Jack the Radical; A. Segerdal

London was also a city of unfathomable poverty. Its East End housed nearly a mil lion hungry and impoverished souls living in cramped filth. Although working conditions had improved in Britain since the early days of the Industrial Revolution, working-class discontent in London had been building up since the late 1870s.Inspired by Karl Marx, who lived and wrote in London, the growing voices of socialism were eager to boost this discontent, and by 1886 things turned vio lent. In early 1886,one of the coldest winters on record caused such hardship that, despite the subnormal temperatures, thousands of out-of-work men and women from the East End docks gathered in Trafalgar Square to hear violent speeches from eminent socialMr. Segerdal resides in Glendale, California, where he is a writer. ists. Meanwhile, thousands more protesters went on a rampage of property damage and looting as rioting spilled over into the resi dential environs of upper-class Mayfair and the upscale West End shopping districts of Oxford Street, Regent Street, and Picca dilly.