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school children, assembled to the number of 25 to 30,000. Your Lordship might there see the miserable victims of the Cotton Factory System,' well clad, and often even elegantly dressed, in full health and beauty, a sight to gladden a monarch -not to be paralleled, perhaps, in the whole of the civilized world; and your Lordship would, I firmly believe, draw this conclusion, that the hands employed in Cotton Factories, so far from being degraded below their neighbours of the same rank in society, far exceed them in comfort, in order, and even in health."

perhaps a better judge of fat cattle at a Show in Smithfield, than of lean Factory boys and girls in a Whitsunday festival in Manchester. He might, therefore, draw from such a sight such a conclusion as Mr Holland Hoole firmly believes he would; but such conclusion would be illogical. The "comfort" and "order" apparent in that well-garbed and wellmarshalled assemblage, transitory as a slow-floating beautiful summercloud, seem almost to belong to a visionary world, before the eyes of him who has seen the discomfort and disorder of the real world, in which the creatures of that pageantry are glad to get kicked and strapped, so that from his throne descends not the Billy-roller.

This is very amiable. Mr Holland Hoole is a good-hearted, nor do we doubt, an enlightened man, and the spectacle he speaks of is, we know, very beautiful. We have seen it. Many of the girls at Factories are of an interesting appearance-not a few lovely; many of the boys good-looking-not a few handsome; and the whole together, in their best array, make a pleasant show. They are English. But there is much wan smiling there, and many woe-begone faces, that "vainly struggle at a smile;" hundreds white as plaster of Paris; and scores of an indescribable colour, of which the ground looks yellow glimmered over by blue,-less like death than consumption. They are, in general, neatly clad; and strange if, on such an occasion, it were otherwise in Lancashire; too "elegantly dressed," many of the girls are, we fear; yet we must not be harshly critical on such a holyday.

One of the witnesses,-Thomas Daniel, an acute man,-says before the Committee, "as to the appearance of health of the children, (who walk in Whitsunday-week procession,) they are the most delicate and the most feeble-looking; and as to their dresses, it may be thought very fine with them, and it certainly is attended with some expense, but it is of no value; and the dresses are principally of white calico or cambric frocks, that make them look fine, and they take great pride in them, I have no doubt.' Thomas is no great admirer of Whitsun-week holydays. And far better, think we, were they distributed. In most places, there are but two holydays in the whole year. As for Lord Althorp, he is

Contrast the picture painted by Mr Holland Hoole, with one of a similar kind by Ebenezer Elliot,-" Preston Mills," a Jubilee in celebration

of the Reform Bill. We take it from this year's Amulet, an Annual always full of good things. Ebenezer Elliot is next-not behind Crabbethe greatest Poet of the Poor. And he calls poetry (did not we ourselves use the same words before him, in the Noctes ?) "impassioned truth."

"The day was fair, the cannon roar'd,

Cold blew the bracing north, And Preston's mills by thousands pour'd Their little captives forth.

"All in their best they paced the street,

All glad that they were free;
And sang a song with voices sweet-
They sang of liberty!

"But from their lips the rose had fled,

Like 'death-in-life' they smiled; And still as each pass'd by, I said,

Alas! is that a child?

"Flags waved, and men-a ghastly crewMarch'd with them side by side; While hand in hand, and two by two, They moved a living tide.

"Thousands and thousands — oh, so white!

With eyes so glazed and dull!
Alas! it was indeed a sight
Too sadly beautiful!

"And, oh, the pang their voices gave, Refuses to depart! 'This is a wailing for the grave!' I whisper'd to my heart.

demand. We call not even " for an intense degree of disapprobation" on the supporters of the system out of which such evils inevitably arise. But we denounce the system itself, as it now works; and we call down blessings on the heads of all men who are striving to reform it. Some of "the modes in which legislation can weaken the tendency of such evils to increase" have been shewn; and though the regulations it may enact will leave many evils to be bewailed, some much nay, great diminution of them may before very

“And while they sang, and though they long be effected;-enough to justify still better and brighter hopes of the distant future.

smiled,

"It was as if, where roses blush'd,
A sudden, blasting gale,
O'er fields of bloom had rudely rush'd,
And turn'd the roses pale.

"It was as if, in glen and grove,
The wild birds sadly sung;
And every linnet mourn'd its love,
And every thrush its young.

"It was as if, in dungeon gloom,
Where chain'd Despair reclined,
A sound came from the living tomb,
And hymn'd the passing wind.

My soul groan'd heavily-
Oh! who would wish to have a child!
A mother who would be!"

The contagion of vice spreads from the Factories. They are, many of them, nurseries of prostitution. In bad times-and how long is it since they have been good?-in bad times, which are, like demons' visits, many and short between-shoals are sent into the streets, to shame, sin, and death. So says the evidenceand is it possible to disbelieve it? That evil is in the Factory-system; and, alas! in many a system besides. Is it, therefore, to be denied, overlooked, let alone, given up as hopeless? God forbid we should calumniate the poor creatures-we but believe in sorrow what their parents have told us;-and we do not, like Mr Mill, call on "legislation," or the "powerful agency of popular sanction," to "direct an intense degree of disapprobation" on such sufferers and sinners; but we call on both to do what they can for their protection from such woe and such wickedness.

We call not even "for an intense degree of disapprobation" on the overlookers and others, who, it has been proved, are too frequently guilty of very great barbarities. Their temper, their patience, must be often severely tried. Nay, sometimes they are cruel from a sense of duty. The strap rouses the soundest sleeper-the most callous feel the billy-roller. Slaves will grow up into tyrants. With more sleep and more rest, there would be far less punishment-there would then be no call for cruelty;-the supply, we presume, would be regulated by the

Such is the Factory System which Mr Sadler has so nobly strivenwith some noble coadjutors-to deprive of its sting. But how will that be done by his Bill? The sting will still be in the monster; but much of the venom will be taken from it, and what is left will not be mortal. For first of all, it prohibits the labour of infants under the age of nine years. How much may, in time, be learned at home or at school, before the expiration of that period, now worse than lost! How many little domestic arts and appliances, in which children of the same tender years are so skilful," among the rural villages and farms!" And better far even than these, how much of filial affection sweetening the sense of duty, a sense, alas! in those districts within many miserable families utterly unknown! Children may then learn to say their prayers, and their parents will be happy to hear them doing so

to see their little arms and hands in the attitude of prayer, unscarred and undiscoloured by cruel wounds. Now, prayer must seem to too many wretched parents a mockery-or worse than a mockery from such livid lips; and how can the poor creatures get through a prayer under a load of weariness,-struggling, or sinking without a struggle, into the short respite of sleep!

Then to all between nine and eighteen years, actual work, exclusive of meals and refreshment, is to be limited to-ten hours. Ten hours! limited to ten hours! "Is there not, Sir,"-indignantly exclaims the eloquentChildren's Friend-"something inexpressibly cruel, most disgusting

ly selfish, in thus attempting to ascertain the utmost limits to which infant labour and fatigue may be carried, without their certainly occasioning misery and destruction!the full extent of profitable torture that may be safely inflicted, and in appealing to learned and experienced doctors to fix the precise point, beyond which it would be murder to proceed!" To the humane mind, somewhat inconsiderate in its merciful disposition, it at first seems as if Mr Sadler's own Bill were barbarous. It cuts off but one hour-or two-(aye, in many cases, three and four, and five,) from the weary working-day, and still leaves children slaves. But poor people, young and old, must work, and they are willing to work. Even in one hour may then be developed many blessings. In one hour are now crowded countless curses. Put on or take off twenty pounds, when a strong man's back bears 200, and he slackens his pace in pain, or increases it with pleasure, beneath the loaded, or the lightened burden.

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But the mercy is to be shewn not to their mere bodies, but to their minds. Yes! they have minds -and what is more, hearts, and immortal souls. Many who harangue and scribble about the education of the people, forget that, or perhaps they do not believe it. We, who have been called lovers of intellectual darkness among the lower ranks, have wished to see the torch of knowledge lighted at the sun of Revelation, that it may burn, a shining and a saving light, over all the land, undimmed by mists, and steady in

storms.

But what minds-to say nothing of hearts and souls-can there be in those Factories? Many of extraordinary-of surpassing worth. They have sent witnesses to the Committee who are an honour to England. They have sent delegates over great part of the north, whom to despise would prove the proudest aristocrat to be despicable, man to man. "What lessons had they known ?" There is the mystery. But in that clamorous and doleful region they found silence and light, in which the powers and faculties of their minds grew up to no unstately strength; as one sometimes sees trees green and flourish

ing, though their leaves be somewhat dimmed with dust, and their knotted boles begrimed with the smokewith the soot of cities.

And what are their hearts? We have seen them, and groaned to see, withered and rotten, or when crushed, full of ashes. But all are not such. Nature's holiest affections have, in thousands of cases, there survived both the mildew and the blight. The profligate boy, who may have cursed his own father to his face, and broken his mother's heart, grown up to be a man, has outgrown the vices that once seemed festering in his own heart, and to blacken its very blood. He has become a good husband to the wife, whom when almost a child he had basely seduced; and rather than see his boy such a boy as he was, his girl such a girl as once was the mother that bore him, would he see them both buried in one grave, and pray that their parents too might be dust to dust.

How much unassisted human nature may thus do by means of its own affections, for its own purification, we know not; but let in upon the forsaken soul even some small stray light of religion, like a few broken sun-rays through a chink in the window of a room lying in deserted darkness, and in both there shall be the same vital change. Perhaps a few plants in flower-pots had been left by the tenants on going away, to die on the floor in their worthlessness; and they were almost dead. But they lift up their leaves at that faint touch of light, and look towards the day. Thus will they live lingeringly on, and wondrously survive in that less than twilight. Let in more sun, and with it too the blessed breath of heaven, and they will recover some tinge of beauty. Fling open the shutters, and shew them all the sky, and in a few weeks green as emerald is the foliage, and bright are the blossoms as rubies. Even so is it with the flowering plants-the thoughts and feelings in that soul-the soul of an operative in a Factory or Cotton-mill; and if you think the illustration out of place as too poetical, you can feel nothing for the glory that is seen by the inner eye, sometimes stealing over the degradation of our fallen nature.

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As the Factory System now works, all who do get any education, get it under dismal difficulties and disadvantages; the most any get can be but little; and thousands on thousands get none. The very young, wearied and worn out as they must be, do not need to be sent to bed; but if the power of cruelty could forward them on their last legs, to school, we defy it to keep the leaden lids from closing over the dim eyes in sleep. By the time they might, by possibility, go to school, what inclination will they have to learn? A school-room filled at sunset with children, who have been employed as they have been since sunrise, would be a shocking spectacle, and we devoutly trust there are few such places of punishment in a Christian land. But under Mr Sadler's Bill, school education, which had been going on with many before nine years of age, might be continued, in some measure, after that period, and all might have some instruction. A wish for it, perhaps a desire, might spring up among the children themselves; and those parents who have now not only an excuse for their indifference, but in nature and reason a right of scorn, when you talk to them about reading and writing, would be ashamed of their own ignorance, and look better after their children in all things. They would be proud and happy to see them getting a month's schooling now and then, and small, after all has been done, must be the scholarship that can ever be acquired, except what nature teaches, in those Factories.

Under the present system,-sorry are we to say it, but it is true,-little good is done by Sunday-schools. Under Mr Sadler's bill, great good might be done by them-good incalculable; for they would entirely change their character. Now, they are the only means of education. The Rev. G. S. Bull says, that " Children cannot obtain any thing like a knowledge of letters suitable for a cottage education, except on Sunday." That excellent man has been a Sunday-school teacher ever since he was sixteen years of age, and has scarcely ever spent a Sunday without attending them personally. In seven Sunday-schools in his own neighbourhood, there are 1135 scholars. But he confesses that their effects

have not been great, in counteracting the immoral and irreligious tendencies that exist in human nature, throughout the manufacturing districts. Their failure, he says, is mainly attributable to the "lassitude of the scholars." The poor creatures cannot command their attention. Besides, the time during which they are instructed is quite insufficient to produce the desired effect;-two hours before divine service, in summer, one hour in winter, and another hour before divine service in the afternoon. But from the time of instruction have to be deducted the intervals of marking attendance, giving out books and taking them in, and preparing to attend divine service, which is a very considerable diminution of time. During nearly the whole time, they are оссиpied with the mere machinery of reading,-the A, B, C part of it; and as to impressing religious precepts, or explaining religious doctrines, it is next to impossible. Then there is great difficulty in finding proper teachers. They belong to that class who have to make long and laborious exertions during the preceding week, to earn their own maintenance. And they, asks the Chairman of the Committee, "nevertheless, seeing the total destitution in which the children would be otherwise left, devote their only day of leisure or of domestic enjoyment, to the noble purpose of giving some little instruction or information to those poor deserted children ?" And the Rev. G. S. Bull replies, "I would say that I, as a clergyman, am almost entirely indebted to the labouring classes for the assistance by which 516 children are, in some degree, religiously educated under my care; and I would also add, that it is the lamentation of many of my teachers-their own spontaneous lamentation-that the circumstances of their youth, I was going to say infancy, the continuous labour to which they have been accustomed, and the little leisure they have had for improvement, render them far less efficient than they would wish." At a meeting of 48 Sunday-school teachers, of various denominations, (a teacher being voted to the chair, who was himself partowner of a Factory,) they came to a unanimous resolution, that the Factory System, as at present conduct

of benefiting the working-classes, and of sustaining his popularity, is in the failure of his own Bill." This very ungentlemanly person says, "But to the point at issue-let me inquire how the health and morals of the population are to be secured," (nobody ever said so), "by lessening the duration of labour only half an hour per day," (he is speaking of Sir Cam Hobhouse's Bill,) " or even a whole hour per day, as some restrictionists would curtail them? How is health to be improved, how are evil communications and acquaintance to be counteracted by half an hour's respite from the sources of contagion, whilst the children are still exposed to them all the rest of the day? Is it not self-evident, that if either the physical or moral atmosphere be infected, nothing but strict quarantine can prevent infection? If exposure to the source of infection for a single hour be suffi cient to produce disease, how can the effects of ten, eleven, or eleven and a half hours' association with the causes be counteracted by half an hour's earlier removal, or by any thing but total absence from expo

sure ?".

ed, decidedly interfered with their plans of religious instruction, and that the amelioration which had been proposed, was absolutely necessary, that they might have any chance of producing those effects which they desired to see, as the result of their Jabours. We can add nothing to the simple statement of these simple men. Under Mr Sadler's Bill, evening schools would arise, children would then learn to read, and then Sunday schools would be schools of religion. But while children continue to be employed in the Factories, say twelve hours and a half a-day, exclusive of meals and recreation, it must be a painful thing to all minds, as it has often been to the mind of the good clergyman from whom we have been quoting, "to consider the manner in which we confine the children on the Sabbath-day, after the very close confinement of the week. They may think that our system on the Sabbathday is a sort of justification of the system in the week-day; for we, while they are stowed up in the mills during six days of the week, confine them in our crowded Sundayschool-rooms on the Sabbath-day." One and allof the medical witnessesBlundell, Carlisle, Brodie, Roget, Blizzard, Elliotson, Tuthill, Green, Key, Guthrie, Bell, Travers,-speak in the strongest terms of the certain and great injury to the health of children who have been working all the week twelve hours a-day and more, in heated Factories, from being shut up again in crowded schools on the Sabbath. Under the present system, the most conscientious and pious men can hardly bring themselves to believe Sunday schools should be encouraged; under another, no conscientious and pious man could for a moment doubt that they would be a precious blessing to the poor.

Is it possible that such simple and clear truths as these, which require not to be evolved, but merely held up to the light, that all men of common intelligence and humanity may see them as plain as Scripture, can be dim or doubtful, or disbelieved? Aye-they are invisible to "A manufacturer,"-who foolishly and insolently says of Mr Sadler-among other thrice repeated calumnies"that if the worthy gentleman understands the subject at all, he must know very well that his only chance

We have shewn him how-but there are none so blind as those who will not see-and he will continue to hug himself on the close of that most absurd paragraph, in which he affirms, that limitation of hours of labour" will avail no more than to fix limits to the rolling tide of ocean, or the boundless powers of thought!"

How fine!

We have no room now-to enter at any length into the politico-economical view of the question. It would appear that some Mill-owners have declared they cannot abridge "the long and slavish hours of infant la bour," because of the Corn Laws. Suppose they were just to try. We do not see any very great difficulty they would have to encounter in getting on tolerably well with the abridgment and the Corn Laws. Were not many of them once very poor-who are now very rich men-in spite of the Corn Laws? During their progress to opulence (the wealth of some of them to the imagination of a poor man like us seems enormous) were wages always progressive too, and the operative well-off? But has it never occurred to them, that "many of them owe

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