from which they live.  Or the family takes up its position in a busy street, and without uttering a word, lets the mere sight of its helplessness plead for it.  In this case, too, they reckon upon the sympathy of the workers alone, who know from experience how it feels to be hungry, and are liable to find themselves in the same situation at any moment; for this dumb, yet most moving appeal, is met with almost solely in such streets as are frequented by working-men, and at such hours as working-men pass by; but especially on summer evenings, when the “secrets” of the working-people’s quarters are generally revealed, and the middle-class withdraws as far as possible from the district thus polluted.  And he among the “surplus” who has courage and passion enough openly to resist society, to reply with declared war upon the bourgeoisie to the disguised war which the bourgeoisie wages upon him, goes forth to rob, plunder, murder, and burn!

Of this surplus population there are, according to the reports of the Poor Law commissioners, on an average, a million and a half in England and Wales; in Scotland the number cannot be ascertained for want of Poor Law regulations, and with Ireland we shall deal separately.  Moreover, this million and a half includes only those who actually apply to the parish for relief; the great multitude who struggle on without recourse to this most hated expedient, it does not embrace.  On the other hand, a good part of the number belongs to the agricultural districts, and does not enter into the present discussion.  During a crisis this number naturally increases markedly, and want reaches its highest pitch.  Take, for instance, the crisis of 1842, which, being the latest, was the most violent; for the intensity of the crisis increases with each repetition, and the next, which may be expected not later than 1847, {87} will probably be still more violent and lasting.  During this crisis the poor-rates rose in every town to a hitherto unknown height.  In Stockport, among other towns, for every pound paid in house-rent, eight shillings of poor-rate had to be paid, so that the rate alone formed forty per cent. of the house-rent.  Moreover, whole streets stood vacant, so that there were at least twenty thousand fewer inhabitants than usual, and on the doors of the empty houses might be read:  “Stockport to let.”  In Bolton, where, in ordinary years, the rents from which rates are paid average 86,000 pounds, they sank to 36,000 pounds.  The number of the poor to be supported rose, on the other hand, to 14,000, or more than twenty per cent. of the whole number of inhabitants.  In Leeds, the Poor Law guardians had a reserve fund of 10,000 pounds.  This, with a contribution of 7,000 pounds, was wholly exhausted before the crisis reached its height.  So it was everywhere.  A report drawn up in January, 1843, by a committee of the Anti-Corn Law League, on the condition of the industrial districts in 1842, which was based upon detailed statements of the manufacturers,