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, assert