"As a rule," says that son (Robert Dale Owen), "we found children of ten years old worked regularly fourteen hours a day, with but half an hour's interval for dinner, which was eaten in the factory.... Some mills were run fifteen, and in exceptional cases sixteen hours a day, with a single set of hands; and they did not scruple to employ children of both sexes from the age of eight.... Most of the overseers carried stout leather thongs, and we frequently saw even the youngest children severely beaten."
This as recently as 1815! Mr. Holyoake himself remarks that, in his youth, he never heard one word which indicated a kindly or respectful feeling between employers and employed; and he speaks of the workshops and factories of those days as "charnel-houses of industry." If there has been great improvement, it is due to these causes: The resistance of the operative class; their growth in self-respect, intelligence, and sobriety; and the humanity and wisdom of some employers of labor.
The reader has perhaps seen an article lately printed in several newspapers entitled: "Strikes and How to Prevent Them," by John Smedley, a stocking manufacturer of Manchester, who employs about eleven hundred persons. He is at the head of an establishment founded about the time of the American Revolution by his grandfather; and during all this long period there has never been any strike, nor even any disagreement between the proprietors and the work-people.
"My ancestors' idea was," says Mr. Smedley, "that those who ride inside the coach should make those as comfortable as possible who are compelled, from the mere accident of birth, to ride outside."
That is the secret of it. Mr. Smedley mentions some of their modes of proceeding, one of which is so excellent that I feel confident it will one day be generally adopted in large factories. A cotton or woolen mill usually begins work in this country at half-past six, and frequently the operatives live half an hour's walk or ride from it. This obliges many of the operatives, especially family men and women, to be up soon after four in the morning, in order to get breakfast, and be at the mill in time. It is the breakfast which makes the difficulty here. The meal will usually be prepared in haste and eaten in haste; late risers will devour it with one eye on the clock; and of course it cannot be the happy, pleasant thing a breakfast ought to be. But in Mr. Smedley's mill the people go to work at six without having had their breakfast. At eight the machinery stops, and all hands, after washing in a comfortable wash-room, assemble in what they call the dinner-house, built, furnished, and run by the proprietors. Here they find good coffee and tea for sale at two cents a pint, oatmeal porridge with syrup or milk at about ten cents a week; good bread and butter at cost.
In addition to these articles, the people bring whatever food they wish from home. The meal is enjoyed at clean, well-ordered tables. The employers keep in their service a male cook and female assistants, who will cook anything the people choose to bring. After breakfast, for fifteen minutes, the people knit, sew, converse, stroll out of doors, or amuse themselves in any way they choose. At half-past eight, the manager takes his stand at a desk in the great dinner-room, gives out a hymn, which the factory choir sings. Then he reads a passage from a suitable book,—sometimes from the Bible, sometimes from some other book. Then there is another hymn by the choir; after which all hands go to work, the machinery starting up again at nine.
There is similar accommodation for dinner, and at six work is over for the day. On Saturdays the mill is closed at half-past twelve, and the people have the whole afternoon for recreation. All the other rules and arrangements are in harmony with this exquisite breakfast scheme.
"We pay full wages," adds Mr. Smedley, "the hands are smart and effective. No man ever loses a day from drunkenness, and rarely can a hand be tempted to leave us. We keep a supply of dry stockings for those women to put on who come from a distance and get their feet wet; and every overlooker has a stock of waterproof petticoats to lend the women going a distance on a wet night."
I would like to cross the sea once more for the purpose of seeing John Smedley, and placing wreaths upon the tombs of his grandfather and father. He need not have told us that whenever he goes through the shops all the people recognize him, and that it is a pleasure to him to be so recognized.
"I wish," he says, "I could make their lot easier, for, with all we can do, factory life is a hard one."