"The manner in which the vast mass of the poor are treated by modern society is truly scandalous. They are herded into great cities where they breathe a fouler air than in the countryside... Every great city has one or more slums, where the working class is crowded together. True, poverty often dwells in hidden alleys close to the palaces of the rich; but in general a separate territory has been assigned to it, where, removed from the sight of the happier classes, it may struggle along as it can. These slums are pretty equally arranged in all the great towns of England."

Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, published in German in Leipzig, 1845. Engels was a German factory owner's son who spent two years in Manchester researching the book.