510 
Jones — Chartism. 
developed the power of masses of capital before labor learned 
to mass itself wisely for resistance. The ethical and social as¬ 
pects of the new method of production, as it built itself upon 
the ruins of the old order, were anything but encouraging. 
The gathering of workmen together in factory towns, made 
up of one class of population, took them away from the villages 
and country districts where there had been some sort of friendly 
social intercourse between themselves and the middle classes 
and the local landlords. In the “Deserted Village,” which 
Goldsmith mourned, they had known and respected the personal 
life of the village parson, and they had themselves been consid¬ 
ered as friends and neighbors and not merely as one of the costs 
of production. When the wage-earners passed into the factories 
their dwellings were huddled together in separate quarters of 
large cities. Lord John Russell said in a speech in Parliament, 
describing the great manufacturing and mining districts of 
England: “The mass of the people there were constituted of 
one great working class and of the few individuals by whom 
they were employed, and who had but little connection with 
them of the sort calculated to produce that species of subordi¬ 
nation which prevailed in other communities. In those districts 
of the country there were not those means of religious and 
moral instruction which were required for knitting men together 
in society.” There was great promiscuity both as to living and 
sleeping rooms. The overpopulation of certain city districts 
resulted in dirty streets and imperfect sewerage. There was a 
lack of parks and playgrounds for children. There was little 
opportunity for recreation of any sort except such as could be 
made to support vicious institutions. Prices of edibles rose so 
high that huxters were known to have done a thriving business 
in selling putrid meats and decayed vegetables. Such articles 
even found their way into city markets, for the inspection was 
not as rigid as it is at present. Cheap clothing of rotten shoddy 
fibre took the place of the warm and durable homespuns. 1 The 
1 Carlyle described the clothing of the poorer classes thus: “ They wear 
a suit of tatters, the getting on or off which is said to be a difficult opera¬ 
tion, transacted only at festivals and the high tides of the calendar.” 
