Chapter XIII

1833.

Employment of children in factories--Evidence--Passing of Factory
Act--Gambling--Crockford's club--Gambling "hells"--Police case.

At the opening of this year, perhaps, the principal topic of conversation was about the treatment of children in factories, and general commiseration was felt for their unhappy condition. This was principally owing to the publication of the evidence taken before the Committee on the "Factories Bill," two or three extracts from which I give, taken haphazard, and not picked out as being the worst--

"SAMUEL DOWNE called in and examined.

Where do you live?--At Hunslet Carr, near Leeds.

What age are you?--Twenty-nine.

Have you been long acquainted with factories?--From my youth.

At what time did you begin to work at one?--At about ten years of
age.

In whose mill did you work?--In Mr. Martin's, at Shrewsbury.

What were the customary hours of labour in the mill: state,
first, what were the hours when they were brisk?--When they were
brisk we used generally to begin at five o'clock in the morning,
and they ran on till eight at night; sometimes half-past five to
eight, and sometimes nine.

What time had you allowed for meals and refreshment?--The engine
never stopped, except forty minutes at dinner time.

Were these long hours found to be very fatiguing?--Yes.

What means were taken to keep the children awake and vigilant,
especially at the termination of such a day's labour as you have
described?--There was generally a blow, or a box, or a tap with a
strap, or sometimes with a hand.

Was very considerable severity used in that mill when you were
there?--Yes.

Have you yourself been subjected to it?--Yes.

Strapped?--Yes, I was strapped most severely, till I could not
bear to sit down on a chair without pillows, and I was forced to
lie upon my face in the night-time, at one time; and through that
I left. I was strapped both on my own legs, and then I was put on
a man's back, and then strapped, and buckled with two straps to
an iron pillar, and flogged, and all by one overlooker; after
that, he took a piece of tow, and twisted it in the shape of a
cord, put it in my mouth, and tied it behind my head.

He gagged you?--Yes; and then he ordered me to run round a part
of the machinery where he was overlooker, and he stood at one
end, and every time I came there, he struck me with a stick,
which I believe was an ash plant, and which he generally carried
in his hand; and sometimes he hit me, and sometimes he did not;
and one of the men in the room came and begged me off, and that
he would let me go, and not beat me any more; and, consequently,
he did.

You have been beaten with extraordinary severity?--Yes; I was so
beaten that I had not power to cry at all, or hardly to speak, at
one time.

What age were you at that time?--Between ten and eleven.

What had you done?--I believe that in the machinery I did not
like the part he put me to, because I had never been in a mill
where there was any machinery before in my life, and it was
winter time, and we worked by gas-light, and I could not catch
the revolutions of the machinery to take the tow out of the
hackles. I desired him to remove me to another part, which he did
for some part of the day, and then sent me back to that which we
call doffing the hackles.

You say that you were so beat that you could not even cry?--I
cannot assign any other reason for it; it was not because I had
not sufficient punishment: I did my endeavours. When he had used
some mode of language which gave me to understand that he wanted
me to cry when he had flogged me on the man's back, I remember he
repeated a verse about devils trembling, and said, 'But this
hardened wretch will not shed a tear.' He was a member of a
religious society, and I suppose that was the reason that made
him use those words.

Was he discharged from that society?--Yes, I believe he was; my
grandmother went to the class, it was held in the chapel, and he
was discharged from it.

Were young women as well as young men beaten?--Yes, I never saw
any distinction between boys and girls."

"ELIZA MARSHALL called in and examined.

Where did you get work first?--At Mr. Marshall's in Water Lane.

Was that a flax mill?--Yes.

How happened you to leave that mill?--It was so dusty: it stuffed
me so much that I could scarcely speak.

Did it affect your health?--Yes, I should not have lived long if
I had not left.

Where did you next go to?--To Mr. Warburton's in Meadow Lane.

What business is Mr. Warburton?--A worsted spinner.

What were your hours of work?--When first I went to the mill we
worked from six in the morning till seven in the evening.

What time had you allowed for dinner?--When first I went we had
an hour, but we did not keep that long; we removed to Lady Lane,
and then we had but half an hour.

What time had you for breakfast and drinking at Mr.
Marshall's?--A quarter of an hour for breakfast, I believe, and a
quarter of an hour at tea, I think; but it is so long since that
I cannot recollect particularly.

When you removed to Lady Lane, how long were you required to
work?--After a little time, in Lady Lane, we began at five in the
morning, and worked till nine at night.

Did they allow you more time for dinner there?--No; we had half
an hour for dinner then, and none for breakfast or tea.

How did you get your breakfast and drinking?--We got some little
of it, and then went on with our work.

How old were you when you went to Mr. Warburton's--Nine years
old.

Do you think you were always allowed your whole time at
dinner?--No; sometimes it was twenty minutes only; and sometimes
the engine went on before we could even get our dinner.

Were they punctual in allowing you to leave at night, or did they
get any time out of you then?--They used to get many a half hour
out of us at night.

Are you sure of that?--I am sure of it.

Were you not very much fatigued with that length of labour?--Yes.

Did they beat you?--When I was less, they used to do it often.

Did you not think that treatment very cruel?--I have cried many
an hour in the factory.

You were exceedingly fatigued at night, were you not?--Yes; I
could scarcely get home.

Had you to be carried home?--Yes, to be trailed home.

How were you waked in the morning?--The bell in Mill Street rang
at half-past five, and we got up by that.

That was not a pleasant sound to you?--No, it was not.

Was the fatigue gone off in the morning?--No, I was worse in the
morning.

Did this begin to affect your limbs?--Yes; when we worked over
hours, I was worse by a great deal. I had stuff to rub my knees,
and I used to rub my joints a quarter of an hour, and sometimes
an hour or two.

Were you straight before that?--Yes, I was straight before that;
my master knows that well enough; and when I have asked for my
wages he said I could not run about as I had been used to do.

Did he drop your wages in consequence?--No; but he would not
raise my wages, as I hoped he would. I asked, 'Could I not mind
my work?' and he said, 'Yes, but not so quick.'

Are you crooked now?--Yes, I have an iron on my right leg; my
knee is contracted.

Was it not great misery for you to do your work?--Yes, it was.

You could hardly get up to your bed of a-night, sometimes, could
you?--To speak the truth, my sister has carried me up many a
time; she is bigger than I am. I have gone on my hands and knees
many a time.

Have you been to the Leeds infirmary, to have, if possible, your
limbs restored?--Yes; I was nearly twelve months an outpatient,
and I rubbed my joints, but it did no good; and, last summer, I
went to the Relief, and that did me no good, and I was obliged to
have a machine; and this last winter, I have been in the
infirmary six weeks.

They have put irons on your legs?--Yes; they cost £3.

Have any of the surgeons at the infirmary told you by what your
deformity was occasioned?--Yes, one of them said it was by
standing. The marrow is dried out of the bone, so that there is
no natural strength in it.

You were quite straight till you had to labour so long at those
mills?--Yes; I was as straight as any one.

You kept at your work as long as you possibly could, with a wish
to assist in keeping your parent?--Yes; I had a step-father, and
he was not willing to keep me, and I went as long as I could; at
last I cried and used to fall back in bed when they called me, so
that they could not find it in their hearts to send me.

State whether, when your mill has been shown, and when people
have come to look at it, there has not been a great deal of
preparation before it has been seen by a stranger?--Yes, there
has.

Has there been a great deal done to make it appear clean and
nice, and the children tidy?--Yes, a great deal.

Have any other mills been prepared for people coming to them, to
your knowledge?--We live in Leeds, at the Bank, nearly opposite
Holforth's silk mill; there was a Parliament gentleman going
there on the Saturday, and the children kept on till 12 o'clock
on the Friday night, and then they had an hour given them on the
morning of Saturday to go and dress themselves.

When was this?--I can't tell rightly; two or three weeks since,
as nearly as I can recollect.

Did the children come in their Sunday clothes then?--Yes.

Were all the children there?--Yes, for anything I know.

Were any of those who were ill-looking or unwell kept
away?--There were some of them sent home.

That were not to return?--Yes.

What were they sent home for?--I do not know; but there was a
gentleman going there.

Were they sent home because they did not appear to be in good
health?--Yes, that was the purpose, I believe.

You saw those persons, did you?--Yes.

Did you not think it very wrong for people, who wish to show the
condition in which children are to make those sort of
preparations previously?--Yes; it was to deceive the gentleman."

I could give numerous cases similar to the above, did space permit, but this committee did good work, and the fruit of its labours may be found in 3 and 4 Gul. IV. c. 103, "An Act to Regulate the Labour of Children and Young Persons in the Mills and Factories of the United Kingdom," which received the Royal Assent on August 29, 1833. Subsequent legislation has vastly improved upon this Act, and the little workers are now so protected as to make it difficult to add anything for their benefit.

One of the great vices of the age was gambling. Not so much on the turf, as at present, nor had gambling in stocks become a science, as now; but dice and cards were rampant, and might be indulged in, from the lordly club to the silver hell. They were as difficult to get at as similar institutions are in the present day, when they are cropping up again as badly as ever.

The most aristocratic of these "hells" was "Crockford's" or, familiarly, "Crockey's," in St. James's Street. It was so called from its proprietor William Crockford, who formerly kept a small fishmonger's shop adjoining Temple Bar. In some manner he made some money, either on the turf or by gambling at cards; he set up a gaming house on a most extensive scale, on the site now occupied by the Devonshire Club, No. 50, St. James's Street. Gronow, "Celebrities of London and Paris," 1865, p. 103, gives as good an account of this famous club as any one. He says--

"In the reign of George IV. a new star rose upon the horizon, in
the person of Mr. William Crockford; and the old-fashioned games
of macao and lansquenet gave place to the all-devouring thirst
for the game of hazard. Crockey, when still a young man, had
relinquished the peaceful trade of a fishmonger for a share in a
"hell," where with his partner Gye he managed to win, after a
sitting of twenty-four hours, the enormous sum of £100,000 from
Lords Thanet and Granville, Mr. Ball Hughes, and two other
gentlemen whose names I do not remember. With this capital, added
to his former gains, he built the well-known palace in St.
James's Street, where a club was established and play organized
on a scale of magnificence and liberality hitherto unknown in
Europe.

"One may safely say, without exaggeration, that Crockford won the
whole of the ready money of the then existing generation. As is
often the case at Lord's Cricket Ground, the great match of the
gentlemen of England against the professional players was won by
the latter. It was a very hollow thing; and, in a few years,
£1,200,000 were swept away by the fortunate fishmonger. He did
not, however, die worth more than a sixth part of this vast
sum;[12] the difference being swallowed up in various unlucky
speculations.

[Footnote 12: His personal property was sworn under £200,000, but
his real estate amounted to £150,000 more.]

"No one can describe the splendour and excitement of the early
days of Crockey. A supper of the most exquisite kind, prepared by
the famous Ude, and accompanied by the best wines in the world,
together with every luxury of the season, was furnished gratis.
The members of the club included all the celebrities of England,
from the Duke of Wellington to the youngest Ensign of the Guards;
and, at the gay and festive board, which was constantly
replenished from midnight to early dawn, the most brilliant
sallies of wit, the most agreeable conversation, the most
interesting anecdotes, interspersed with grave political
discussions and acute logical reasoning on every conceivable
subject, proceeded from the soldiers, scholars, statesmen, poets,
and men of pleasure, who, when 'the House was up,' and balls and
parties at an end, delighted to finish their evening with a
little supper and a good deal of hazard at old Crockey's. The
tone of the club was excellent. A most gentlemanly feeling
prevailed, and none of the rudeness, familiarity, and
ill-breeding, which disgrace some of the minor clubs of the
present day, would have been tolerated for a moment.

"The great foreign diplomatists, Prince Talleyrand, Count Pozzo
di Borgo, General Alava, the Duke Palmella, Prince Esterhazy, the
French, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Austrian ambassadors,
and all persons of distinction and eminence who arrived in
England, belonged to Crockford's as a matter of course; but many
rued the day when they became members of that fascinating but
dangerous coterie. The great Duke himself, rather a friend of the
dandies, did not disdain to appear now and then at this charming
club; whilst the late Lord Raglan, Lord Anglesey, Sir Hussey
Vivian, and many more of our Peninsula and Waterloo heroes were
constant visitors. The two great novelists of the day, who have
since become great statesmen, D'Israeli and Bulwer Lytton,
displayed at that brilliant supper table, the one his sable, the
other his auburn curls; there, Horace Twiss made proof of an
appetite, and Edward Montague of a thirst, which astonished all
beholders; whilst the bitter jests of Sir Joseph Copley, Colonel
Armstrong, and John Wilson Croker, and the brilliant wit of
Alvanley, were the delight of all present, and their _bons mots_
were, the next day, retailed all over England.

"In the play room might be heard the clear, ringing voice of that
agreeable reprobate, Tom Duncombe, as he cheerfully called,
"Seven," and the powerful hand of the vigorous Sefton, in
throwing for a ten. There might be noted the scientific dribbling
of a four by "King" Allen, the tremendous backing of nines and
fives by Ball Hughes and Auriol, the enormous stakes played for
by Lords Lichfield and Chesterfield, George Payne, Sir St.
Vincent Cotton, D'Orsay and George Anson, and, above all, the
gentlemanly bearing and unmoved demeanour, under losses or gains,
of all the men of that generation.

"The old fishmonger himself, seated snug and sly at his desk in
the corner of the room, watchful as the dragon that guarded the
golden apples of the Hesperides, would only give credit to sure
and approved signatures. Who that ever entered that dangerous
little room can ever forget the large green table, with the
croupiers, Page, Parking, and Bacon, with their suave manners,
sleek appearance, stiff white neck cloths, and the almost
miraculous quickness and dexterity with which they swept away the
money of the unfortunate punters when the fatal cry of, 'Deuce
ace,' 'Aces,' or 'Sixes out,' was heard in answer to the caster's
bold cry of 'Seven,' or 'Nine,' or 'Five's the main.'

"_O noctes cænæque deum!_ But the brightest medal has its
reverse, and after all the cost and gaiety and excitement of the
night, how disagreeable the waking up, and how very unpleasant
the sight of the little card, with its numerous figures marked
down on the debtor side in the fine bold hand of Mr. Page. Alas,
poor Crockey's! shorn of its former glory, has become a sort of
refuge for the destitute, a cheap dining-house.[13] How are the
mighty fallen! Irish buckeens, spring captains, 'welchers' from
Newmarket, and suspicious looking foreigners, may be seen
swaggering after dinner through the marble halls and up that
gorgeous staircase, where once the chivalry of England loved to
congregate; and those who remember Crockford's in all its glory
cast as they pass a look of unavailing regret at its dingy walls,
with many a sigh to the memory of the pleasant days they passed
there, and the gay companions and noble gentlemen who have long
since gone to their last home."

[Footnote 13: Gronow probably intimates the time when the interior was redecorated in 1849, and opened for the Military, Naval, and County Service, but was closed again in 1851.]

For a good account of Crockford's career, I may refer my readers to _Bentley's Magazine_, vol. xvii., pp. 142-155, 251-264.

But to show how prevalent was gaming at this time, I give the following paragraph in the _Times_, January 24th, copied from an evening paper:--

"THE HELLS IN THE QUADRANT.

"Those seats of vice (the gaming-houses) which, for some time
past, have existed in the Quadrant, appear to be done up, as,
since Saturday, not one of them has been opened. Since the five
persons have been apprehended, the visitors have been extremely
scarce; nor was their confidence restored, even by the
proprietors' having the chain up at the street door, coupled with
a fellow's being employed at each of the hells to patrol before
the different establishments, for the purpose of giving the
requisite information as to who sought admission into those dens
of destruction. Although a very active search has been made for
the purpose of ascertaining what has become of Daly, the clerk of
the Athenæum Club-house, who left that establishment on the 8th
instant, no trace had been found of him--one of the many
lamentable instances of loss of character and ruin which overtake
those who suffer themselves to be lured into those houses. Daly,
who enjoyed the confidence of the whole of the members, was
suddenly missed on the above day. On looking over his papers, a
diary was found, from which it appeared that he had lost large
sums of money at No. 60, and as it has since been ascertained he
was there on the previous day, it is supposed that he lost 24 £5
notes at play which belonged to his employers. Upon this
discovery being made, some gentlemen of the Athenæum waited on
the parish officers, to ascertain whether they could put a stop
to the gaming-houses. It was, however, found that it could not be
done, unless some person would come forward and identify those at
play; a relation of Daly accordingly went to the house, and
supplied the necessary proof. It was at this establishment, a few
months since, the foreigners who had been fleeced made an attempt
to rob the bank; and, shortly after that, placards were posted on
the walls in the neighbourhood of the Quadrant, cautioning
persons from going into any of the hells, as drugged wine was
invariably given to those who were going to play."

In these cases, nowadays, our magistrates look upon a raid upon a gaming-house as a very trivial affair, inflicting only mild fines upon the offenders. They might peruse, with advantage, the practice of their predecessors. Take a case at the Westminster Sessions, on May 9th--

"Three prisoners, out of six, answered to the indictment of
keeping and maintaining a common gaming-house, and pleaded
guilty. The prosecuting counsel, Mr. Clarkson, said that the
house in question was situate No. 54, Regent's Circus, six doors
from the house which was lately prosecuted. He should have been
able to prove that on February the 7th, 9th, 12th, and 14th last,
the games of _rouge et noir_ and _roulette_ were played for sums
varying from one sovereign to one shilling. He should have also
proved that on some one or on all those occasions the defendants
acted in the capacities of doorkeeper, banker, and waiter. He
(Mr. Clarkson) was informed by the officers of St. James's parish
that at the last Sessions there were twenty-seven houses of this
description situate therein, and out of that number only two had
been closed in the interval, but three new ones had been opened,
so that the number had been increased rather than otherwise.

"Mr. Philips, for the defence, said that those houses had nothing
to do with the present case. He would advise the parish officers
to go to Crockford's, not far distant from the house in question,
where they would find lords and peers of the realm at play.

"The bench sentenced two of the prisoners to three months, and
one to fourteen days imprisonment in the House of Correction,
whilst the bail of one who did not appear was estreated."