common people

pl. The artisans and laborers, the manual laborers, as distinguished from the middle cla es and aristocracy, where the latter exist. "King in his Natural and Political Conclusions roughly estimated the common people of England at 880,000 families. Of these families 440,000, according to him, ate animal food twice a week. The remaining 440,000 ate it not at all, or at most not oftener than once a week."Macaulay: Hist . Eng ., ch. iii.