To begin with, the vast bulk of these riots occurred so that the rioters could get their hands on food. Beginning about 1830, however, the form of unrest began to change and, eventually, there arose the concept of a general trades union which had in its armoury ‘the ultimate weapon, the general strike’ (otherwise known, not entirely ironically, as the ‘sacred month’). ‘But essentially, what held all these movements together, or revived them after their periodic defeat and disintegration, was the universal discontent of men who felt themselves hungry in a society reeking with wealth, enslaved
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