The connection to the Gothic setting is illustrated with the bifurcated nature of the city using the separation between "the wealth of the West End and the poverty of the East End" (Smith, 2004 p73 ). Further social stratification divided the working class into skilled and unskilled labor, leading to the formation of trade unions. In contrast, the economic drive of the middle class was largely associated with industrial expansion and industrial manufacturing (Host, 2002 p17), as well as the urban growth of cities, leading to fears that “the prevailing political and fiscal arrangements [ appear to be ] are slowly suffocating the economy” (Hobsbawm, 1999 p55). The increasingly powerful middle class was also seen as the moral leaders of society (Steinbach, 2012 p 124), being educated, class conscious and socially mobile. Political morality took the form of a challenge to aristocratic rights, but also led to electoral corruption (Kam, 2007 p2). Plus, economic freedom is now available