The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844: with a Preface written in 1892Engels, Friedrich
History
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844: with a Preface written in 1892
Engels, Friedrich
Great Britain -- Economic conditions; Working class -- Great Britain
dealer's in Bolton, were publicly burnt, and the dealer fined twenty
shillings. But these are by no means all the cases; they do not even
form a fair average for a period of six weeks, according to which to form
an average for the year. There are often seasons in which every number
of the semi-weekly _Guardian_ mentions a similar case found in Manchester
or its vicinity. And when one reflects upon the many cases which must
escape detection in the extensive markets that stretch along the front of
every main street, under the slender supervision of the market
inspectors--and how else can one explain the boldness with which whole
animals are exposed for sale?--when one considers how great the
temptation must be, in view of the incomprehensibly small fines mentioned
in the foregoing cases; when one reflects what condition a piece of meat
must have reached to be seized by the inspectors, it is impossible to
believe that the workers obtain good and nourishing meat as a usual
thing. But they are victimised in yet another way by the money-greed of
the middle-class. Dealers and manufacturers adulterate all kinds of
provisions in an atrocious manner, and without the slightest regard to
the health of the consumers. We have heard the _Manchester Guardian_
upon this subject, let us hear another organ of the middle-class--I
delight in the testimony of my opponents--let us hear the _Liverpool
Mercury_: "Salted butter is sold for fresh, the lumps being covered with
a coating of fresh butter, or a pound of fresh being laid on top to
taste, while the salted article is sold after this test, or the whole
mass is washed and then sold as fresh. With sugar, pounded rice and
other cheap adulterating materials are mixed, and the whole sold at full
price. The refuse of soap-boiling establishments also is mixed with
other things and sold as sugar. Chicory and other cheap stuff is mixed
with ground coffee, and artificial coffee beans with the unground
article. Cocoa is often adulterated with fine brown earth, treated with
fat to render it more easily mistakable for real cocoa. Tea is mixed
with the leaves of the sloe and with other refuse, or dry tea-leaves are
roasted on hot copper plates, so returning to the proper colour and being
sold as fresh. Pepper is mixed with pounded nutshells; port wine is
manufactured outright (out of alcohol, dye-stuffs, etc.), while it is
notorious that more of it is consumed in England alone than is grown in
Portugal; and tobacco is mixed with disgusting substances of all sorts
and in all possible forms in which the article is produced." I can add
that several of the most respected tobacco dealers in Manchester
announced publicly last summer, that, by reason of the universal
adulteration of tobacco, no firm could carry on business without
adulteration, and that no cigar costing less than threepence is made
wholly from tobacco. These frauds are naturally not restricted to
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