Here is relaxation, excitement; if less vice
otherwise than might be at first anticipated, we must remember
that excesses are checked by poverty of blood and constant
exhaustion. Scanty food and hard labour are in their way, if
not exactly moralists, a tolerably good police.
There are no others at Wodgate to preach or to control. It is
not that the people are immoral, for immorality implies some
forethought; or ignorant, for ignorance is relative; but they
are animals; unconscious; their minds a blank; and their worst
actions only the impulse of a gross or savage instinct. There
are many in this town who are ignorant of their very names;
very few who can spell them. It is rare that you meet with a
young person who knows his own age; rarer to find the boy who
has seen a book, or the girl who has seen a flower. Ask them
the name of their sovereign, and they will give you an
unmeaning stare; ask them the name of their religion, and they
will laugh: who rules them on earth, or who can save them in
heaven, are alike mysteries to them.
Such was the population with whom Morley was about to mingle.
Wodgate had the appearance of a vast squalid suburb. As you
advanced, leaving behind you long lines of little dingy
tenements, with infants lying about the road, you expected
every moment to emerge into some streets and encounter
buildings bearing some correspondence in their size and
comfort to the considerable population swarming and busied
around you.
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