text:  If we examine who it is that compose this dismal substratum this hideous _black band of society_ we shall find that it is not made up of any one class more than another--not of factory workers more than labourers carters or miners--but is formed by an aggregate of the most unfortunate or improvident of _all classes_ who variously struck down from better ways by disease vice or sensuality are now of necessity huddled together by tens of thousands in the dens of poverty and held by the firm bond of necessity in the precincts of contagion and crime