"[P]eople on Turkey carpets, with their three meat meals a-day, are wondering, forsooth, why working men turn Chartists and Communists. Do they want to know why? Then let them read Mary Barton. Do they want to know why poor men, kind and sympathising as women to each other, learn to hate law and order, Queen, Lords and Commons, country-party, and corn-law leaguer, all alike—to hate the rich, in short? Then let them read Mary Barton. Do they want to know what can madden brave, honest, industrious North-country hearts, into self-imposed suicidal strikes, into conspiracy, vitriol-throwing, and midnight murder? Then let them read Mary Barton. Do they want to know what drives men to gin and opium, that they may drink and forget their sorrow, though it be in madness? Let them read Mary Barton. Do they want to get a detailed insight into the whole ‘science of starving,’—‘clemming,’ as the poor Manchester men call it? Why people ‘clem,’ and how much they can ‘clem’ on; what people look like while they are ‘clemming’ to death, and what they look like after they are ‘clemmed’ to death, and in what sort of places they lie while they are ‘clemming;’ and who looks after them, and who—oh, shame unspeakable!—do not look after them while they are ‘clemming;’ and what they feel while they are ‘clemming,’ and what they feel while they see their wives and their little ones ‘clemming’ to death round them; and what they feel, and must feel, unless they are more or less than men, after all are ‘clemmed’ and gone, and buried safe out of sight, never to hunger, and wail, and pine, and pray for death any more forever? Let them read Mary Barton. Lastly, if they want to know why men learn to hate the Church and the Gospel, why they turn sceptics, Atheists, blasphemers, and cry out in the blackness of despair and doubt, ‘Let us curse God and die,’ let them read Mary Barton."