=Source.=--_The Curse of the Factory System_, by John Fielden, M.P.
London, 1836.
The Commissioners have given a short summary in pp. 26 to 28 of
their report, of the "Effects of Factory Labour on Children," from
which I make the extracts following. It is taken, it appears, from
the mouths of the children themselves, their parents, and their
overlookers.
The account of the child, when questioned, is:
"Sick-tired, especially in the winter nights; so tired she can do
nothing; feels so tired she throws herself down when she gangs
home, no caring what she does; often much tired, and feels sore,
standing so long on her legs; often so tired she could not eat her
supper; night and morning very tired; has two sisters in the mill;
has heard them complain to her mother, and she says they must work;
whiles I do not know what to do with myself; as tired every morning
as I can be."
Another speaks in this way:
"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; thinks they are in bondage; no much
better than the Israelites in Egypt, and life no pleasure to them;
so tired that she can't eat her supper, nor wake of herself."
The Commissioners say the evidence of parents is generally this:
"Her children come home so tired and worn out they can hardly eat
their supper; has often seen her daughter come home so fatigued
that she would go to bed supperless; has seen young workers
absolutely oppressed, and unable to sit down or rise up."
They say that the evidence of the overlooker is:
"Children are very often tired and stiff-like; have known children
hide themselves in the stove among the wool, so that they should
not go home when the work is over; have seen six or eight fetched
out of the stove and beat home; beat out of the mill, however; they
hide because too tired to go home."
Again, an overlooker says:
"Many a one I have had to rouse, when the work is very slack, from
fatigue; the children very much jaded when worked late at night;
the children bore the long hours very ill indeed; after working
eight or nine or ten hours, they were nearly ready to faint;
some were asleep; some were only kept awake by being spoke to,
or by a little chastisement, to make them jump up. I was 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 was my hardest work,
for they then got so exhausted."
Another child says:
"She often falls asleep while sitting, sometimes standing; her
little sister falls asleep, and they wake her by a cry; was up at
four this morning, which made her fall asleep at one, when the
Factory Commissioners came to inspect the mill."
A spinner says:
"I find it difficult to keep my piecers awake the last hours of a
winter's evening; have seen them fall asleep, and go on performing
their work with their hands while they were asleep, after the
billey had stopped, when their work was over; I have stopped and
looked at them for two minutes, going through the motions of
piecening when they were fast asleep, when there was no work to
do, and they were doing nothing; children at night are so fatigued
that they are asleep often as soon as they sit down, so that it is
impossible to wake them to sense enough to wash themselves, or
even to eat a bit of supper, being so stupid in sleep."
In alluding to the cruelty of parents, who suffer their children to
be overworked in factories for their own gain, as spoken of in the
Report of the Board of Health in Manchester, and above-quoted, the
Commissioners say that
"It is not wholly unknown in the West Riding of Yorkshire for
parents to carry their children to the mills in the morning on
their backs, and to carry them back again at night."