Utter destitution. Here “rack” is a variety of wrack and wreck.
“The worst of all University snobs are those unfortunates who go to
rack and ruin from their desire to ape their betters.” —Thackeray: Book of Snobs, chap. xv. p. 87.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
