In 1855 schreef Charles Dickens in een brief aan Forster:
"... a country which is discovered to be in this tremendous condition as to its war affairs; with an enormous black cloud of poverty in every town which is spreading and deepening every hour, and not one man in two thousand knowing anything about, or even believing in, its existence; with a nonworking aristocracy, and a silent parliament, and everybody for himself and nobody for the rest; this is the prospect, and I think it is a very deplorable one."
(Uit: Charles Dickens and his friends by W. Teignmouth Shore)