Labouring mankind had in the last years, and throughout Great
Britain, sustained a prolonged and crushing series of defeats. I
had heard vaguely of these reverses; of whole streets of houses
standing deserted by the Tyne, the cellar-doors broken and removed
for firewood; of homeless men loitering at the street-corners of
Glasgow with their chests beside them; of closed factories, useless
strikes, and starving girls. But I had never taken them home to me
or represented these distresses livingly to my imagination.

A turn of the market may be a calamity as disastrous as the French
retreat from Moscow; but it hardly lends itself to lively
treatment, and makes a trifling figure in the morning papers. We
may struggle as we please, we are not born economists. The
individual is more affecting than the mass. It is by the scenic
accidents, and the appeal to the carnal eye, that for the most part
we grasp the significance of tragedies. Thus it was only now, when
I found myself involved in the rout, that I began to appreciate how
sharp had been the battle. We were a company of the rejected; the
drunken, the incompetent, the weak, the prodigal, all who had been
unable to prevail against circumstances in the one land, were now
fleeing pitifully to another; and though one or two might still
succeed, all had already failed. We were a shipful of failures,
the broken men of England. Yet it must not be supposed that these
people exhibited depression. The scene, on the contrary, was
cheerful. Not a tear was shed on board the vessel. All were full
of hope for the future, and showed an inclination to innocent
gaiety. Some were heard to sing, and all began to scrape
acquaintance with small jests and ready laughter.