They are easily forgotten: for they do not strive or cry; and for the most part only ask to be left alone. They have none of those channels of communication in their possession by which the rich and the poor are able to express their hostility to any political or social change. The Landed Classes or the brewing interests, on the one hand, find newspapers energetic in fighting their cause; on the other, see themselves securely entrenched in a “Second Chamber,” which offers them a permanent majority. The Working Classes can organise into unions, subsidise members of Parliament and a Labour Party, make themselves both respected and feared. No one fears the Middle Classes, the suburbans; and perhaps for that reason, no one respects them. They only appear articulate in comedy, to be made the butt of a more nimble-witted company outside: like “Mr. Hopkinson,” who is aspiring to transfer his residence from Upper Tooting to Belgravia, or the queer people who dispute--in another recent London play--concerning the respective social advantages of Clapham and Herne Hill. Strong in numbers, and in possession of a vigorous and even tyrannical convention of manners, they lack organisation, energy, and ideas. And in consequence they have been finding themselves crushed between the demands of the industrial peoples on the one hand, and the resistance of the “Conquerors” on the other. They act only when their grievances have become a burden impossible to be borne. They act without preparation, without leadership, without preliminary negotiation. They rise suddenly, impervious to argument, unreasoning and resolute. And the result is often a cataclysm which would be almost ludicrous if it were not both random and pitiful.