"
There was a dead silence; the door was hastily opened, and Kelly's nose
poked out; while we, in spite of the horribleness of the whole thing, could
not help laughing at his face of terror. Seeing who we were he welcomed
us in at once, into a miserable apartment, full of pikes and daggers,
brandished by some dozen miserable, ragged, half-starved artizans.
Three-fourths, I saw at once, were slop-working tailors. There was a
bloused and bearded Frenchman or two; but the majority were, as was to have
been expected, the oppressed, the starved, the untaught, the despairing,
the insane; "the dangerous classes," which society creates, and then
shrinks in horror, like Frankenstein, from the monster her own clumsy
ambition has created. Thou Frankenstein Mammon! hast thou not had warnings
enough, either to make thy machines like men, or stop thy bungling, and let
God make them for Himself?
I will not repeat what I heard there. There is many a frantic ruffian
of that night now sitting "in his right mind"--though not yet
"clothed"--waiting for God's deliverance, rather than his own.
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