London Journal of Arts and Sciences.

No. LXVII. (NEW SERIES), JULY 1st, 1860.

FACTORY LABOR.

ABOUT a quarter of a century ago, it was the fashion to decry factory labor, and unsparingly to heap upon the system of aggregated industry brought into existence by the inventions of Arkwright, Crompton, and others, epithets which had been freely used, a quarter of a century before, to arouse in the nation a desire to wipe out that blot on Christian civilization-the slave-trade. So thoroughly established did the public aversion seem to be to the labor of the cotton-mills, that writers of fiction rushed to the manufacturing districts, as a fruitful field for the indulgence of their extravagant fancies, shrewdly judging that it was all but impossible to "pile the horrors" too high to render their story revolting to the taste or judgment of the general public. That there was much real misery among the operatives, and some that was peculiar to the manufacturing districts, could not be denied ; and hence arose a commission of inquiry, and, finally, the establishment of a system of Government inspection, and half-yearly reports to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The current reports of the Inspectors appointed under the Factory Acts afford a clue to the cause of much of the wretchedness of the factory laborers, at an earlier period; for the facts which these gentlemen elicit, in the performance of their important duties, are capable of reflecting light upon other points than those which they were intended to make manifest. For the benefit of those who are unacquainted with the provisions of the Factory Acts, it should be premised, that among other duties enforced is the examination of all children who are candidates for factory work, with the view of ascertaining whether they are of the legal age, and that they are not otherwise disqualified;-this duty is performed by local surgeons (appointed by the several Inspectors for their respective districts), who, when they approve of the candidates, furnish them with a certificate to that effect. In the very able report of Mr. Robert Baker, for the half-year ending 31st October, 1859, he states that, on one occasion, he had an analysis made of the causes of rejection of children for work, by a few certifying surgeons, from July, 1856, to December, 1857; and, out of 2006 examined, 1797 had been rejected, either as "too little" or as "too young." Of this number, there were VOL. XII.

B

1st

109 rejected for physical incapacity, viz., 24 for cutaneous and highlyinfectious diseases, 6 for phthisis, 32 for diseases of the eye, 4 for habitual convulsions, 2 for typhus fever, 1 for scarlet fever, and 18 for scrofula. Now, let us imagine for a moment that there was no such thing as inspection by authority, and the juvenile labour-market would be restored to the state it was in at the time when the great outcry existed against the millocracy, as the authors of the misery and wretchedness which was but too apparent amongst the factory workers. Under such circumstances, not only would all those who caught at the factory the infectious diseases, brought there through the cupidity of the parents of the poor suffering children, be deemed the victims of the vicious system of factory labor, but those children, also, who possessed the seeds of the several ailments above mentioned, before they saw the inside of a factory. That a large amount of misery arose from this cause, there can be no doubt, which was considerably aggravated by the ignorance which, until very lately, prevailed respecting the hygeian principles of cleanliness and ventilation; but that factory labor was ever more physically deteriorating than kindred home industry, we think there is every reason to doubt. Uncongenial it certainly is, to some minds, as the biographical sketch of the author of "Babe Christabel" proves; but, among the thousands of children who trudge to their labor with no brighter earthly hope before them than uninterrupted occupation, with wages increasing until the maximum is attained within the next ten or fifteen years of their life, how few must there be who ever experienced the same feeling of revolt at the nature of their employment as the incipient poet, Gerald Massey? The sketcher of his early life tells us, that "at eight years of age, Gerald Massey went into a silk-mill, rising at five in the morning, and toiling there till halfpast six in the evening; up in the grey dawn, or in the winter before daylight, and trudging to the factory, through the wind and snow; seeing the sun through the factory windows; breathing an atmosphere laden with rank oily vapours, his ears deafened by the roar of incessant wheels; then home, shivering under the cold, starless sky, on Saturday nights, with 9d., 1s., or 1s. 3d. for his whole week's work,-for such were the respective amounts of the wages earned by the child-labor of Gerald Massey." It is no wonder that a child so sensitive to outward circumstances as to be able to record, that "Ever since I can remember, I have had the aching fear of want throbbing in heart and brow," should, when the mill was burned down, have rejoiced in the conflagration. But then, as compared with his factory labor, what advantages had the domestic manufacture, to which his time was subsequently devoted, to offer? None, if we are to take the sequel of the narrative; for his biographer continues:-" Then he went to straw-plaiting,-as toilsome

and, perhaps, more unwholesome than factory work. Without exercise in a marshy district, the plaiters were constantly having racking attacks of ague. The boy had the disease for three years, ending with tertian ague. Sometimes four of the family, and the mother, lay ill at one time, all crying with thirst, with no one to give them drink, and each too weak to help the other." Here, then, is no very enviable picture in favor of home labor, as contrasted with factory work.

Of the great physical superiority of the workpeople of the present day over those of the past, the reports of the Factory Inspectors afford indubitable evidence; and they are by no means silent with respect to the causes which will account for the manifest improvement in their physical condition. Thus, in speaking of a large cotton factory in his district, Mr. Alexander Redgrave says:-"I am always struck with the cleanliness and order which are everywhere visible; the rooms, which must be necessarily warm, are, nevertheless, so well ventilated that the heat is never oppressive;" and he further states, that in those departments of the establishment where a large quantity of dust and fly is scattered, as in the carding-rooms, the best means is provided for purifying those rooms. Although these remarks refer to a model establishment, its superiority evidently consists in the degree to which cleanliness, order, and ventilation are carried, and not by contrast with others where these essentials are wholly neglected. Mr. Baker, also, in speaking of the improved appearance of the workpeople, as compared with past years—a matter on which a professional education had qualified him for giving judgment-attributes it to the working of the Factory Acts, by which the hours of labor have been diminished. At a bygone period, he says (previous to 1833), the "factory leg" and the "curved spine" were a proverb and a reproach everywhere in the factory districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire; and that, "as a general rule, there was an abnegation of the duties and sympathies which should ever exist between master and servant." But now, he says, the proverb has died a natural death. "There is scarcely to be seen, in any of the manufacturing districts, a crooked leg or a distorted spine, as the result of factory labour; unless, indeed, it be an old man, one of the specimens of other days. The once pale and haggard faces are now ruddy and joyous; the once angular forms are now full and rounded; there is mirth in the step and happiness in the countenance." Furthermore, his report says, and we quote it with unfeigned pleasure, as incontrovertible evidence of the march of social improvement, pari passu with the increase of our manufacturing prosperity:-" In 1833, there were at least 200,000 females employed within the factories of the United Kingdom. They were,' says Mr. Smith, the eminent surgeon, of Leeds, writing on this subject in August last, a poor, emaciated, and

1st

downhearted-looking race, with angular shoulders and stooping heads, and altogether destitute of the rounded form of healthy women.' There are now 400,000, and they are fair and florid, stout and muscular, cheerful and happy, and all the outlines are admirable.' Such is the concurrent testimony of nine of the certifying surgeons, who certify for mills which employ 70,000 persons in the various branches of textile labor, of whom 40,000 are women and children." With all this improvement, much, however, remains to be done; for we find in the Inspectors' returns, under the head of "Accidents arising from machinery," for the year ending 31st October, 1859, no less than 3939 accidents, of which 61 ended in death. The greater portion, if not the whole of these consisting of amputations of hands, arms, and feet, fractures of bones, lacerations, and contusions-are remediable; for machinery is the most obedient of all servants, and the most certainly to be depended on, as it is subject neither to frights nor fits of temper. Carelessness is, undoubtedly, the origin of these numerous injuries to the person, carelessness, to a certain degree, on the part of those mill-owners who have neglected to fence their live spindles, pulleys, and belts sufficiently to provide against the possibility of accidents; and carelessness, to a much greater degree, on the part of the workpeople, in tending, adjusting, or approaching the machinery while in motion. More stringent rules would cure the one, but education alone can modify the other.

With respect to that important element in the social well-being of every class of society-education-in its relation to the factory workers, the reports for the past year afford some interesting information. By the Factory Acts, it is provided that those children whose hours of labor are, by reason of their tender age, limited to half-time, shall receive education during their connection with the factory; but there is no further compulsion put on the parents to send their children to school when their remunerative employment ceases. Consequently, the result of the partial education which these factory children receive is most unsatisfactory. Mr. Leonard Horner, the most experienced of the Factory Inspectors, declares the education of the children, in numerous cases, to be an utter mockery." Sir John Kincaid, the Inspector for Scotland, says: " Children who are required by law to receive instruction while employed in factories, continue to have every justice done them; but there is no sensible increase in the number of children so employed, nor, I fear, is there likely to be, in my district.” Mr. Baker says, out of 2500 young persons, between the ages of 13 and 16, examined on offering themselves for employment in factories, within the districts of seven certifying surgeons, upwards of 42 per cent. could not read at all. Mr. Redgrave gives, as the result of his

66

1st

experience, a confirmation of the deplorable insufficiency of the present system of education. He requested Mr. Chorley, the certifying surgeon for Leeds, while examining the candidates for full-time certificates, to distinguish those children who had been previously employed as half-timers, with the view of ascertaining the progress made under the half-time system of education. From the 1st April to the 31st October last, Mr. Chorley certified 499 young persons, of whom only 123, or 24 per cent., could read. Of the 376 who could not read, 89 had been employed for half-time in factories, and attended school, between the ages of 8 and 13 years, for periods extending, in some instances, to an aggregate of three years. As a remedy for this non-education system, Mr. Baker suggests the enactment of a law providing for a prospective educational test, to come into force five years hence; certificates of fitness to work being withheld from all candidates who had not passed the test; and Mr. Redgrave evidently approves the suggestion, for he says:-"The experience which accumulates from year to year convinces me that the principal object to be attained is the attendance of children at school before they are employed." Something of this kind is already being carried out by mill-owners, for Sir John Kincaid says:"The adoption of an educational test continues to advance in practice, and now includes the extensive factory of Messrs. Alexander, in Duke-street, Glasgow." But it is obvious that this course cannot be carried out extensively without the aid of Parliament. That there would be no serious difficulty in enforcing education as proposed, is proved by Mr. Baker, who says:-"My request to the surgeons to examine the reading capabilities of the young persons who were candidates for employment, led to an impulsive rush to school in those neighbourhoods, under an impression that in future none would be employed but those who could read and write."

As the social condition of the factory workers is intimately connected with their intellectual advancement, it is evident that, when education is at so low an ebb as we have seen, the home life of this class does not present so bright a picture as might be desired. Of domestic economy the wives know as little as the men of political economy, for they have not learned to think. Although, therefore, work may be plentiful, and wages good, the men will, not unfrequently, under a fallacious hope of securing immediate advantages, set about actively to create an artificial stagnation of business, whereby the supplies for the sustenance of their households will be cut off; while the women, by a course of ignorant extravagance, are doing their best to dissipate the funds entrusted to their management. Discontented with their lot, workmen will provoke a quarrel with their masters, and fight them without weapons, trusting to the reckless statements of interested agitators, and unheeding, because