"'Have you no other means of knowing your age but what you find in your indentures?' 'No, I go by that.'
"'Do you work at a cotton mill?' 'Not now. I was bound apprentice to a cotton mill for fourteen years, from St. Pancras parish; then I got my indentures. I worked five or six years after, at different mills, but now I have got work of my own. I rent power from a mill in Stockport, and have a room to myself. My business is a sheet wadding manufacturer.'
"'Why did you leave off working at the cotton mills?' 'I got tired of it, the system is so bad; and I had saved a few pounds. I got deformed there; my knees began to bend in when I was fifteen; you see how they are, (showing them.) There are many, many far worse than me at Manchester.'
"'Can you take exercise with ease?' 'A very little makes me sweat in walking. I have not the strength of those who are straight.'
"'Have you ever been in a hospital, or under doctors, for your knees or legs?' 'Never in a hospital, or under doctors for that, but from illness from over-work I have been. When I was near Nottingham there were about eighty of us together, boys and girls, all 'prenticed out from St. Pancras parish, London, to cotton mills; many of us used to be ill, but the doctors said it was only for want of kitchen physic, and want of more rest.'
"'Had you any accidents from machinery?' 'No, nothing to signify much; I have not myself, but I saw, on the 6th of March last, a man killed by machinery at Stockport; he was smashed, and he died in four or five hours; I saw him while the accident took place; he was joking with me just before; it was in my own room. I employ a poor sore cripple under me, who could not easily get work anywhere else. A young man came good-naturedly from another room to help my cripple, and he was accidentally drawn up by the strap, and was killed. I have known many such accidents take place in the course of my life.'
"'Recollect a few.' 'I cannot recollect the exact number, but I have known several: one was at Lytton Mill, at Derbyshire; another was the master of a factory at Staley Bridge, of the name of Bailey. Many more I have known to receive injuries, such as the loss of a limb. There is plenty about Stockport that is going about now with one arm; they cannot work in the mills, but they go about with jackasses and such like. One girl, Mary Richards, was made a cripple, and remains so now, when I was in Lowdham mill, near Nottingham. She was lapped up by a shaft underneath the drawing-frame. That is now an old-fashioned machinery.'
"'Have you any children?' 'Three.'
"'Do you send them to factories?' 'No. I would rather have them transported. In the first place, they are standing upon one leg, lifting up one knee a greater part of the day, keeping the ends up from the spindle. I consider that that employment makes many cripples; then there is the heat and dust; then there are so many different forms of cruelty used upon them; then they are so liable to have their fingers catched, and to suffer other accidents from the machinery; then the hours is so long that I have seen them tumble down asleep among the straps and machinery, and so get cruelly hurt; then I would not have a child of mine there, because there is not good morals; there is such a lot of them together that they learn mischief.'
"'What do you do with your children?' 'My eldest of thirteen has been to school, and can teach me. She now stays at home, and helps her mother in the shop. She is as tall as me, and is very heavy. Very different from what she would have been if she had worked in a factory. My two youngest go to school, and are both healthy. I send them every day two miles to school. I know from experience the ills of confinement.'