Chapter III: Slavery in the British Factories (2)

"William Roe, (examined at his own request:) 'I am constable
of Radford. I was in the army. I went to work with Mr. Wilson
in 1825. I had been with Strutts, at Belper, before that. The
reason I left was this: I was told the overlooker was leathering
one of my boys. I had two sons there. The overlooker was Crooks.
I found him strapping the boy, and I struck him. I did not stop
to ask whether the boy had done any thing. I had heard of his
beating him before. Smith came up, and said I should work there
no more till I had seen Mr. Wilson. My answer was, that neither
I nor mine should ever work more for such a mill as that was. It
was but the day before I took the boy to Smith, to show him that
he had no time to take his victuals till he came out at twelve.
There was no satisfaction, but he laughed at it. That was the
reason I took the means into my own hands. Crooks threatened
to fetch a warrant for me, but did not. I told him the master
durst not let him. The boy had been doing nothing, only could
not keep up his work enough to please them. I left the mill, and
took away my sons. One was ten, the other was between eight and
nine. They went there with me. The youngest was not much past
eight when he went. I heard no more of it. I put all my reasons
down in a letter to Mr. Wilson, but I heard no more of it. Smith
was sent away afterward, but I don't know why. I have heard it
was for different ill-usages. Crooks is there now. Hogg was the
overlooker in my room. I have often seen him beat a particular
boy who was feeding cards. One day he pulled his ear till he
pulled it out of the socket, and it bled very much. I mean he
tore the bottom of the ear from the head. I went to him and said,
if that boy was mine I'd give him a better threshing than ever
he had in his life. It was reported to Mr. S. Wilson, and he
told me I had better mind my own business, and not meddle with
the overlookers. I never heard that the parents complained. Mr.
S. Wilson is dead now. Mr. W. Wilson said to me afterward, I
had made myself very forward in meddling with the overlookers'
business. I was to have come into the warehouse at Nottingham,
but in consequence of my speaking my mind I lost the situation.
I never had any complaint about my work while I was there, nor
at Mr. Strutt's. I left Mr. Strutt's in hopes to better myself.
I came as a machine smith. I went back to Mr. Strutt's, at
Milford, after I left Wilson, for two years. The men never had
more than twenty-five minutes for their dinner, and no extra pay
for stopping there. I dressed the top cards, and ground them. I
never heard that Mr. Wilson proposed to stop the breakfast hour,
and that the hands wished to go on. I don't think such a thing
could be. Whilst I worked there we always went in at half-past
five, and worked till nigh half-past seven. We were never paid
a farthing overtime. At Strutt's, if ever we worked an hour
overtime, we were paid an hour and a half. I have seen Smith
take the girls by the hair with one hand, and slap them in the
face with the other; big and little, it made no difference. He
worked there many years before he was turned away. He works in
the mill again now, but not as an overlooker. I never knew of any
complaint to the magistrate against Smith. I had 12_s._ when I
was there for standing wages. It was about nine in the morning my
boy was beat. I think it was in the middle of the day the boy's
ear was pulled. The work was very severe there while it lasted. A
boy generally had four breakers and finisher-cards to mind. Such
a boy might mind six when he had come on to eleven or twelve; I
mean finishers. A boy can mind from three to four breakers. Any
way they had not time to get their victuals. I don't know what
the present state of the mill is as to beating. Men will not
complain to the magistrates while work is so scarce, and they are
liable to be turned out; and if they go to the parish, why there
it is, 'Why, you had work, why did you not stay at it?'"

Robert Blincoe, a small manufacturer, once an apprentice to a cotton mill, and one who had seen and suffered much in factories, was sworn and examined by Dr. Hawkins, on the 18th of May, 1833. In the evidence, which follows, it will be noted that most of the sufferers mentioned were parish children, without protectors of any kind:—

"'Do you know where you were born?' 'No; I only know that I came
out of St. Pancras parish, London.'

"'Do you know the name of your parents?' 'No. I used to be
called, when young, Robert Saint; but when I received my
indentures I was called Robert Blincoe; and I have gone by that
name ever since.'

"'What age are you?' 'Near upon forty, according to my
indentures."

"'Have you no other means of knowing your age but what you find
in your indentures?' 'No, I go by that.'

"'Do you work at a cotton mill?' 'Not now. I was bound apprentice
to a cotton mill for fourteen years, from St. Pancras parish;
then I got my indentures. I worked five or six years after, at
different mills, but now I have got work of my own. I rent power
from a mill in Stockport, and have a room to myself. My business
is a sheet wadding manufacturer.'

"'Why did you leave off working at the cotton mills?' 'I got
tired of it, the system is so bad; and I had saved a few pounds.
I got deformed there; my knees began to bend in when I was
fifteen; you see how they are, (showing them.) There are many,
many far worse than me at Manchester.'

"'Can you take exercise with ease?' 'A very little makes me sweat
in walking. I have not the strength of those who are straight.'

"'Have you ever been in a hospital, or under doctors, for your
knees or legs?' 'Never in a hospital, or under doctors for that,
but from illness from over-work I have been. When I was near
Nottingham there were about eighty of us together, boys and
girls, all 'prenticed out from St. Pancras parish, London, to
cotton mills; many of us used to be ill, but the doctors said it
was only for want of kitchen physic, and want of more rest.'

"'Had you any accidents from machinery?' 'No, nothing to signify
much; I have not myself, but I saw, on the 6th of March last,
a man killed by machinery at Stockport; he was smashed, and he
died in four or five hours; I saw him while the accident took
place; he was joking with me just before; it was in my own room.
I employ a poor sore cripple under me, who could not easily get
work anywhere else. A young man came good-naturedly from another
room to help my cripple, and he was accidentally drawn up by the
strap, and was killed. I have known many such accidents take
place in the course of my life.'

"'Recollect a few.' 'I cannot recollect the exact number, but
I have known several: one was at Lytton Mill, at Derbyshire;
another was the master of a factory at Staley Bridge, of the name
of Bailey. Many more I have known to receive injuries, such as
the loss of a limb. There is plenty about Stockport that is going
about now with one arm; they cannot work in the mills, but they
go about with jackasses and such like. One girl, Mary Richards,
was made a cripple, and remains so now, when I was in Lowdham
mill, near Nottingham. She was lapped up by a shaft underneath
the drawing-frame. That is now an old-fashioned machinery.'

"'Have you any children?' 'Three.'

"'Do you send them to factories?' 'No. I would rather have them
transported. In the first place, they are standing upon one leg,
lifting up one knee a greater part of the day, keeping the ends
up from the spindle. I consider that that employment makes many
cripples; then there is the heat and dust; then there are so
many different forms of cruelty used upon them; then they are
so liable to have their fingers catched, and to suffer other
accidents from the machinery; then the hours is so long that I
have seen them tumble down asleep among the straps and machinery,
and so get cruelly hurt; then I would not have a child of mine
there, because there is not good morals; there is such a lot of
them together that they learn mischief.'

"'What do you do with your children?' 'My eldest of thirteen has
been to school, and can teach me. She now stays at home, and
helps her mother in the shop. She is as tall as me, and is very
heavy. Very different from what she would have been if she had
worked in a factory. My two youngest go to school, and are both
healthy. I send them every day two miles to school. I know from
experience the ills of confinement.'

"'What are the forms of cruelty that you spoke of just now as
being practised upon children in factories?' 'I have seen the
time when two hand-vices, of a pound weight each, more or less,
have been screwed to my ears at Lytton mill, in Derbyshire. Here
are the scars still remaining behind my ears. Then three or four
of us have been hung at once to a cross-beam above the machinery,
hanging by our hands, without shirts or stockings. Mind, we were
apprentices, without father or mother, to take care of us; I
don't say they often do that now. Then, we used to stand up, in a
skip, without our shirts, and be beat with straps or sticks; the
skip was to prevent us from running away from the strap.'

"'Do you think such things are done now in Manchester?' 'No,
not just the same things; but I think the children are still
beaten by overlookers; not so much, however, in Manchester,
where justice is always at hand, as in country places. Then they
used to tie on a twenty-eight pounds weight, (one or two at
once,) according to our size, to hang down on our backs, with
no shirts on. I have had them myself. Then they used to tie one
leg up to the faller, while the hands were tied behind. I have
a book written about these things, describing my own life and
sufferings. I will send it to you.'[88]

"'Do the masters know of these things, or were they done only by
the overlookers?' 'The masters have often seen them, and have
been assistants in them.'

The work is so protracted that the children are exhausted, and many become crippled from standing too long in unhealthy positions:—

"John Wright, steward in the silk factory of Messrs. Brinsley and
Shatwell, examined by Mr. Tufnell.

"'What are the effects of the present system of labour?' 'From my
earliest recollections, I have found the effects to be awfully
detrimental to the well-being of the operative; I have observed,
frequently, children carried to factories, unable to walk,
and that entirely owing to excessive labour and confinement.
The degradation of the work-people baffles all description;
frequently have two of my sisters been obliged to be assisted
to the factory and home again, until by and by they could go no
longer, being totally crippled in their legs. And in the next
place, I remember some ten or twelve years ago working in one of
the largest firms in Macclesfield, (Messrs. Baker and Pearson,)
with about twenty-five men, where they were scarce one-half fit
for his majesty's service. Those that are straight in their limbs
are stunted in their growth, much inferior to their fathers in
point of strength. 3dly. Through excessive labour and confinement
there is often a total loss of appetite; a kind of languor
steals over the whole frame, enters to the very core, saps the
foundation of the best constitution, and lays our strength
prostrate in the dust. In the fourth place, by protracted
labour there is an alarming increase of cripples in various
parts of this town, which has come under my own observation and
knowledge.'"

Young sufferers gave the following evidence to the commissioners:—

"'Many a time has been so fatigued that she could hardly take
off her clothes at night, or put them on in the morning; her
mother would be raging at her, because when she sat down she
could not get up again through the house.' 'Looks on the long
hours as a great bondage.' 'Thinks they are not much better than
the Israelites in Egypt, and their life is no pleasure to them.'
'When a child, was so tired that she could seldom eat her supper,
and never awoke of herself.'—'Are the hours to be shortened?'
earnestly demanded one of these girls of the commissioner who was
examining her, 'for they are too long.'"

The truth of the account given by the children of the fatigue they experience by the ordinary labour of the factory is confirmed by the testimony of their parents. In general, the representation made by parents is like the following:—

"'Her children come home so tired and worn out they can hardly
eat their supper.' 'Has often seen his daughter come home in the
evening so fatigued that she would go to bed supper-less,' 'Has
seen the young workers absolutely oppressed, and unable to sit
down or rise up; this has happened to his own children.'

These statements are confirmed by the evidence of the adult operatives. The depositions of the witnesses of this class are to the effect, that "the younger workers are greatly fatigued;" that "children are often very severe (unwilling) in the mornings;" that "children are quite tired out;" that "the long hours exhaust the workers, especially the young ones, to such a degree that they can hardly walk home;" that "the young workers are absolutely oppressed, and so tired as to be unable to sit down or rise up;" that "younger workers are so tired they often cannot raise their hands to their head;" that "all the children are very keen for short hours, thinking them now such bondage that they might as well be in a prison;" that "the children, when engaged in their regular work, are often exhausted beyond what can be expressed;" that "the sufferings of the children absolutely require that the hours should be shortened."

The depositions of the overlookers are to the same effect, namely, that "though the children may not complain, yet that they seem tired and sleepy, and happy to get out of doors to play themselves. That, "the work over-tires the workers in general." "Often sees the children very tired and stiff-like." "Is entirely of opinion, after real experience, that the hours of labour are far too long for the children, for their health and education; has from twenty-two to twenty-four boys under his charge, from nine to about fourteen years old, and they are generally much tired at night, always anxious, asking if it be near the mill-stopping." "Never knew a single worker among the children that did not complain of the long hours, which prevent them from getting education, and from getting health in the open air."

The managers in like manner state, that "the labour exhausts the children;" that "the workers are tired in the evening;" that "children inquire anxiously for the hour of stopping." And admissions to the same effect, on the part of managers and proprietors, will be found in every part of the Scotch depositions.

In the north-eastern district the evidence is equally complete that the fatigue of the young workers is great.

"'I have known the children,' says one witness, 'to hide
themselves in the store among the wool, so that they should not
go home when the work was over, when we have worked till ten or
eleven. I have seen six or eight fetched out of the store and
beat home; beat out of the mill however; I do not know why they
should hide themselves, unless it was that they were too tired to
go home.'

"'Many a one I have had to rouse in the last hour, when the
work is very slack, from fatigue.' 'The children were very much
jaded, especially when we worked late at night.' 'The children
bore the long hours very ill indeed.' 'Exhausted in body and
depressed in mind by the length of the hours and the height of
the temperature.' 'I found, when I was an overlooker, that,
after the children from eight to twelve years had worked eight,
nine, or ten hours, they were nearly ready to faint; some were
asleep; some were only kept to work by being spoken to, or by
a little chastisement, to make them jump up. I was sometimes
obliged to chastise them when they were almost fainting, and it
hurt my feelings; then they would spring up and work pretty well
for another hour; but the last two or three hours were my hardest
work, for they then got so exhausted,' 'I have never seen fathers
carrying their children backward nor forward to the factories;
but I have seen children, apparently under nine, and from nine
to twelve years of age, going to the factories at five in the
morning almost asleep in the streets.'"

"Ellen Cook, card-filler: 'I was fifteen last winter. I worked
on then sometimes day and night;—may be twice a week; I used to
earn 4_s._ a week; I used to go home to dinner; I was a feeder
then; I am a feeder still. We used to come at half-past eight at
night, and work all night till the rest of the girls came in the
morning; they would come at seven, I think. Sometimes we worked
on till half-past eight the next night, after we had been working
all the night before. We worked on meal-hours, except at dinner.
I have done that sometimes three nights a week, and sometimes
four nights. It was just as the overlooker chose. John Singleton;
he is overlooker now. Sometimes the slubbers would work on all
night too; not always. The pieceners would have to stay all night
then too. It was not often though that the slubbers worked all
night. We worked by ourselves. It was when one of the boilers
was spoiled; that was the reason we had to work all night. The
engine would not carry all the machines. I was paid for the
over-hours when we worked day and night; not for meal-hours. We
worked meal-hours, but were not paid for them. George Lee is
the slubber in this room. He has worked all night; not often, I
think; not above twice all the time we worked so; sometimes he
would not work at all. The pieceners would work too when he did.
They used to go to sleep, poor things! when they had over-hours
in the night. I think they were ready enough to sleep sometimes,
when they only worked in the daytime. I never was a piecener;
sometimes I go to help them when there are a good many cardings.
We have to get there by half-past five, in the morning, now. The
engine begins then. We don't go home to breakfast. Sometimes we
have a quarter of an hour; sometimes twenty minutes; sometimes
none. Them in the top-room have a full half hour. We can't take
half an hour if we like it; we should get jawed; we should have
such a noise, we should not hear the last of it. The pieceners in
this room (there were four) have the same time as we do. In some
of the rooms they forfeit them if they are five minutes too late;
they don't in this room. The slubber often beats the pieceners.
He has a strap, and wets it, and gives them a strap over the
hands, poor things! They cry out ever so loud sometimes; I don't
know how old they are.'"

"James Simpson, aged twenty-four, solemnly sworn, deposes: 'That
he has been about fifteen years in spinning mills; that he has
been nearly a year as an overseer in Mr. Kinmond's mill here,
and was dismissed on the 2d of May, for supporting, at a meeting
of the operatives, the Ten Hours Bill; that he was one of the
persons to receive subscriptions, in money, to forward the
business, and was dismissed, not on a regular pay-day, but on a
Thursday evening, by James Malcolm, manager, who told him that
he was dismissed for being a robber to his master in supporting
the Ten Hours Bill; that by the regulations of the mill he was
entitled to a week's notice, and that a week's wages were due to
him at the time, but neither sum has been paid; that he was two
or three times desired by the overseer to strike the boys if he
saw them at any time sitting, and has accordingly struck them
with a strap, but never so severely as to hurt them; that he
is not yet employed.' And the preceding deposition having been
read over to him, he was cautioned to be perfectly sure that it
was true in all particulars, as it would be communicated to the
overseer named by him, and might still be altered if, in any
particular, he wished the change of a word; but he repeated his
assertion, on oath, that it was.

"Ann Kennedy, sixteen years old, solemnly sworn, deposes: 'That
she has been nearly a year a piecer to James McNish, a preceding
witness; that she has had swelled feet for about a year, but she
thinks them rather better; that she has a great deal of pain,
both in her feet and legs, so that she was afraid she would not
be able to go on with the work; that she thought it was owing to
the heat and the long standing on her feet; that it is a very
warm room she is in; that she sometimes looks at the thermometer
and sees it at 82°, or 84, or 86°; that all the people in the
room are very pale, and a good deal of them complaining.'
Deposes, that she cannot write.

"Joseph Hurtley, aged forty-four: 'Is an overlooker of the
flax-dressing department. Has been there since the commencement.
Thinks, from what he observes, that the hours are too long for
children. Is led to think so from seeing the children much
exhausted toward the conclusion of the work. When he came here
first, and the children were all new to the work, he found that
by six o'clock they began to be drowsy and sleepy. He took
different devices to keep them awake, such as giving them snuff,
&c.; but this drowsiness partly wore off in time, from habit, but
he still observes the same with all the boys, (they are all boys
in his department,) and it continues with them for some time.
Does not know whether the children go to school in the evening,
but he thinks, from their appearance, that they would be able to
receive very little benefit from tuition.

"'The occupation of draw-boys and girls to harness hand-loom
weavers, in their own shops, is by far the lowest and least
sought after of any connected with the manufacture of cotton.
They are poor, neglected, ragged, dirty children. They seldom
are taught any thing, and they work as long as the weaver, that
is, as long as they can see, standing on the same spot, always
barefooted, on an earthen, cold, damp floor, in a close, damp
cellar, for thirteen or fourteen hours a day.

"'The power-loom dressers have all been hand-loom weavers, but
now prevent any more of their former companions from being
employed in their present business.

"'They earn 2_s._ per week, and eat porridge, if their parents
can afford it; if not, potatoes and salt. They are, almost
always, between nine and thirteen years of age, and look healthy,
though some have been two or three years at the business; while
the weaver, for whom they draw, is looking pale, squalid, and
underfed.

"'There are some hundreds of children thus employed in the
immediate neighbourhood of Glasgow.'"

In Leicester, Mr. Drinkwater, of the Factory Commission, found that great cruelty was practised upon the children employed in some of the factories, by the workmen called "slubbers," for whom the young creatures act as piecers. Thomas Hough, a trimmer and dyer, who had worked at Robinson's factory, deposed—

"'The children were beaten at the factory; I complained, and they
were turned away. If I could have found the man at the time there
would have something happened, I am sure. I knew the man; it was
the slubber with whom they worked. His name was Smith. Robinson
had the factory then. I had my second son in to Mr. Robinson,
and stripped him, and showed him how cruelly he had been beaten.
There were nineteen bruises on his back and posteriors. It was
not with the billy-roller. It was with the strap. He has often
been struck with the billy-roller at other times, over the head.
Robinson rebuked the man, and said he should not beat them any
more. The children were beat several times after that; and on
account of my making frequent complaints they turned the children
away. They worked with Smith till they left. Smith was of a nasty
disposition, rather. I would say of the slubbers generally, that
they are a morose, ill-tempered set. Their pay depends on the
children's work. The slubbers are often off drinking, and then
they must work harder to get the cardings up. I have seen that
often. That is in the lamb's-wool trade. Mr. Gamble is one of the
most humane men that ever lived, by all that I hear, and he will
not allow the slubbers to touch the children, on any pretence;
if they will not work, he turns them away. There gets what they
call flies on the cardings, that is, when the cardings are not
properly pieced; and it is a general rule to strike the children
when that happens too often. They allow so many ratched cardings,
as they call them, in a certain time; and if there are more, they
call the children round to the billy-gate and strap them. I have
seen the straps which some of them use; they are as big as the
strap on my son's lathe yonder, about an inch broad, (looking
at it.) Oh, it is bigger than this, (it measured 7-8ths.) It is
about an inch. I have seen the children lie down on the floor,
and the slubber strike on them as they lay. It depends entirely
on the temper of the man; sometimes they will only swear at them,
sometimes they will beat them. They will be severe with them
at one time, and very familiar at another, and run on with all
sorts of debauched language, and take indecent liberties with the
feeders and other big girls, before the children. That is the
reason why they call the factories hell-holes. There are some
a good deal different. The overlookers do not take much notice
generally. They pick out bullies, generally, for overlookers. It
is very necessary to have men of a determined temper to keep the
hands in order.

"'I have known my children get strapped two or three times
between a meal. At all times of the day. Sometimes they would
escape for a day or two together, just as it might happen. Then
they get strapped for being too late. They make the children
sum up, that is, pick up the waste, and clean up the billies
during the meal-time, so that the children don't get their time.
The cruelty complained of in the factories is chiefly from the
slubbers. There is nobody so closely connected with the children
as the slubbers. There is no other part of the machinery with
which I am acquainted where the pay of the man depends on the
work of the children so much.'"

"Joseph Badder, a slubber, deposed: 'Slubbing and spinning is
very heavy. Those machines are thrown aside now. The spinners did
not like them, nor the masters neither. They did not turn off
such stuff as they expected. I always found it more difficult
to keep my piecers awake the last hours of a winter's evening.
I have told the master, and I have been told by him that I did
not half hide them. This was when they were working from six to
eight. I have known the children hide themselves in the store
among the wool, so that they should not go home when the work was
over, when we have worked till ten or eleven. I have seen six or
eight fetched out of the store and beat home; beat out of the
mill. However, I do not know why they should hide themselves,
unless it was they were too tired to go home. My piecers had
two hours for meals. Other parts of the work I have known them
work children, from seven to twelve in age, from six in the
morning till ten or eleven at night, and give no time for meals;
eat their victuals as they worked; the engines running all the
time. The engine never stopped at meal-times; it was just as the
spinner chose whether the children worked on or not. They made
more work if they went on. I never would allow any one to touch
my piecers. The foreman would come at times, and has strapped
them, and I told him I would serve him the same if he touched
them. I have seen the man who worked the other billy beat his
piecers. I have seen children knocked down by the billy-rollers.
It is a weapon that a man will easily take up in a passion. I
do not know any instance of a man being prosecuted for it. The
parents are unwilling, for fear the children should lose their
work. I know Thorpe has been up before the magistrate half a
dozen times or more, on the complaint of the parents. He has been
before the bench, at the Exchange, as we call it, and I have seen
him when he came back, when the magistrates have reprimanded
Thorpe, and told the parents they had better take the children
away. After that he has been sometimes half drunk, perhaps, and
in a passion, and would strap them for the least thing, more
than he did before. I remember once that he was fined; it was
about two years and a half ago; it was for beating a little
girl; he was fined 10_s._ I have seen him strap the women when
they took the part of the children. The master complained he was
not strict enough. I know from Thorpe that the master always
paid his expenses when he was before the magistrate. I believe
they generally do in all the factories. I have frequently had
complaints against myself by the parents of the children, for
beating them. I used to beat them. I am sure no man can do
without it who works long hours; I am sure he cannot. I told them
I was very sorry after I had done it, but I was forced to do it.
The master expected me to do my work, and I could not do mine
unless they did theirs. One lad used to say to me frequently,
(he was a jocular kind of lad,) that he liked a good beating at
times, it helped him to do his work. I used to joke with them to
keep up their spirits. _I have seen them fall asleep, and they
have been performing their work with their hands while they were
asleep, after the billy had stopped, when their work was done. I
have stopped and looked at them for two minutes, going through
the motions of piecening, fast asleep, when there was really
no work to do, and they were really doing nothing._ I believe,
when we have been working long hours, that they have never been
washed, but on a Saturday night, for weeks together.

"Thomas Clarke, (examined at request of Joseph Badder:) 'I am
aged eleven, I work at Cooper's factory; the rope-walk. I spin
there. I earn 4_s._ a week there. I have been there about one
year and a half. I was in Ross's factory before that. I was
piecener there. I piecened for Joseph Badder one while, then
for George Castle. I piecened for Badder when he left. Badder
told me I was wanted here. We have not been talking about it. I
remember that Jesse came to the machine, and Badder would not let
him go nigh, and so they got a scuffling about it. I was very
nigh nine years of age when I first went to piecen. I got 2_s._
6_d._ a week, at first. I think I was a good hand at it. When I
had been there half a year I got 3_s._ Badder used to strap me
some odd times. Some odd times he'd catch me over the head, but
it was mostly on the back. He made me sing out. He has taken
the billy-roller to me sometimes; about four times, I think. He
used to take us over the shoulders with that; he would have done
us an injury if he had struck us over the head. I never saw any
one struck over the head with a billy-roller. He would strap us
about twelve times at once. He used to strap us sometimes over
the head. He used to strap us for letting his cards run through.
I believe it was my fault. If we had had cardings to go on with
we would have kept it from running through. It was nobody's fault
that there were no cardings, only the slubber's fault that worked
so hard. I have had, maybe, six stacks of cardings put up while
he was out. When he came in, he would work harder to work down
the stacks. Sometimes he would stop the card. He used to strap
us most when he was working hardest. He did not strap us more at
night than he did in the daytime. He would sometimes stay half a
day. When he was away, as soon as we had six stacks of cardings
up, the rule was to stop, and then we'd pick up the waste about
the room, and take a play sometimes, but very seldom. Mr. Ross
paid me. Badder never paid me when he was out. I never got any
money from Badder. I used sometimes to fall asleep. The boy next
to me used often to fall asleep: John Breedon; he got many a
stroke. That was when we were working for Castle; that would be
about six o'clock. He was about the size of me; he was older than
I was. They always strapped us if we fell asleep. Badder was a
better master than Castle. Castle used to get a rope, about as
thick as my thumb, and double it, and put knots in it, and lick
us with that. That was a good bit worse than the strap. I was to
no regular master afterward; I used to do bits about the room.
I ran away because Thorpe used to come and strap me. He did not
know what he was strapping me for; it was just as he was in his
humours. I never saw such a man; he would strap any one as did
not please him. I only worked for him a week or two. I didn't
like it, and I ran away. He would strap me if even there was a
bit of waste lying about the room. I have had marks on my back
from Castle's strapping me.'"

In Nottingham, also, there is much cruelty shown in the treatment of the children, as will appear from the following evidence taken by Mr. Power:—

"Williamson, the father: 'My two sons, one ten, the other
thirteen, work at Milnes's factory, at Lenton. They go at
half-past five in the morning; don't stop at breakfast or
tea-time. They stop at dinner half an hour. Come home at a
quarter before ten. They used to work till ten, sometimes
eleven, sometimes twelve. They earn between them 6_s._ 2_d._ per
week. One of them, the eldest, worked at Wilson's for 2 years
at 2_s._ 3_d._ a week. He left because the overlooker beat him
and loosened a tooth for him. I complained, and they turned him
away for it. They have been gone to work sixteen hours now;
they will be very tired when they come home at half-past nine.
I have a deal of trouble to get 'em up in the morning. I have
been obliged to beat 'em with a strap in their shirts, and to
pinch 'em, in order to get them well awake. It made me cry to be
obliged to do it.'

"'Did you make them cry?' 'Yes, sometimes. They will be home
soon, very tired, and you will see them.' I preferred walking
toward the factory to meet them. I saw the youngest only, and
asked him a few questions. He said, 'I'm sure I shan't stop to
talk to you; I want to go home and get to bed; I must be up at
half-past five again to-morrow morning.'

"G— — and A— —, examined. The boy: 'I am going fourteen: my
sister is eleven. I have worked in Milnes's factory two years.
She goes there also. We are both in the clearing-room. I think we
work too long hours; I've been badly with it. We go at half-past
five, give over at half-past nine. I'm now just come home. We
sometimes stay till twelve. We are obliged to work over-hours. I
have 4_s._ a week; that is, for staying from six till seven. They
pay for over-hours besides. I asked to come away one night,
lately, at eight o'clock, being ill; I was told if I went I must
not come again. I am not well now. I can seldom eat any breakfast;
my appetite is very bad. I have had a bad cold for a week.'

"Father: 'I believe him to be ill from being over-worked. My
little girl came home the other day, cruelly beaten. I took her
to Mr. Milnes; did not see him, but showed Mrs. Milnes the marks.
I thought of taking it before a magistrate, but was advised
to let it drop. They might have turned both my children away.
That man's name is Blagg; he is always strapping the children.
I shan't let the boy go to them much longer; I shall try to
apprentice him; it's killing him by inches; he falls asleep
over his food at night. I saw an account of such things in the
newspaper, and thought how true it was of my own children.'

"Mother: 'I have worked in the same mills myself. The same man
was there then. I have seen him behave shocking to the children.
He would take 'em by the hair of the head and drag 'em about the
room. He has been there twelve years. There's a many young ones
in that hot room. There's six of them badly now, with bad eyes
and sick-headache. This boy of ours has always been delicate
from a child. His appetite is very bad now; he does not eat his
breakfast sometimes for two or three days together. The little
girl bears it well; she is healthy. I should prefer their coming
home at seven, without additional wages. The practice of working
over-hours has been constantly pursued at Milnes's factory.'

"John Fortesque, at his own house, nine P.M. 'I am an overlooker
in this factory. We have about one hundred hands. Forty quite
children; most of the remainder are young women. Our regular
day is from six to seven. It should be an hour for dinner, but
it is only half an hour. I don't know how it comes so. We have
had some bad men in authority who made themselves big; it is
partly the master. No time is allowed for tea or breakfast;
there used to be a quarter of an hour for each; it's altered
now. We call it twelve hours a day. Over-time is paid for extra.
When we are busy we work over-hours. Our present time is till
half-past nine. It has been so all winter, and since to this
time. We have some very young ones; as young as eight. I don't
like to take them younger; they're not able to do our work. We
have three doubling-rooms, a clearing-room, and a gassing-room.
We have about forty in the clearing-room. We occasionally find
it necessary to make a difference as to the time of keeping
some of the children. We have done so several times. Master has
said: Pick out the youngest, and let them go, and get some of
the young women to take their places. I am not the overlooker
to the clearing-room. Blagg is overlooker there; there has been
many complaints against him. He's forced to be roughish in order
to keep his place. If he did not keep the work going on properly
there would be some one to take his place who would. There are
some children so obstinate and bad they must be punished. A strap
is used. Beating is necessary, on account of their being idle.
We find it out often in this way: we give them the same number
of bobbins each; when the number they ought to finish falls off,
then they're corrected. They would try the patience of any man.
It is not from being tired, I think. It happens as often in the
middle of the day as at other times. I don't like the beating
myself; I would rather there were little deductions in their
earnings for these offences. I am sure the children would not
like to have any of their earnings stopped; I am sure they would
mind it. From what I have heard parents say about their children
when at work, I am sure they (the parents) would prefer this
mode of correction; and, I think, it would have an effect on the
children. At the factory of Messrs. Mills and Elliot they go on
working all the night as well as day. I believe them to have done
so for the last year and a half; they have left it off about a
week. (_A respectable female here entered with a petition against
negro-slavery; after she was gone, Mr. Fortesque continued._) I
think home slavery as bad as it can be abroad; worst of anywhere
in the factories. The hours we work are much too long for young
people. Twelve hours' work is enough for young or old, confined
in a close place. The work is light, but it's standing so long
that tires them. I have been here about two years; I have seen
bad effects produced on people's health by it, but not to any
great degree. It must be much worse at Mills and Elliot's;
working night as well as day, the rooms are never clear of
people's breaths. We set our windows open when we turn the hands
out. The gas, too, which they use at night, makes it worse.'"

The italicised parenthesis is, _bonâ fide_, a part of the Report, as may be proved by consulting the parliamentary document. The _respectable female_ was probably the original of Dickens's Mrs. Jellaby.

Read these references to a case of barbarity in a factory at Wigan:—

_Extract from a speech made by Mr. Grant, a Manchester spinner,
at a meeting held at Chorlton-upon-Medlock; reported in the
Manchester Courier of 20th April, 1833._

"Much was said of the black slaves and their chains. No doubt
they were entitled to freedom, but were there no slaves except
those of sable hue? Has slavery no sort of existence among
children of the factories? Yes, and chains were sometimes
introduced, though those chains might not be forged of iron. He
would name an instance of this kind of slavery, which took place
at Wigan. A child, not ten years of age, having been late at
the factory one morning, had, as a punishment, a rope put round
its neck, to which a weight of twenty pounds was attached; and,
thus burdened like a galley-slave, it was compelled to labour
for a length of time in the midst of an impure atmosphere and a
heated room. [Loud cries of, Shame!] The truth of this has been
denied by Mr. Richard Potter, the member for Wigan; but he (the
speaker) reiterated its correctness. He has seen the child; and
its mother's eyes were filled with tears while she told him this
shocking tale of infant suffering."

_Extract from a speech made by Mr. Oastler, on the occasion of a
meeting at the City of London Tavern; reported in the Times, of
the 25th of February, 1833._

"In a mill at Wigan, the children, for any slight neglect, were
loaded with weights of twenty pounds, passed over their shoulders
and hanging behind their backs. Then there was a murderous
instrument called a billy-roller, about eight feet long and one
inch and a half in diameter, with which many children had been
knocked down, and in some instances murdered by it."

_Extract from a speech made by Mr. Oastler, at a meeting held in
the theatre at Bolton, and reported in the Bolton Chronicle, of
the 30th of March, 1833._

"In one factory they have a door which covers a quantity of cold
water, in which they plunge the sleepy victim to awake it. In
Wigan they tie a great weight to their backs. I knew the Russians
made the Poles carry iron weights in their exile to Siberia, but
it was reserved for Christian England thus to use an infant."

Rowland Detroiser deposed before the Central Board of Commissioners, concerning the treatment of children in the cotton factories:—

"'The children employed in a cotton-factory labour, are not
all under the control or employed by the proprietor. A very
considerable number is employed and paid by the spinners and
stretchers, when there are stretchers. These are what are called
piecers and scavengers; the youngest children being employed
in the latter capacity, and as they grow up, for a time in the
scavengers and piecers. In coarse mills, that is, mills in which
low numbers of yarn are spun, the wages of the scavengers is
commonly from 1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._ 6_d._, according to size and
ability. The men do not practise the system of fining, generally
speaking, and especially toward these children. The sum which
they earn is so small it would be considered by many a shame to
make it less. They do not, however, scruple to give them a good
bobbying, as it is called; that is, beating them with a rope
thickened at one end, or, in some few brutal instances, with the
combined weapons of fist and foot.'

"'But this severity, you say, is practised toward the children
who are employed by the men, and not employed by the masters?'
'Yes.'

"'And the men inflict the punishment?' 'Yes.'

"'Not the overlookers?' 'Not in these instances.'

"'But how do you reconcile your statement with the fact that
the men have been the principal complainers of the cruelties
practised toward the children, and also the parties who are most
active in endeavouring to obtain for the children legislative
protection?' 'My statement is only fact. I do not profess to
reconcile the apparent inconsistency. The men are in some measure
forced by circumstances into the practice of that severity of
which I have spoken.'

"'Will you explain these circumstances?' 'The great object in a
cotton mill is to turn as much work off as possible, in order
to compensate by quantity for the smallness of the profit. To
that end every thing is made subservient. There are two classes
of superintendents in those establishments. The first class are
what are called managers, from their great power and authority.
Their especial business is to watch over the whole concern, and
constantly to attend to the quantity and quality of the yarn,
&c. turned off. To these individuals the second class, called
overlookers, are immediately responsible for whatever is amiss.
The business of overlookers is to attend to particular rooms and
classes of hands, for the individual conduct of which they are
held responsible. These individuals, in some mills, are paid in
proportion to the quantity of work turned off; in all, they are
made responsible for that quantity, as well as for the quality;
and as the speed of each particular machine is known, nothing
is more easy than to calculate the quantity which it ought to
produce. This quantity is the maximum; the minimum allowed is
the least possible deficiency, certain contingencies being
taken into account. In those mills in which the overlookers are
paid in proportion to the quantity of work turned off, interest
secures the closest attention to the conduct of every individual
under them; and in other mills, fear of losing their places
operates to produce the same effect. It is one continual system
of driving; and, in order to turn off as great a quantity of
work as is possible, the manager drives the overlookers, and
the overlookers drive the men. Every spinner knows that he must
turn off the average quantity of work which his wheels are
capable of producing, or lose his place if deficiencies are
often repeated; and consequently, the piecers and scavengers are
drilled, in their turns, to the severest attention. On their
constant attention, as well as his own, depends the quantity of
work done. So that it is not an exaggeration to say, that their
powers of labour are subjected to the severity of an undeviating
exaction. A working man is estimated in these establishments
in proportion to his physical capacity rather than his moral
character, and therefore it is not difficult to infer what must
be the consequences. It begets a system of debasing tyranny in
almost every department, the most demoralizing in its effects.
Kind words are godsends in many cotton factories, and oaths
and blows the usual order of the day. The carder must produce
the required quantity of drawing and roving; the spinner, the
required quantity of yarn; a system of overbearing tyranny is
adopted toward everybody under them; they are cursed into the
required degree of attention, and blows are resorted to with the
children when oaths fail, and sometimes even before an oath
has been tried. In short, the men must do work enough, or lose
their places. It is a question between losing their places and
the exercise of severity of discipline in all cases; between
starvation and positive cruelty, in many. There are exceptions,
but my conviction is that they are comparatively few indeed. To
me the whole system has always appeared one of tyranny."

Mr. Abraham Whitehead, clothier, of Scholes, near Holmfirth, examined by Parliamentary Committee:—

"'What has been the treatment which you have observed that these
children have received at the mills, to keep them attentive for
so many hours, at so early ages?' 'They are generally cruelly
treated; so cruelly treated that they dare not, hardly for their
lives, be too late at their work in the morning. When I have
been at the mills in the winter season, when the children are at
work in the evening, the very first thing they inquire is, "What
o'clock is it?" If we should answer, "Seven," they say, "Only
seven! it is a great while to ten, but we must not give up till
ten o'clock, or past." They look so anxious to know what o'clock
it is that I am convinced the children are fatigued, and think
that, even at seven, they have worked too long. My heart has
been ready to bleed for them when I have seen them so fatigued,
for they appear in such a state of apathy and insensibility as
really not to know whether they are doing their work or not. They
usually throw a bunch of ten or twelve cordings across the hand,
and take one off at a time; but I have seen the bunch entirely
finished, and they have attempted to take off another, when they
have not had a cording at all; they have been so fatigued as not
to know whether they were at work or not.'