At a meeting in Manchester, where humble shopkeepers were the speakers, anecdotes were related which told more than declamation.

Rent collectors were afraid to meet their principals, as no money could be collected.
Provision dealers were subject to incursions from a wolfish man prowling for food for his children, or from a half frantic woman, with her dying baby at her breast; or from parties of ten or a dozen desperate wretches who were levying contributions along the street.
The linen draper told how new clothes had become out of the question with his customers, and they bought only remnants and patches, to mend the old ones.

The baker was more and more surprised at the number of people who bought half-pennyworths of bread.

A provision dealer used to throw away outside scraps; but now respectable customers of twenty years' standing bought them in pennyworths to moisten their potatoes.

These shopkeepers contemplated nothing but ruin from the impoverished condition of their customers.