The Darkest Victorian London tour we went on today was extremely fascinating. I was appalled at both the living and working conditions of the lower classes in the Victorian era; I always knew there was a class disparity but the information we were given about poor people living 150 people to one house and having to work almost exclusively in life-risking labor shifted my perspective on how large the disparity was. It also made me enjoy Glaskell’s North & South as a political commentary as we discussed today in class. I had initially felt bogged down by the lengthy economic explanations but after realizing their purpose of both informing readers of economic theory as well as showing her own knowledge of it I was glad this novel was written that way. North & South was written to catch the interest of upper and middle class people with a traditional Victorian love story and (intially) heroine and uses the opportunity to get the ball rolling on a social conversation about the abuses the poor suffered. I think that knowing and seeing the specifics of how horrible being in a lower class during this time was made me more appreciative of the fact that this treatment was addressed in the book and therefore made me more appreciative of the book as a whole.