\paperw3360 \margr0\margl0\ATXph16380 \plain \fs20 \f1 \fs22 The novelist Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865) was born in London, but moved to Manchester when she married
. Her children all died in infancy, and she started writing as a distraction from her sorrow, advocating, through her novels, the need for social reconciliation and a better understanding between employers and workers. Charles Dickens was a great admir
er of her work. In \i Mary Barton\i0 , written in 1848, she paints a dramatic picture of living conditions among the Manchester poor:\par
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\i Berry Street was unpaved: and down the middle a gutter forced its way, every now and then forming pools i
n the holes with which the street abounded... As they passed, women from their doors tossed household slops of \ATXul1024 every\ATXul0 description into the gutter...They got to some steps leading down to a small area, where a person standing would have
his head about one foot below the level of the street, and might, without the least motion of his body, touch the window of the cellar and the damp muddy wall right opposite...It was very dark inside. The window panes of many of them were broken and st
uffed with rags... on going into the cellar inhabited by Davenport, the smell was so foetid as almost to knock the two men down. Quickly recovering themselves, they began to penetrate the thick darkness of the place, and to see three of four little chi
ldren rolling on the damp, nay wet brick floor, through which the stagnant, filthy moisture of the street oozed up...\par
