Chambers's Journal of popular literature, science, and art, fifth series, no. 133, vol. III, July 17, 1886

No. 133.—Vol. III.
Price 1½ d.
SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1886.
A WORD FOR OUR SHOP-ASSISTANTS.
That we, as a nation, are not lovers of change for the sake of change, can hardly be disputed; indeed, our conservatism in minor matters may justify the reflection cast upon us by our neighbours. But although we may be willing to continue patronising forms and institutions that may justly be considered antiquated and effete, yet it is nevertheless a fact that once get the public ear, and the cry of the oppressed will never be raised in vain, even though redress involves uprooting of old-established customs. Opposition to sudden and violent changes there may be; but the familiar instance of our factory laws shows that there is help for the poorest and weakest, let the need for help once be made known. But, unhappily, those who most need assistance are just those least able to plead their own cause, either from ignorance or from fear of the consequences of complaint. Such was the case with the children, who needed an outsider’s voice to raise their ‘cry;’ and with those women-labourers, the story of whose underground toils and miseries needed but to be heard, to awake indignant protest against the whole system which could produce such results. In the latter case, so sweeping was the reform, that the recurrence of the evil is impossible; and though the working of the Factory and Workshop Act may not be altogether perfect, it affords a considerable measure of protection to the helpless, and stands as a wholesome check between oppressor and oppressed.
By the Factory Act, not only are factories proper placed under government inspection, but all proprietors of workshops or workrooms are liable to the salutary visit of the inspector, whose duty it is to see that the terms of the Act are complied with; that is, that the ‘hands’ work only a certain specified number of hours; and that due regard is paid to ventilation and sanitary precautions. But the inspector’s boundary is the workshop or workroom, and beyond this he is powerless to interfere; although on his way to his department he frequently passes by large numbers of those who need supervision and protection fully as much as those on whose behalf his visit is paid, yet who, as the law now stands, are utterly and hopelessly in the power of employers, who are free if they will to work their victims to death with impunity.