A feeling very generally exists that the condition and disposition of the Working Classes is a rather ominous matter at present; that something ought to be said, something ought to be done, in regard to it. […] To us individually this matter appears, and has for many years appeared, to be the most ominous of all practical matters whatever; a matter in regard to which if something be not done, something will do itself one day, and in a fashion that will please nobody.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian

Chartism, ch. 1 “Condition-of-England Question” (1840)
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