, to swell their fortunes; and it’s ours to stand up and fight hard—­not for ourselves alone, but for them round about us—­for justice and fair play.  We help to make their profits, and we ought to help spend ’em.  It’s not that we want their brass so much this time, as we’ve done many a time afore.  We’n getten money laid by; and we’re resolved to stand and fall together; not a man on us will go in for less wage than th’ Union says is our due.  So I say, ‘Hooray for the strike.’”

The story appeared in Household Words, a new magazine of which Charles Dickens was the editor.  He expressed especial admiration for the fairness with which Mrs Gaskell had spoken of both sides.  Nicholas Higgins, whose words are quoted above, is a type of the best Lancashire workman, who holds out for the good of the cause, even though it might mean ruin and poverty to himself—­“That’s what folk call fine and honourable in a soldier, and why not in a poor weaver-chap?”

Dickens himself wrote Hard Times, dealing with the same subject.  This appeared about the same time, and the two books should be read and compared, for, although Hard Times is not equal in any way to North and South, it is interesting.  As Ruskin said of Dickens’ stories, “Allowing for the manner of telling them, the things he tells us are always true. . . .  He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially Hard Times, should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions.”

During all these years the ‘Chartists’ had been vainly struggling to force Parliament to proceed with reform of their grievances.  In 1848 a monster Petition was to be presented to both Houses by their leaders, but London was garrisoned by troops under the Duke of Wellington on the fateful day, and the Chartist army broke up, never to be reunited.  Quarrels among themselves proved, in the end, fatal to their cause.

A new party, the Christian Socialists, took their place; force gave way to union and co-operation.  A new champion, Charles Kingsley, or ‘Parson Lot,’ stood forth as the Chartist leader.