the beginning down to the present day. The effects of modern manufacture
upon the working-class must necessarily develop here most freely and
perfectly, and the manufacturing proletariat present itself in its
fullest classic perfection. The degradation to which the application of
steam-power, machinery and the division of labour reduce the working-man,
and the attempts of the proletariat to rise above this abasement, must
likewise be carried to the highest point and with the fullest
consciousness. Hence because Manchester is the classic type of a modern
manufacturing town, and because I know it as intimately as my own native
town, more intimately than most of its residents know it, we shall make a
longer stay here.

The towns surrounding Manchester vary little from the central city, so
far as the working-people's quarters are concerned, except that the
working-class forms, if possible, a larger proportion of their
population. These towns are purely industrial and conduct all their
business through Manchester upon which they are in every respect
dependent, whence they are inhabited only by working-men and petty
tradesmen, while Manchester has a very considerable commercial
population, especially of commission and "respectable" retail dealers.
Hence Bolton, Preston, Wigan, Bury, Rochdale, Middleton, Heywood, Oldham,
Ashton, Stalybridge, Stockport, etc., though nearly all towns of thirty,
fifty, seventy to ninety thousand inhabitants, are almost wholly working-
people's districts, interspersed only with factories, a few thoroughfares
lined with shops, and a few lanes along which the gardens and houses of
the manufacturers are scattered like villas. The towns themselves are
badly and irregularly built with foul courts, lanes, and back alleys,
reeking of coal smoke, and especially dingy from the originally bright
red brick, turned black with time, which is here the universal building
material. Cellar dwellings are general here; wherever it is in any way