"I can bear witness that the factory system in Bradford has engendered
a multitude of cripples, and that the effect of long continued labour
upon the physique is apparent, not alone in actual deformity, but
also, and much more generally, in stunted growth, relaxation of the
muscles, and delicacy of the whole frame."
So, too, F. Sharp, in Leeds, the surgeon {157b} already quoted:
"When I moved from Scarborough to Leeds, I was at once struck by the
fact that the general appearance of the children was much paler, and
their fibre less vigorous here than in Scarborough and its environs. I
saw, too, that many children were exceptionally small for their age. I
have met with numberless cases of scrofula, lung trouble, mesenteric
affections, and indigestion, concerning which I, as a medical man,
have no doubt that they arose from mill work. I believe that the
nervous energy of the body is weakened by the long hours, and the
foundation of many diseases laid. If people from the country were not
constantly coming in, the race of mill-hands would soon be wholly
degenerate."
So, too, Beaumont, surgeon in Bradford:
"To my thinking, the system, according to which work is done in the
mills here, produces a peculiar relaxation of the whole organism, and
thereby makes children in the highest degree susceptible to epidemic,
as well as to incidental illness. I regard the absence of all
appropriate regulations for ventilation and cleanliness in the mills
very decidedly as the chief cause of that peculiar tendency or
susceptibility to morbid affections which I have so frequently met in
my practice."
Similar testimony is borne by Dr. Ray:
(1) "I have had opportunity of observing the effects of the factory
system upon the health of children under the most favourable
circumstances (in Wood's mill, in Bradford, the best arranged of the
district, in which he was factory surgeon). (2) These effects are
decidedly, and to a very great extent, injurious, even under these
most favourable circumstances. (3) In the year 1842, three-fifths of
all the children employed in Wood's mill were treated by me. (4) The
worst effect is not the predominance of deformities, but of enfeebled
and morbid constitutions. (5) All this is greatly improved since the
working-hours of children have been reduced at Wood's to ten."
The Commissioner, Dr. Loudon himself, who cites these witnesses, says:
"In conclusion, I think it has been clearly proved that children have
been worked a most unreasonable and cruel length of time daily, and
that even adults have been expected to do a certain quantity of labour
which scarcely any human being is able to endure. The consequence is
that many have died prematurely, and others are afflicted for life
with defective constitutions, and the fear of a posterity enfeebled by
the shattered constitution of the survivors is but too well founded,
from a physiological point of view."
And, finally, Dr. Hawkins, in speaking of Manchester:
"I believe that most travellers are struck by the lowness of stature,
the leanness and the paleness which present themselves so commonly to
the eye at Manchester, and above all, among the factory classes. I
have never been in any town in Great Britain, nor in Europe, in which
degeneracy of form and colour from the national standard has been so
obvious. Among the married women all the characteristic peculiarities
of the English wife are conspicuously wanting. I must confess that
all the boys and girls brought before me from the Manchester mills had
a depressed appearance, and were very pale. In the expression of
their faces lay nothing of the usual mobility, liveliness, and
cheeriness of youth. Many of them told me that they felt not the
slightest inclination to play out of doors on Saturday and Sunday, but
preferred to be quiet at home."
I add, at once, another passage of Hawkins' report, which only half
belongs here, but may be quoted here as well as anywhere else:
"Intemperance, excess, and want of providence are the chief faults of
the factory population, and these evils may be readily traced to the
habits which are formed under the present system, and almost
inevitably arise from it. It is universally admitted that
indigestion, hypochondria, and general debility affect this class to a
very great extent. After twelve hours of monotonous toil, it is but
natural to look about for a stimulant of one sort or another; but when
the above-mentioned diseased conditions are added to the customary
weariness, people will quickly and repeatedly take refuge in
spirituous liquors."
For all this testimony of the physicians and commissioners, the report
itself offers hundreds of cases of proof. That the growth of young
operatives is stunted, by their work, hundreds of statements testify;
among others, Cowell gives the weight of 46 youths of 17 years of age,
from one Sunday school, of whom 26 employed in mills, averaged 104.5
pounds, and 20 not employed in mills, 117.7 pounds. One of the largest
manufacturers of Manchester, leader of the opposition against the working-
men, I think Robert Hyde Greg himself, said, on one occasion, that if
things went on as at present, the operatives of Lancashire would soon be
a race of pigmies. {159a} A recruiting officer {159b} testified that
operatives are little adapted for military service, looked thin and
nervous, and were frequently rejected by the surgeons as unfit. In
Manchester he could hardly get men of five feet eight inches; they were
usually only five feet six to seven, whereas in the agricultural
districts, most of the recruits were five feet eight.
The men wear out very early in consequence of the conditions under which
they live and work. Most of them are unfit for work at forty years, a
few hold out to forty-five, almost none to fifty years of age. This is
caused not only by the general enfeeblement of the frame, but also very
often by a failure of the sight, which is a result of mule-spinning, in
which the operative is obliged to fix his gaze upon a long row of fine,
parallel threads, and so greatly to strain the sight.
Of 1,600 operatives employed in several factories in Harpur and Lanark,
but 10 were over 45 years of age; of 22,094 operatives in diverse
factories in Stockport and Manchester, but 143 were over 45 years old. Of
these 143, 16 were retained as a special favour, and one was doing the
work of a child. A list of 131 spinners contained but seven over 45
years, and yet the whole 131 were rejected by the manufacturers, to whom
they applied for work, as "too old," and were without means of support by
reason of old age! Mr. Ashworth, a large manufacturer, admits in a
letter to Lord Ashley, that, towards the fortieth year, the spinners can
no longer prepare the required quantity of yarn, and are therefore
"sometimes" discharged; he calls operatives forty years of age "old
people!" Commissioner Mackintosh expresses himself in the same way in
the report of 1833:
"Although I was prepared for it from the way the children are
employed, I still found it difficult to believe the statements of the
older hands as to their ages; they age so very early."
Surgeon Smellie, of Glasgow, who treated operatives chiefly, says that
forty years is old age for them. {160a} And similar evidence may be
found elsewhere. {160b} In Manchester, this premature old age among the
operatives is so universal that almost every man of forty would be taken
for ten to fifteen years older, while the prosperous classes, men as well
as women, preserve their appearance exceedingly well if they do not drink
too heavily.
The influence of factory-work upon the female physique also is marked and
peculiar. The deformities entailed by long hours of work are much more
serious among women. Protracted work frequently causes deformities of
the pelvis, partly in the shape of abnormal position and development of
the hip bones, partly of malformation of the lower portion of the spinal
column.
"Although," says Dr. Loudon, in his report, "no example of
malformation of the pelvis and of some other affections came under my
notice, these things are nevertheless so common, that every physician
must regard them as probable consequences of such working-hours, and
as vouched for besides by men of the highest medical credibility."
That factory operatives undergo more difficult confinement than other
women is testified to by several midwives and accoucheurs, and also that
they are more liable to miscarriage. {161} Moreover, they suffer from
the general enfeeblement common to all operatives, and, when pregnant,
continue to work in the factory up to the hour of delivery, because
otherwise they lose their wages and are made to fear that they may be
replaced if they stop away too soon. It frequently happens that women
are at work one evening and delivered the next morning, and the case is
none too rare of their being delivered in the factory among the
machinery. And if the gentlemen of the bourgeoisie find nothing
particularly shocking in this, their wives will perhaps admit that it is
a piece of cruelty, an infamous act of barbarism, indirectly to force a
pregnant woman to work twelve or thirteen hours daily (formerly still
longer), up to the day of her delivery, in a standing position, with
frequent stoopings. But this is not all. If these women are not obliged
to resume work within two weeks, they are thankful, and count themselves
fortunate. Many come back to the factory after eight, and even after
three to four days, to resume full work. I once heard a manufacturer ask
an overlooker: "Is so and so not back yet?" "No." "How long since she
was confined?" "A week." "She might surely have been back long ago.
That one over there only stays three days." Naturally, fear of being
discharged, dread of starvation drives her to the factory in spite of her
weakness, in defiance of her pain. The interest of the manufacturer will
not brook that his employees stay at home by reason of illness; they must
not be ill, they must not venture to lie still through a long
confinement, or he must stop his machinery or trouble his supreme head
with a temporary change of arrangements, and rather than do this, he
discharges his people when they begin to be ill. Listen: {162a}
"A girl feels very ill, can scarcely do her work. Why does she not
ask permission to go home? Ah! the master is very particular, and if
we are away half a day, we risk being sent away altogether."