The Condition of the Working Class in England

Table of Contents:
The Condition of the Working Class in England - Friedrich Engels Edited with a Foreword by Victor KiernanForeword To the Working Classes of Great Britain Preface to the First German Edition Preface to the English Edition Introduction The state of the workers before the Industrial Revolution The jenny Emergence of the industrial and the agricultural proletariat The throstle, the mule, the power-loom, the steam-engine The victory of machine-work over hand-work The development of industrial might The cotton industry The hosiery manufacture The manufacture of lace Dyeing, bleaching, printing The manufacture of wool The linen trade The manufacture of silk The production and manufacture of iron Coal-mining The production of pottery Agriculture Roadways, canals, railroads, steamboats Summary The emergence of the proletariat as a factor of national importance The middle-class's view of the workers The Industrial Proletariat Classification of the proletariat Centralization of property The levers of modern manufacture Centralization of population The Great Towns The impression produced by London The social war and the system of general plundering The lot of the poor General description of the slums In London: St. Giles and the adjoining quarters Whitechapel The interior of the workers' dwellings The homeless in the parks Night refuges Dublin Edinburgh Liverpool Factory towns: Nottingham, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield Lancashire: General description Bolton Stockport Ashton-under-Lyne Stalybridge Detailed description of Manchester: the general system of its building The Old Town The New Town The method of construction of working-men's quarters Courts and side streets Ancoats Little Ireland Hulme Salford Summary Lodging-houses Overcrowdedness of population Cellar dwellings The clothing of the workers Food Tainted meat Adulteration of provision False weights, etc. General conclusion Competition Competition among the workers determines the minimum of wages, competition among the property-holding people determines their maximum The worker, the slave of the bourgeoisie, is forced to sell himself by the day, and by the hour Surplus population Commercial crises A reserve army of workers The hard lot of this reserve army during the crisis of 1842 Irish Immigration The causes and figures Description by Thomas Carlyle Lack of cleanliness, crudeness and drunkenness among the Irishmen The influence of Irish competition and of the contacts with the Irish upon the English workers Results Preliminary remarks The influence of the above-described conditions on the health of the workers The influence of large towns, dwellings, uncleanliness, etc. The facts Consumption Typhus, in particular in London, Scotland, and Ireland Digestive troubles The results of drunkenness Quack remedies "Godfrey's Cordial" Mortality among workers, especially among young children Accusation of the bourgeoisie of social murder Influence on the mental and moral condition of the workers Absence of the necessary conditions for education Inadequacy of evening and Sunday schools Ignorance The worker's living conditions give him a sort of practical training Neglect of the workers' moral training The law as the only instructor in morals The worker's conditions of life tempt him to disregard law and morality The influence of poverty and insecurity of existence upon the proletariat Forced work The centralization of the population Irish immigration The difference in character between the worker and the bourgeois The proletarian's advantages over the bourgeois The unfavourable sides of the proletarian character Drunkenness Sexual irregularities Neglect of family duties Contempt for the existing social order Crimes Description of the social war Single Barnches of Industry. Factory-hands The influence of machinery Hand-loom weavers The work of men being superseded by machinery Female labour, the dissolution of the family The reversal of all relations within the family The moral consequences of the mass employment of women in factories Jus primae noctis The work of children The apprentice system Subsequent measures The facts related by the Factory Report Long working-day Night-work Cripples Other deformities The nature of factory work Relaxation of the whole organism Special diseases Testimony of the Commissioners Premature old age The specific influence of factory work upon the female physique Some especially injurious branches Accidents The bourgeoisie's opinion of the factory system Factory laws and agitation for the Ten Hours' Bill The stupefying and demoralizing nature of factory work Slavery Factory regulations The truck system The cottage system The comparison of the serf of 1145 with the free working man of 1845 The Remaining Branches of Industry Stocking-weavers The lace industry Calico printers Staffordshire Sheffield Production of machinery Potteries in the north of Staffordshire Manufacture of glass Handicraftsmen Dressmakers and sewing-women Labour Movements Preliminary remarks Crimes Revolts against machinery Associations, strikes The objects of the unions and strikes Excesses connected with them The general character of the struggle waged by the English proletariat against the bourgeoisie The battle in Manchester in May 1843 Respect for the law is alien to the proletariat Chartism The history of the Chartist movement Insurrection of 1842 The decisive separation of proletarian Chartism from bourgeois radicalism The social nature of Chartism Socialism The working men's views The Mining Proletariat Cornish miners Alston Moor Coal and iron mines The work of grown-up men, women and children Special afflictions Work in low shafts Accidents, explosions, etc. Mental education Morals Laws relating to the mining industry Systematic exploitation of the coal-miners The beginning of the workers' movement The union of coal-miners The great campaign of 1844 in the north of England Roberts and the campaign against Justices of the Peace and the truck system The results of the struggle The Agricultural Proletariat Historical survey Pauperism in the country The condition of the wage-workers Incendiarisms Indifference to the Corn Laws Religious state of the agricultural labourers Wales: small tenants "Rebecca" disturbances Ireland: subdivision of the land Pauperization of the Irish nation Crimes Agitation for the repeal of the union with England The Attitude of the Bourgeoisie towards the Proletariat Demoralization of the English bourgeoisie Its avarice Political economy and free competition Pharisaic charity The hypocrisy of political economy and politics in the question of the Corn Laws Bourgeois legislation and justice The bourgeoisie in Parliament A bill regulating the relation of master and servant Malthus's theory The Old Poor Law The New Poor Law Examples of the brutal treatment of the poor in the workhouses The chances of the English bourgeoisie Index A note on the text: The text printed here is basically the original translation made by Florence Wischnewetzky for the American edition which Engels published in 1886; however, it is taken from the Moscow English edition, whose editors checked it against the German first edition for accuracy, and it has given some stylistic revision for this Penguin Classics edition.

About the Author :
Friederich Engels (1820-95), German philosopher, the son of a factory worker who supervised his father's business in Manchester. He wrote influential essays on the social and political conditions in Britain in the 1840s. He collaborated with Marx in writing The German Ideology, the Manifesto of the Communist Party, and Das Kapital.