Was very considerable severity used in that mill when you were there?—Yes.
Have you yourself been subjected to it?—Yes.
Strapped?—Yes, I was strapped most severely, till I could not bear to sit down on a chair without pillows, and I was forced to lie upon my face in the night-time, at one time; and through that I left. I was strapped both on my own legs, and then I was put on a man's back, and then strapped, and buckled with two straps to an iron pillar, and flogged, and all by one overlooker; after that, he took a piece of tow, and twisted it in the shape of a cord, put it in my mouth, and tied it behind my head.
He gagged you?—Yes; and then he ordered me to run round a part of the machinery where he was overlooker, and he stood at one end, and every time I came there, he struck me with a stick, which I believe was an ash plant, and which he generally carried in his hand; and sometimes he hit me, and sometimes he did not; and one of the men in the room came and begged me off, and that he would let me go, and not beat me any more; and, consequently, he did.
You have been beaten with extraordinary severity?—Yes; I was so beaten that I had not power to cry at all, or hardly to speak, at one time.
What age were you at that time?—Between ten and eleven.
What had you done?—I believe that in the machinery I did not like the part he put me to, because I had never been in a mill where there was any machinery before in my life, and it was winter time, and we worked by gas-light, and I could not catch the revolutions of the machinery to take the tow out of the hackles. I desired him to remove me to another part, which he did for some part of the day, and then sent me back to that which we call doffing the hackles.
You say that you were so beat that you could not even cry?—I cannot assign any other reason for it; it was not because I had not sufficient punishment: I did my endeavours. When he had used some mode of language which gave me to understand that he wanted me to cry when he had flogged me on the man's back, I remember he repeated a verse about devils trembling, and said, 'But this hardened wretch will not shed a tear.' He was a member of a religious society, and I suppose that was the reason that made him use those words.
Was he discharged from that society?—Yes, I believe he was; my grandmother went to the class, it was held in the chapel, and he was discharged from it.
Were young women as well as young men beaten?—Yes, I never saw any distinction between boys and girls."