"Why is it so cheap? Aren't you selling the Poor Man's Penny Newspaper? Didn't it get forced up to five pence before? Why is it only half a penny now?"
Naturally, the newsboy could not possibly know the whole story behind it. He only knew that his wages had not changed, and the cheaper the papers were, the easier they were to sell.
Under the Austrian Empire's overwhelming propaganda offensive, the anger Britons had long been suppressing amid the economic crisis finally erupted in full.
This time, the main force was no longer workers, but the so-called middle class: engineers, mechanics, small factory owners, lower-tier lawyers, company clerks, teachers, stockbrokers, and university students.
These people wielded far more influence than workers at the time, and their voices were something the British government could not ignore. John Russell could not simply deploy force to disperse the crowds as his predecessors had. He could only keep giving public speeches, promising to end the war and restore peace as soon as possible.
(I won't write out the specifics of the public speeches. It's a pain, and nobody likes reading them anyway.)
Public speaking was no easy task, especially for a man nearing sixty.
(In the nineteenth century, sixty absolutely counted as old. As for the claim that the Qing Dynasty had an average lifespan of seventy-one, just take it with a grain of salt. Europeans' average lifespan at this time was definitely, definitely, definitely far below that number.)
Combined with the fatigue and stress of long-term work, John Russell's speeches were naturally riddled with mistakes.
As a result, not only were the public's emotions not soothed, they became even more enraged by the prime minister's wording. Some rumors even reached Victoria's ears.
Queen Victoria had no desire to meddle in such matters, but