The Blacks may be fairly compared to beasts of burden kept for their master's use. The whites to those which others keep and let for hire! If I have succeeded in calling the attention of your readers to the horrid and abominable system on which the worsted mills in and near Bradford are conducted, I have done some good. Why should not children working in them be protected by legislative enactments, as well as those who work in cotton mills. Christians should feel and act for those whom Christ so eminently loved and declared that "of such is the kingdom of heaven."
Your insertion of the above in the Leeds Mercury, at your earliest convenience, will oblige, Gentlemen,
Your most obedient servant,
Richard Oastler.
Fixby Hall, near Huddersfield, Sept. 29th, 1830.
[357] September 22, 1830, an anti-Slavery meeting at the Coloured Cloth Hall, Leeds, addressed by Lord Morpeth, Henry Brougham, etc., in favour of the abolition of Slavery in the British colonies.
[358] Brougham.
18. Factory Act [Statutes, 3 and 4 Wm. IV, 103], 1833.
An Act to regulate the Labour of Children and young Persons in the Mills and Factories of the United Kingdom.
... no person under eighteen years of age shall be allowed to work in the night, that is to say between the hours of half-past eight o'clock in the evening and half-past five o'clock in the morning, except as hereinafter provided, in or about any cotton, woollen, worsted, hemp, flax, tow, linen, or silk mill or factory....