to official reports,” as twelve per cent. of the working-class, which agrees with Gaskell’s number; the workers being estimated at 175,000, 21,000 would form twelve per cent. of it.  The cellar dwellings in the suburbs are at least as numerous, so that the number of persons living in cellars in Manchester—­using its name in the broader sense—­is not less than forty to fifty thousand.  So much for the dwellings of the workers in the largest cities and towns.  The manner in which the need of a shelter is satisfied furnishes a standard for the manner in which all other necessities are supplied.  That in these filthy holes a ragged, ill-fed population alone can dwell is a safe conclusion, and such is the fact.  The clothing of the working-people, in the majority of cases, is in a very bad condition.  The material used for it is not of the best adapted.  Wool and linen have almost vanished from the wardrobe of both sexes, and cotton has taken their place.  Shirts are made of bleached or coloured cotton goods; the dresses of the women are chiefly of cotton print goods, and woollen petticoats are rarely to be seen on the washline.  The men wear chiefly trousers of fustian or other heavy cotton goods, and jackets or coats of the same.  Fustian has become the proverbial costume of the working-men, who are called “fustian jackets,” and call themselves so in contrast to the gentlemen who wear broadcloth, which latter words are used as characteristic for the middle-class.  When Feargus O’Connor, the Chartist leader, came to Manchester during the insurrection of 1842, he appeared, amidst the deafening applause of the working-men, in a fustian suit of clothing.  Hats are the universal head-covering in England, even for working-men, hats of the most diverse forms, round, high, broad-brimmed, narrow-brimmed, or without brims—­only the younger men in factory towns wearing caps.  Any one who does not own a hat folds himself a low, square paper cap.

The whole clothing of the working-class, even assuming it to be in good condition, is little adapted to the climate.  The damp air of England, with its sudden changes of temperature, more calculated than any other to give rise to colds, obliges almost the whole middle-class to wear flannel next the skin, about the body, and flannel scarfs and shirts are in almost universal use.  Not only is the working-class deprived of this precaution, it is scarcely ever in a position to use a thread of woollen clothing; and the heavy cotton goods, though thicker, stiffer, and heavier than woollen clothes, afford much less protection against cold and wet, remain damp much longer because of their thickness and the nature of the stuff, and have nothing of the compact density of fulled woollen cloths.  And, if a working-man once buys himself a woollen coat for Sunday, he must get it from one of the cheap shops where he finds bad, so-called “Devil’s-dust” cloth, manufactured for sale and not for use, and liable to tear or grow threadbare in a fortnight, or