"Yorkshire.—With respect even to the common truths of Christianity and facts of Scripture,' says Mr. Symons, 'I am confident that a majority are in a state of heathen ignorance. I unhesitatingly affirm that the mining children, as a body, are growing up in a state of absolute and appalling ignorance; and I am sure that the evidence I herewith transmit, alike from all classes—clergymen, magistrates, masters, men, and children—will fully substantiate and justify the strength of the expressions which I have alone felt to be adequate to characterize the mental condition of this benighted community.'
"'Throughout the whole district of the coal-field,' says Mr. Scriven, 'the youthful population is in a state of profaneness, and almost of mental imbecility.'
"'The ignorance and the degraded state of the colliers and their children,' says Mr. Kennedy, 'are proverbial throughout this district. They are uneducated, ignorant, and brutal; deteriorated as workmen and dangerous as subjects.'"
But nothing can show their mental state in so striking a manner, as the evidence derived from the examination of the children themselves, by the Sub-commissioner:—
"'A girl eighteen years old—I never learnt nought. I never go to church or chapel. I have never heard that a good man came into the world, who was God's Son, to save sinners. I never heard of Christ at all. Nobody has ever told me about him, nor have my father and mother ever taught me to pray. I know no prayer: I never pray. I have been taught nothing about such things.'—(Evidence, Mines, p. 252, 11, 35, 39.) 'The Lord sent Adam and Eve on earth to save sinners.'—(Ibid. p. 245, l. 66.) 'I don't know who made the world; I never heard about God.'—(Ibid. p. 228, l. 17.) 'Jesus Christ was a shepherd; he came a hundred years ago to receive sin. I don't know who the Apostles were.'—(Ibid. p. 232, l. 11.) 'Jesus Christ was born in heaven, but I don't know what happened to him; he came on earth to commit sin. Yes; to commit sin. Scotland is a country, but I don't know where it is. I never heard of France.'—(Ibid. p. 265, l. 17.) 'I don't know who Jesus Christ was; I never saw him, but I've seen Foster, who prays about him.'—(Ibid. p. 291, l. 63.) 'I have been three years at a Sunday-school. I don't know who the Apostles were. Jesus Christ died for his son to be saved.'—(Ibid. 245, l. 10.) Employer (to the Commissioner,) 'You have expressed surprise at Thomas Mitchell (the preceding witness) not having heard of God. I judge there are few colliers hereabouts that have.'"—(Second Report, p. 156.)
The moral state of the collier population is represented by the Sub-commissioners as deplorable in the extreme:—
"Lancashire.—'All that I have seen myself,' says the Sub-commissioner, 'tends to the same conclusion as the preceding evidence; namely, that the moral condition of the colliers and their children in this district, is decidedly amongst the lowest of any portion of the working-classes.'—(Ibid. Report, s. 278, et seq.)
"Durham and Northumberland.—The religious and moral condition of the children, and more particularly of the young persons employed in the collieries of North Durham and Northumberland, is stated by clergymen and others, witnesses, to be 'deplorable.' 'Their morals,' they say, 'are bad, their education worse, their intellect very much debased, and their carelessness, irreligion, and immorality' exceeding any thing to be found in an agricultural district."—(Leifchild, Report, Mines: Evidence, Nos. 795, 530, 500, 493, 668.)
Calico-Printing.—This employs a vast number of children of both sexes, who have to mix and grind the colors for the adult work-people, and are commonly called teerers. They begin to work, according to the Report, sometimes before five years of age, often between five and six, and generally before nine. The usual hours of labor are twelve, including meal-time; but as the children generally work the same time as the adults, "it is by no means uncommon in all the districts for children of five or six years old to be kept at work fourteen and even sixteen hours consecutively."—(Second Report, p. 59.) In many instances, however, it will be seen that even these hours are shamefully exceeded, during a press of work.
"352. Thomas Sidbread, block-printer, after taking a child who had already been at work all day to assist him as a teerer through the night, says—'We began to work between eight and nine o'clock on the Wednesday night; but the boy had been sweeping the shop from Wednesday morning. You will scarcely believe it, but it is true—I never left the shop till six o'clock on the Saturday morning; and I had never stopped working all that time, excepting for an hour or two, and that boy with me all the time. I was knocked up, and the boy was almost insensible.'