This was not merely a temporary state of affairs, but an evil which came into being with the factory system, and grew steadily with its growth. Nor was it confined to any particular district. Not only in Lancashire, but everywhere that mills and factories were working, did the scandals of child-labour disgust Englishmen who did not happen to be mill-owners, and surprise and horrify foreigners, who at one and the same time saw England proposing to liberate the negro slaves, and permitting white slavery, almost as gross, in “the land of liberty.”
CRUEL PRACTICES
The things that Espriella saw in 1807 were the things, infinitely aggravated by the further extension of the factory system, that prevailed in 1832, when the scandal grew to such proportions that petitions were presented from all classes to Parliament, praying that legislation should be undertaken to end it. This movement resulted in a Factory Commission that revealed many unsuspected things. Not only were the factory owners guilty of working their miserable child-hands almost incredible hours, under the most dreadful conditions; but the parents, who practically sold their children into this slavery, were guilty equally with them.
The report of the Factory Commission is a voluminous affair of many hundreds of folio pages. Many of those pages of evidence taken on oath disclose curiously varying ideas of what constituted cruelty in punishment, or excessive hours of labour for children. For example, a child ten years of age employed at Wigan was punished for being late at the factory, as many others were, by being forced to work with a rope round her neck, to which a 20-lb. weight was attached. There were those who did not regard this as anything at all out of the way, and declared the children so punished did not mind it. We can only wonder they did not say more, and insist that the victims rather enjoyed this torture. Mary Hooton, the mother of the girl, acknowledged that she told the overlooker to beat her.
Humphrey Dyson, giving evidence as to the practice of a factory at Manchester, stated that the overlooker made a whip of a piece of leather about three inches wide and about half a yard long, and cut into fingers at the end. This was set into a wooden handle with a brass hook. With this instrument of torture the overlooker “punished” the children at his discretion. In many instances, mothers, superior to the Mary Hooton type, came and took these away and destroyed them, but the overlooker made others.
The wages of these child-workers, it seemed, ranged from one shilling and sixpence to four shillings a week, and these, according to a speech made in the House of Commons, were the conditions under which those scanty wages were earned:
“The following were the hours of labour imposed upon the children and young persons. Monday morning, commence work at six o’clock: at nine, half an hour for breakfast; begin again at half-past nine, and work till twelve. Dinner, one hour; work from one till half-past four. Drinking (afternoon meal), half an hour; work from five till eight; rest, half an hour; work from half-past eight till twelve, midnight; an hour’s rest. One in the morning till five, work; half an hour’s rest; work, half-past five till nine; breakfast, half an hour; work, half-past nine till twelve. Dinner, one hour. Work, one till half-past four. Drinking, half-past four till five. Work again from five till nine on the Tuesday evening, when the gang of adult and infant slaves were dismissed for the night, after having toiled thirty-nine hours, with nine intervals for refreshment, but none for bed.
“Wednesday and Thursday were occupied with day work only. From Friday morning till Saturday night, the same labour as that of Monday and Tuesday was repeated.”
MANCHESTER, A CENTURY AGO