"There is no dependence on any of the middle class," said the dark-looking man; "they are as bad as the aristocrats. You see this last winter has passed over, entirely, without any subscription for the poor, again,—as severe a winter as it has been."
"Ay, and work scarcer and scarcer, every day," said another.
"They say there are eight hundred out o'work now, in Leicester," said the elderly, sedate man, who had spoken before; "and I heard a manufacturer say there would be twice as many before the summer went over: but he added, that the people deserved to be pinched, since they would not join the Corn Law Repealers."
A burst of indignation, and some curses and imprecations, followed.
"Does he go to chapel?" asked one.
"Yes; and he's a member of the Charles Street meeting," said the elderly man.
"There's your religion, again!"—"There's your saintship!"—"There's your Christianity!"—"There's their Providence and their Goddle Mitey!"—were the varied indignant exclamations among the starved crowd, as soon as the answer was heard.
"I should think they invented the Bastile Mill, while they were at chapel!" said one.
"Is it smashed again?" asked another.