Undoubtedly there had been bad times in Sloville before. The farmers, according to all accounts, never had been able to make both ends meet, and the poor had to live on the rates, a fact which rather increased than diminished the evil, as the people who had the most children got more than their fair share, and a pauper had a poor chance of decent wages, unless he at once got married, and begot as many sons and daughters as the rest. But now there was a real crisis, as the mills had stopped, and the manufacturers and capitalists went about with as long faces as the farmers. Unfortunately, just at this time, the leading banker in the place failed, or rather took himself off with his family to the Continent, leaving his creditors to suffer greatly for their misplaced confidence, many poor tradesmen and windows losing their all. A good many of the chapel people took it as a dispensation of Providence, and in many a place the event was improved in that way. The Lord was angry with them on account of the general wickedness of the town. A new leaf was to be turned over. There was to be less trust in man—less pride in human intellect—less confidence in the spread of intelligence—a better observance of the Sabbath—a more frequent attendance at the means of grace. A good many of Hannah More’s good-meaning tracts were reprinted and distributed gratis. Alas! the times were out of joint, and some of the people refused the tracts. They said they should prefer something to eat, and all pious Sloville turned from them in horror and despair. It was actually whispered that there were people in the place who had been seen reading Tom Paine, and were not ashamed to talk of the Rights of Man. It is not much to be wondered at that such was the case. In the old unreformed times, it was seldom that politicians, whether Whigs or Tories, took much notice of the state of the people. There was no law then to stand between the mercenary millowner and his white victim. The rich made the laws, and all that the people had to do was to obey. Labourers were even punished for combining to get decent wages if possible. Wentworth, as a young man, was especially touched with a sense of the hardships inflicted on the factory children and women. The Church—I mean by it the religious of all sects—stood by the masters. It was natural, but awful nevertheless. ‘Give these poor people,’ said Wentworth, ‘more food and more justice, and we shall have a better chance of making them Christians.’ The deacons did not see it in that light at all. They were shopkeepers, and did not want to offend their best customers.