The thing ought to be looked into.
At the moment of my visit to Sheffield, it happened that many
works were running half-time or no time, and many people were out
of work. At one place there was a little oblong building between
branching streets, round which sat a miserable company of
Murchers, as I heard them called, on long benches under the
overhanging roof, who were too obviously, who were almost
offensively, out of work. Some were old and some young, some dull
and some fierce, some savage and some imbecile in their looks,
and they were all stained and greasy and dirty, and looked their
apathy or their grim despair. Even the men who were coming to or
from their work at dinner-time looked stunted and lean and pale,
with no color of that south of England bloom with which they
might have favored a stranger. Slatternly girls and women
abounded, and little babies carried about by a little larger
babies, and of course kissed on their successive layers of dirt.
There were also many small boys who, I hope, were not so wicked
as they were ragged.
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