Brewer's: Submerged

(The) or The Submerged Tenth. The proletariat, sunk or submerged in poverty; the gutter-class; the waifs and strays of society.

“All but the `submerged' were bent upon merrymaking.” —Society, November 12th, 1892. p. 1273.

“If Mr. Booth has not inaugurated remedial work among the submerged tenth, he has certainly set the fashion of writing and talking about them.” —Newspaper paragraph, October 13th, 1891.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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