It struck me to realize the similarities of hardships to common US citizens (and developed world citizens to a lesser extent) today. Medical episodes cause a c

It struck me to realize the similarities of hardships to common US citizens (and developed world citizens to a lesser extent) today. Medical episodes cause a cascade of ill-circumstance tumbling once-stable positions into the streets: "...who is now in difficulties through ill-health..." Retirement a binary condition ill-suiting putting purpose to people's lives: "I’m lost, I’ve been put off my perch" Substance abuse inures the senses of those who have given up, and thereby tragically reinforcing cycles of abuse into future generations: "...early acclimatizes her infant to the fumes of tobacco and alcohol" Poor squeezed by land prices into living in the flood plains, with predictable disastrous consequences if their unlucky number comes up: "The sufferings of the poor in Lambeth, and in other quarters of the Metropolis, caused by the annual tidal overflow of the Thames" "Improvements" displacing common people to the benefit of rentiers, and destroying the micro-culture of a neighborhood: "As a matter of fact, the inhabitants of Church Lane were nearly all what I may term “street folks” – living, buying, selling, transacting all their business in the open street...condemned as an unwholesome over-crowded, throughfare, and the houses on either side are now almost entirely destroyed, and the inhabitants have been compelled to migrate to other more distant and less convenient parts of the metropolis" Industrial disruption comes at a steep cost to those whose lives are disrupted and swept under the inconvenient rug of the disruptive effects to individuals, even military veterans, to the benefit of the overall economy: "...two boardmen who seemed worthy of a better position..." There are some, but too few, bright points, considering the progress we trumpet ourselves possessing. Some parts of the human condition remain quite thoroughly embedded within our civilization's mien for the time being. View some Photochroms to give yourself sense of the color of that era [1]. [1] http://fiveminutehistory.com/photochrom-victorian-era-color-photography/ http://fiveminutehistory.com/photochrom-victorian-era-color-...