Ryde, Isle of Wight July 1874. Marx encounters the mob
Tory politicians forever constructing culture wars have been ranting about mobs over the last few weeks, not least Sunak himself, the wealthiest MP in Parliament. He has echoed the thoughts of his erstwhile friend Lee Anderson.
By mob is usually meant a peaceful protest crowd who are expressing sentiments that politicians do not wish to hear.
There are however plenty of examples of mobs in British history
On 15th July 1874 Marx was in lodgings in Ryde, Isle of Wight. He wrote as he did regularly to Engels who was in Ramsgate. This was rather a reversal of locations since Marx was often in Ramsgate and Engels frequently in Ryde.
Marx noted that one of his daughters Laura had been to stay and he had accompanied her to the Portsmouth ferry when she had to leave:
When we went down to the pier to see her off we witnessed the arrival from Brighton of a temperance gang back from an excursion. Half of them were drunk. As an old Englishman next to me remarked ‘it was the worst lot he had ever met with in his life’ and neither have I ever encountered such a mob of stunted, loutish and smutty-minded idiots all at once…For foreigners this sample of Freeborn Britons would have been an amazing sight
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