penal statute; and for this reason: a moral sense of rectitude will eagerly anticipate, not coldly and reluctantly comply with, the law. Where respect for the law is secured by the impending terrors of pains and penalties, we ever find men scrupulously weighing. the amount of compliance which shall bring them indeed to the verge of peril, but preserve them harmless. Bare compliance with the law, not generous respect for it, is always to be looked for in men, between whom and their faults, parliament may have found it necessary to interpose. The legislative restrictions upon labour have ever been treated in this spirit—a spirit not confined exclusively to the employer on the one hand, or to the employed on the other, but equally active in both. It is active in the former, because the greater the number of working hours, the larger the amount of work thrown off in a given time, (say a week,) with a proportionately small investment of capital in buildings and machinery. For example, one hundred hands will throw off a given quantity of work in sixteen hours; but if you reduce the hours of labour to eight, double the number of hands, and double the quantity of machinery would be required to turn out the same amount of work. It is active in the latter, because the amount of earnings is regulated by the duration of labour, and if the labourer work sixteen hours instead of eight, he obtains twice the amount of money. Thus, at present, it is the interest of both to prolong the duration of labour, and both are actuated by the same motive the desire of gain. Now, if the hours of labour of both adults and children were made uniform in all manufactories throughout the kingdom, the masters universally would be placed on an equal footing as regards the means of production, by a given quantity of machinery in a given time. Thus one grand source of injurious rivalry would be stopped up. The moral and physical effects upon the work-people and their children need not be pointed out. It was to this end that Sir James Graham's bill was mainly directed, and no doubt it would have proved effectual.

Our intention is not so much to weigh the merits of this measure as it

stood, as to take a general survey of the evils which at present afflict the operative manufacturers. We have already described the bill as a most important step in the right direction. But it was only a part (magna pars we confess) of a comprehensive and systematic plan for improving the general condition of the working classes. The children were well provided for in the measure we have just glanced at, but the condition of their parents calls for other remedies; essential, indeed, as an auxiliary to the successful education (we mean education in its literal etymological sense,) of the children, but absolutely indispensable to the success of any effort to elevate the position of the parents-remedies differing, it is true, as widely as the nature of the evils to which they must be applied, but which to be successful must be harmonious, and simultaneously set in motion. The more prominent evils which immediately suggest themselves to us are these:1. The want of secular and religious instruction.

2. The utter estrangement and ignorance of each other which subsists between master and servant.

3. The exclusive employment of the females in manufactories.

4. Badly constructed habitations, and the want of efficient drainage and ventilation.

5. The payment of wages in publichouses.

Many subordinate evils might be added, but for the most part they will range under these five heads.

With regard to the first and principal evil, it was boldly, and we believe effectually grappled with in Sir James Graham's factory bill. All who have been engaged in investigating the condition of the labouring classes concur in pronouncing the general want of secular and religious instruction as most lamentable, and disgraceful to a Christian country. The educational clauses of the bill provided a remedy of the very best kind, founded on the strictly-constitutional principle of assigning to the Established Church the performance of those high superintending functions which as the national church belong to it, and to it alone. How far the experiment of a compulsory education of the people might have succeeded, it is impossible to

foresee; but of this we are well convinced, that so long as religion is to form any part of education, (and without religion the very life-spring of education would be wanting,) it must be controlled by some one established and recognised authority-some one standard and exemplar of the doctrine of Christianity; not left a thing of shreds and patches, to be administered by each of the hundred and one teachers of schism. This, however, is a subject to which justice can only be done in an article specially and exclusively devoted to it.

The estrangement and ignorance of each other which subsists between master and man is another very formidable evil. It is one, however, not likely to escape the attention of government. We find that the Children's Employment Commissioners, in their second report, just issued, make pointed remarks upon it in several places; ex. gr.

"That among the great body of employers it is very uncommon, even for those who are considered the best masto do any thing more, in the moral care of their young workpeople, than merely to suspend in the places of work printed regulations, defining the duties and be haviour of the children, and prohibiting the adult workmen from beating and otherwise ill-using them, without, either by themselves or their agents, taking any personal care that these regulations are observed: while, in the great majority of instances, even this is not done, but the young people come to their work at a fixed hour; during the hours of labour they work constantly; when their task is done, they leave their place of work; and then all connexion ends between the employers and the employed."*

The effects of an opposite policy on the part of the masters are forcibly adduced:

"That in the comparatively few large establishments in which the children are employed and paid directly by the master, and in which, either by his own personal inspection, or by that of an intelligent and vigilant agent, he exercises a superintendence over the children, there is not only a great increase in their happiness, but

uniformly a striking improvement in their general conduct; and that in every trade and district there are some establishments in which corporal punishment is neither allowed nor practised, and from which any workman who ill-uses a child is dismissed."t

A learned and valuable writer of the present day, in an essay "on the Present Condition of the Labouring Poor in Manchester," throws out some hints on this subject which the government would do well to adopt. He says

"Let it become a rule-not merely a circumstance of frequent occurrence and a point generally aimed at, as I am happy to believe it is with many masters -but a RULE not to be deviated from, that the master, or some confidential servant of equal education and influence with the master himself, shall become personally acquainted with every workman in his employ; and no case of real distress would hereafter go unrelieved from the ignorance of the giver, and the inability of the receiver to produce satisfactory testimony to the necessity of the "Two simple rules

case.

alone seem necessary for this purpose. One is, that every master keep a book in which is always entered the name and residence of each workman, the number of his children, the amount of his wages, the time of his entering and the time of his quitting such master's service, with the reasons for the latter. The other is, that each master either pay his workmen himself, or, if that be impracticable, that he be as frequently as possible present at the time of payment, by which means he will gradually become acquainted with their persons and circumstances, and they with him. It is astonishing how much men are conciliated towards one another simply by becoming personally acquainted. It is human nature (though not an amiable part of it) to think ill of those we do not know, especially when our interests seem to be opposed to one another."

These forcible remarks are the fruit of a practical experience of some duration in the manufacturing districts of Lancashire. They are from the pen of one whose writings and personal exertions will one day work his ad

t Ibid.-Page 198.

vancement-the Rev. Richard Parkinson, one of the canons of Manchester. When master and man are placed on a different footing, when they are made to know each other, then personal character will become as essential a quality in the workman as manual dexterity. From that moment he will become something more than a living machine; he will have a right to the sympathies, not a mere claim upon the purse of his master; and in discoverthat he is an object of regard to those above him, he will become sensible to the cheering dawn of self-respect, and feel that his social position has been elevated, and that he is of some consequence to society. Of course, the altered position of master and man would involve the abolition of the practice of apprenticing children to overlookers and workpeople, instead of to their masters. It is a bad practice, surrounded with all sorts of evils, and hardships, and cruelties to the children, without conferring the least benefit upon the masters. If the servant be discharged from his employment, his apprentices must share his fate; his control over them is absolute, and not unfrequently attended with cruelty: and since his only interest in the apprentice is the amount of his or her earnings, (for it must be understood that in most instances the man, by agreement with the parents of the child, pockets a large portion of its earnings,) its disposition and habits are wholly neglected until they are confirmed for life. To all these matters should government pay an earnest attention. We think they may calculate upon the ready co-operation of the masters, for it is inconceivable that any set of men could be so blind to their own interests as not to see the many unquestionable advantages which would flow from the suggested remedies.

The third evil-exclusive employment of the females in manufactories

is one which strikes at the root and utterly destroys the domestic comforts

of the working people. The calm repose of home, those gentle endearments which insensibly twine round the hearts of men and fortify them against the "evil passions which assault and hurt the soul," are unknown to the factory labourer: his wife neglects her household to perform her daily duties in the factory, which unfit her for the duties of a wife; the domestic hearth is cold and forbidding, void of its proverbial allurements, stripped of its comforts, and the husband seeks his wretched pleasures in the haunts of dissipation and vice. The commissioners whom we have quoted record a strong verdict to this effect:

"That the girls are prevented, by their early removal from home and from the day-schools, to be employed in labour, from learning needlework, and liness, neatness, and order, without from acquiring those habits of cleanwhich they cannot, when they grow up to womanhood, and have the charge of families of their own, economise their husbands' earnings, or give to their homes any degree of comfort; and this general want of the qualifications of a housewife in the women of this class is stated by clergymen, teachers, medical men, employers, and other witnesses, to be one great and universally-prevailing cause of distress and crime among the working classes."†

The committee of physicians and surgeons at Birmingham, in a report to the poor-law commissioners,‡ also bear strong testimony to the pernicious consequences arising from the exclusive employment of females in manufactories:

"The improvidence of which we are speaking is to be traced in very many instances to extreme ignorance on the part of the wives of these people. The females are from necessity bred up from their youth in the workshops, as the earnings of the younger members contribute to the support of the family. The minds and morals of the girls be come debased, and they marry totally ignorant of all those habits of domestic

economy which tend to render a husband's home comfortable and happy; and this is very often the cause of the man being driven to the alehouse to seek that comfort after his day of toil which he looks for in vain by his own fireside.'

There is enough in this evidence to justify the legislature in specially exempting the females from factory labour. We would not go the length of urging an unconditional interdict against their working at all in the factories, for this, we know, would in most cases prove a distressing and unnecessary curtailment of the means of supporting large families, but we would very materially shorten the hours of labour, with a view of reinstating the females in their proper domestic sphere. The wicked and demoralizing practice, which has long prevailed, of the young people of both sexes leaving the roof of their parents at a tender age and seeking shelter in lodgings, doubtless had its origin, in some degree, in a sense, on the part of the females, of domestic uselessness at home, and in a disinclination on the part of the males to share in the dreary miseries of the domestic fireside.

Badly constructed habitations and the want of sufficient drainage and ventilation are another prolific source of evil to the labouring classes, and must, so long as they exist, effectually neutralize every step in the direction of either moral or sanatory improvement. Who ever heard of the domestic virtues flourishing or bearing fruit amidst the filth and squalor of crowded, noisome, unventilated, and undrained hovels ? The atmosphere of such. places is peculiarly and especially the atmosphere of crime and wretchedness, stifling every generous impulse as it rises, blunting the energies of mind and body, making men indifferent to their fate, weaning them from the very sense of comfort, and reducing

them to the nerveless and lethargic passiveness of a swinish existence. If the dwelling be environed with puddles and stenches, cooped up in narrow streets and alleys; if there be but one step "from threshold to constant mud," what temptation is there to keep the interior of the house neat and clean, or to stone the threshold? Men's habits are moulded by the objects and associations which constantly surround them. What sort of habits would be formed by the influences which we have described? Are they such influences as would quicken the seeds of morality and religion into a luxurious growth? Is this the ground in which to sow noble precepts, or plant lofty impulses ? We trow not! What says the chairman of the Bedford Union at page 262 of the "Sanatory Report"

"A man who comes home to a poor, comfortless hovel after his day's labour, and sees all miserable around him, has his spirits more often depressed than excited by it.* He feels that do his best he shall be miserable still, and is too apt to fly for a temporary refuge to the ale-house or beer-shop."

This picture is amply corroborated by the secretary to the poor-law commissioners, Mr. Chadwick, who says—

"There, as in most cases, the internal economy of the houses was primarily effected by the defective internal and surrounding drainage, that produced the damp and wet, and thence the dirt, against which the inmates had ceased to contend."

We should think so indeed! The poor, hard-worked, and worn journeyman cotton-spinner of the present day is scarcely equal to the Herculean task of cleansing an Augean stable. That must be left to the patriotism of a whole senate.

The fifth and last evil is the payment of wages in public-houses; by which

practice the men are induced to spend a considerable portion of their earnings on beer or spirits; thus contracting habits of drunkenness and profligacy, and entailing all sorts of misery and privation both upon themselves and their families. The evidence of Mr. Peter Fairbairn, an extensive mechanist of Leeds, (Sanatory Report, pages 247-8,) lays bare the evil in its broad and hideous extent:

"You are a mechanist at Leeds?— I am.

"What number of men do you employ?-Between 500 and 600.

The

"Have you ever observed any effects produced in the habits of the labouring classes in respect to drinking intoxicating liquors by the mode in which they are paid their wages?—Yes, there are two modes in which wages are most frequently paid, and both these modes are prejudicial in their effects. first effect is connected with the place of payment. Some masters pay at the public-house, others pay the men at the counting-house after the work is completed. The effects produced by payment at the public-house are to oblige the workman to drink. He is kept waiting in the public-house during a long time, varying from two to three hours, sometimes as much as five hours. The workman cannot remain in the house without drinking, even if he were alone, as he must make some return to the landlord for the use of the room. But the payment of a number of men occupies time in proportion to their numbers. We find that to pay our own men in the most rapid way requires from two to three hours. The assembled workmen, of course, stimulate each other to drink. Out of 100 men, all of whom will probably have taken their quart of porter or ale, above a third will go home in a state of drunkenness-of drunkenness to the extent of imbecility. The evil is not confined to the men; the destructive habit is propagated in their families. At each public-house a proportion of the poor women, their wives, attend. According to my own observation, full ten per cent. of the men have their wives

and children in attendance at the publichouse. The poor women have no other mode of getting money to market with on Saturday night than attending at the public-house to get it from their husbands. They may have children whom they cannot leave at home, and these they bring with them. The wives are thus led to drink, and they and their children are made partakers at the scenes of drunkenness and riot; for there are not unfrequently quarrels leading to fights between the workmen when intoxicated.

"Do not these late hours, consequent on such a mode of payment, also lead them to the inferior markets, and prejudice the domestic economy of the labourer's household?-Yes, they have the less money to purchase with, and must purchase an inferior quality of provisions. I have observed that they do so. They are driven to the inferior shopkeepers who keep open late; and they are also driven to make purchases on the Sunday morning. It is only the inferior shopkeepers or hucksters who will sell on the Sunday morning, and they sell an inferior commodity at a higher price."

This must suffice. Not that we have put all our witnesses into the box. We could fill a month's space with evidence equally strong. Sufficient however has been quoted to show that in order effectually to rescue the manufacturing districts of England from the moral and physical thraldom under which they at present labour, a comprehensive measure, embracing all the evils which we have dwelt upon, must accompany any legislative attempt to confer a salutary system of education upon the rising generation of workpeople. Put an end to the five evils which we have pointed out, and the ground is prepared for the seeds of a moral and religious training, which will speedily work the regeneration of the factory population of England. Neglect this, and all the education in the world will prove abortive.

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VOL. XXII.-No. 130.