Page:Australian views of England.djvu/87

  a work of no little difficulty; and all the low lands along the Trent were in the same predicament The banks of the Severn in many places were overflowed. The young wheat, however, in all directions looks remarkably promising, and I imagine little harm has been done by the wet season, except engendering low fevers in the hovels of the indigent

In the hovels of the indigent poor, O, what a soul-sickening world is there! "The misery of the English poor," at this moment, is no hollow cry raised by a morbid humanity. It meets you in palpable shape at every turn, grinding stout earnest men and comely women in the dust. Pass through Lancashire—you see crowds of men with hunger as plain as winter daylight in every countenance—and often poor pallid creatures tottering under the rapid ravages of consumption—the ghastly messenger of relief which comes from want and a damp dwelling. You have a fearful sense of desolation as you gaze on those enormous factories, with their wildernesses of machinery, all silent as the grave. Ten thousand hands in Manchester wholly thrown out of employment Wigan and Blackburn still more destitute! And