Multiple Choice: Please select the best answer and click "submit."

Read the passage below and answer the following question. Which of the following best describes a major cause for the conditions described in the passage?


"Fog everywhere . . . fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city . . . fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. . . . Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds."

Charles Dickens, Bleak House1
A. The increase in urban social stratification

B. The growth of economic inequality

C. The spread of steam-powered factories and mills

D. The increase of women in the workforce