and probably fatter, were he living in a meal-garnel. Dr Hardie was equally cautious.

"At what age do you think it would be perfectly safe to the constitution of an infant, working in the temperature of 80°, to work eighty hours per week?-I have no fact to guide me in replying.

"How many hours in the day do you think children, from six to twelve years of age, may be employed in a temperature of 80 at an employment which requires them to stand much the greater part of their time, consistently with safety to their constitution?-I cannot answer that question. I have no fact to direct me to any conclusion.

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Supposing that one set of children are employed continually to do night-work, and another set employed to do day-work, as a medical man, do you think there could be any ma terial difference in the effect on their health respectively?—I have no fact to go upon, and therefore cannot give an opinion."

Never was a man so destitute of facts as Dr Henry Hardie. Heaven bless him! Had he never heard before his examination, of the effect of different degrees of temperature on the human body? Of the Torrid Zone? Of the Antarctic Circle? and so forth. If, since ignorance be bliss, 'tis folly to be wise, he must have lived on the earth in the third hea ven. On that principle, if on no other, assuredly he is no fool.

"Something has been said about dust and flue; are you of opinion that the flue and waste of cotton can be inhaled into the lungs so as to be injurious?—No, I am not.”

Thomas Wilson, surgeon and apothecary, delivers the same opinion about lungs.

"Should you think it a dangerous thing to a young person to be from day to day inhaling the finer particles of the filaments of cotton ?-No.

"You think it would not be injurious at all, to be receiving day after day, those particles of cotton ?-No. "Do you think it would produce no effect at all upon the lungs of a young person?-I think not-very little.

such circumstances, from receiving those things into the lungs ?-ExPECTORATION IS OCCASIONED, WHICH BRINGS IT BACK AGAIN.

"Is not a constant state of expectoration injurious to health ?—No.

"Would not a constant state of expectoration be injurious to the health of a very young person ?NOT A SLIGHT EXPECTORATION."

Who said it was slight?

"Be so good as to state how the constitution would be safe, under

"Is it not, in your judgment, as a medical man, necessary that young persons should have a little recreation or amusement during the day? -I do not see it is necessary."

39

Now, gentle reader, which of those two, the doctor or the surgeon, do you think the more audacious blockhead? Call Edward Garbutt. (Enter Dr Garbutt.)

"Do you think that children from six to twelve years of age, being employed from thirteen to sixteen hours in a cotton factory, in an erect position, and in a temperature of about 80°, is consistent with safety to the constitution?-Not having examined children under these circumstances, I am totally unable to give an answer to the question."

Suppose we put the question thus "Do you think that children from four to six, being employed from eighteen to twenty hours in a cotton factory, in an erect position, constantly expectorating the filaments of cotton, and in a temperature of 120°, is likely to make them rosy and robust ?" The doctor's answer would be the same-" I am totally unable to give an answer to the question."

These three blockheads would appear to be exceeded by a fourthJames Ainsworth, surgeon.

"Can a child of six years of age to twelve be employed for thirteen to fifteen hours daily, in a temperature of 80°, and in an erect position, consistently with safety to its constitution ?-I never saw an instance of the kind AS A FACT brought before me, and therefore cannot say.

"I am supposing such to be the fact, and ask you your opinion upon it? Then I must meet that with a supposition which I wish to avoid. [What can that be?] I have NO FACT. My experience does not enable me to answer that question.

"You are incapable of answering the question, not having before you the fact of a child so situated?-I HAVE NO FACTS, and must, therefore, beg leave to decline giving an opinion.

"You are equally incapable, whether the question be thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen hours ?-There must be a limit, but with that limit I am unacquainted.

"You sensibly say, and properly so, there must be a limit. If a person about to institute a cotton manufactory, were to ask your opinion, for humanity's sake, how many hours he might employ children from six years to twelve, in a temperature of 80°, and in an erect position, and this day after day, in as much as there is a limit, what limit would you recommend?-I do not think that any man I am acquainted with would put such a question to me; it is one that I could not think it proper to reply to any man.

"Is it that you feel incapable of even recommending any limit under those circumstances ?-IN COMMON CONVERSATION I SHOULD TELL HIM, THAT HE ASKED ME A VERY STRANGE QUESTION, AND SO SHOULD TURN MY BACK UPON HIM IMMEDIATELY. 66

Supposing that I had the honour of your private acquaintance, and were to put that question, what would be your answer?-I SHOULD LEAVE YOU."

"I ask not to the facts, but to your opinion. I ask of a medical gentleman, a man who professes medical science, and would wish to be thought so, what is his opinion?— You would not wish me, or any other man, to advance an opinion WITHOUT ANY FACTS to found that opinion on ?

"If you tell me, as a medical gentleman, that you can form no opinion at all, that you are not competent to form an opinion at all upon the subject, I am satisfied.-I am not competent, from not being IN

POSSESSION OF THE FACTS.

"Should you not expect that the persons employed in beating cotton, from which a great quantity of deleterious dust and dirt results, would be affected by it?-I HAVE NO rea SON TO THINK SO.

"And, with reference to a young person, you have never formed any opinion of the effect on his health, of being kept twelve hours, without intermission, in a room of the temperature of 74° ?—I HAVE NO FACTS TO GO BY."

This fifth blockhead appears to bear off the cap and bells from all competitors. He stands like "Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved." And all who follow seem but small insignificant ninnies in comparison.

A Lords' Committee is one place, and a Court of Justice is another. Had those doctors, surgeons, and apothecaries, been called to give evidence in a court of justice, and spoken with such obstinate insolence and ignorance, Judge, Jury, and Counsel, would all have more than suspected their honesty, and they would not have left the witness' box with flying colours. It is a libel, we understand, to call almost any medical man, from physician to the king,

down to horse hedge-doctor, a quack. Therefore we do not call any of these Galens, Esculapiuses, or Hippocrateses, quacks. But we call them once more-dead or alive -audacious blockheads.

Mr Sadler alludes to such evidence as we have now quoted; and hints that much of the same sort will be forthcoming soon; nay, that certificates and declarations will be obtained from divines and doctors as to the morality and health which the present system promotes and secures. It was said before the Committee of 1818, that the children who were worked without any regulation, were not only equally, but more healthy and better instructed than those not so occupied; that night-labour was in no way prejudicial, but actually preferred; that the artificial heat of the rooms was really advantageous and quite pleasant; and that nothing could equal the reluctance of the children to have it abated; that so far from being fatigued with, for example, twelve hours' labour, the children perform ed even the last hour's work with greater interest and spirit than any of the rest!

Medical men, however, of a very different stamp were examined before the Committee of 1818-Winstanley, Ashton, Graham, Ward, Bellot, Dean, Dudley, Boutflower, Simmons, Jarrold, and Jones-all highly respectable, some of them of the highest eminence. They spoke out like honest and skilful men, and gave their opinions which were wanted; and they stated facts, too, and melancholy ones-"which made them shudder." Dr Winstanley says, that in general the children in Cotton Factories are sickly and small in stature, and unhealthy in their general appearance, with sallow complexion, shewing a great debility of constitution, and a want of muscular strength; that, on examination of about a hundred of them in a Sunday school, he found forty-seven had received considerable, three very considerable, and others greater or less injuries; and that when the Factory children were separated from the rest, the difference in the appearance as to health and size was striking at first sight. Dr Ashton gave in a report, shewing that, in six Factories he visited with

other medical men, the aggregate number was 824, of whom 163 were healthy, 240 delicate, 43 much stunted, 100 with enlarged ankles or knees, and 37 distorted in the inferior extremities, and 258 unhealthy; and he took alternately a dirty and a clean Factory, in order to satisfy himself— three reported to be the cleanest, and three the dirtiest, in the town of Stockport. He visited Church-gate Sunday school, containing 1143 children. Of that number there were 291 girls and 275 boys employed in Factories; and their countenances betrayed such sickliness, wanness, and illhealth, that he could at once distinguish, without giving the masters the trouble to separate them from the rest employed differently, who were blooming and ruddy. All those authorities agreed that employment in Cotton Factories brings on disease and shortens life. Dr Simmons says, that the children look so much worse than others, that, in the general population of Manchester, he could almost unerringly point them out on the streets. They are all IN POSSESSION OF FACTS; but, independently of facts, they all deliver opinions founded on their knowledge of the nature of things, without hesitation and without doubt, as to the pernicious and deadly effects of those occupations, on which the above auda cious blockheads persisted in declaring their incapacity to form any judgment. Dr Perceval, " a name equally dear to philosophy and philanthropy," who saw the rise, progress, and effects of the system, and closely connected though he was with many who were making rapid fortunes by it, expressed himself upon the subject, says Mr Sadler, as a professional man and a patriot, in terms of the strongest indignation. He says, even of the large Factories, which some suppose need little regulation, that they "are generally injurious to the constitution of those employed in them, even when no particular diseases prevail, from the close confinement which is enjoined, from the debilitating effects of hot or impure air, and from the want of the active exercises which nature points out as essential to childhood and youth. The untimely labour of the night, and the protracted labour of the day, not only tend to diminish

future expectation as to the general run of life and industry, by impairing the strength, and destroying the vital stamina of the rising generation; but it too often gives encouragement to idleness, extravagance, and profligacy, in the parents, who, contrary to the order of nature, subsist by the oppression of their offspring." He afterwards asserts the necessity of establishing "a general system of laws for the wise, humane, and equal government of all such works."

The evidence of the distinguished Medical Men examined before the Committee last summer, is all to the same effect. Mr Samuel Smith, surgeon in Leeds, says, that the digestive organs of the children are soon materially impaired in their powersextreme debility and lassitude follow so that although the body is not reduced to a state of actual disease, and though there may not be any decided organic change in any particular viscera of the body, yet still it is very different from a state of health. They are "out of condition," and when the body is reduced to that state, there is a continual tendency to disease. He has no hesitation in saying, that if a number of Factory children should be attacked by the cholera, the mortality would be greater and more sudden than among the same number of children in other employments. There is never a year passes-but he sees several instances where children " are in the act of being worn to death by thus working at Factories." Nor does he hesitate to confess his belief, after much scientific detail, as laid before the Committee-that if the same causes continue to operate a few generations more,the manufacturers of Yorkshire, instead of being what they were fifty years ago, as fine a race of people as were to be found throughout the country, will be a very diminutive and degenerated race. Mr Thackrab, surgeon, Leeds, says, in reference to the more dusty occupations, that the lungs are sooner or later seriously altered in their capacities, and the power of respiration diminished; that after middle age, inflammatory affections or change of structure are found in the lungs and air tube, and a number of maladies of other parts are connected with or result from those changes of the pulmonary organs.

He found men who had attained the age of from forty to fifty (in dusty occupations) almost universally diseased. With respect to the children in mills, if you ask them, "Are you pretty well?" They say, "Yes.” They have not any particular ailment, but if you examine them they have not that degree of health, that muscular power, and that buoyancy of spirits to be found in children not confined and congregated in mills. The insufficiency of the period of sleep he thinks a very great cruelty of the system. And the same time of labour in mills he thinks more injurious than it would be in private houses, or the house manufacture. In the present state of things he thinks that physical education, or the improvement of health, is most urgently required; and that is impossible without some regulation that could give air and exercise.

The evidence of Sir Anthony Carlisle shews a master mind. At every blow he knocks the right nail on the head. From forty years' observation and practice, he is satisfied that vigorous health, and the ordinary duration of life, cannot be generally maintained under the circumstances of twelve hours' labour, day by day. He speaks not of children, but of adults. But during the growth and formation of the young creature, its liability to deviate from the natural standard is much greater than in the adult. Unless the young creature be duly exercised and not overlaboured, duly fed and properly treated with regard to the needful regulations of life, all will go wrong. All domesticated creatures that are kept in close confinement, and worked at too early an age, or too severely, become deteriorated in form and vigour, and are more or less injured, so as to unfit them for the performance of their ordinary and habitual labours. And are the young of the human race an exception from the general law of life? We must not, he says, be deluded by outward shew. Children brought up from early life in warm rooms may enjoy an apparent degree of health until almost the age of maturity, but they never obtain vigorous health. They are unfit to carry on a succeeding generation of healthy human beings; nor is there any thing more hereditary than family ten

dencies, particularly such as are engendered by such habits as are hurtful to the first formation of physical

structures.

When asked if he does not think that the general custom of society which abridges the duration of labour during half the year, six winter months, (in factories how small the difference!) is dictated by the nature and condition of human beings-he answers, that it arises from the Law of Animal Life. In the winter season the whole animal creation requires greater rest than in the summer season. The whole creation, man, animals, birds, fishes, insects, rise, if they be day-creatures, with the rising sun, and go to rest with the setting sun, winter and summer. Even the nocturnal creatures do not wander all night; they only go out at twilight, and early in the morning. During the stillness of midnight, the whole creation is at rest. Dr Blundell, on the same subject, says simply and finely, "day-labour, I think, is more consistent with health than night labour. Many animals are by nature nocturnal; man is not; to them the star-light is, I presume, agreeable; but man finds it a pleasant thing to behold the light of the sun."

All these are truths which it might seem any one might know; but enunciated by men of science, they strike the sides of a bad system like cannonballs. Do you think that a child under nine years of age ought to be doomed to habitual long labour in a Factory? You or I say no-and employers laugh at us; Sir Anthony Carlisle says no-and they frown and bite their lips. But he says more than-no; he says, "My own opinion is, as a matter of feeling, that to do so is to condemn and treat the child as a criminal; it is a punishment which inflicts upon it the ruin of its bodily and moral health, and renders it an inefficient member of the community, both as to itself and its progeny. It is to my mind an offence against nature, which, alas! is visited upon the innocent creature instead of its oppressor, by the loss of its health, or the premature destruction of its race." A sixty-two pound shot- from a carronadeat point-blank distance-whizthrough the Factories. Children demand legislative protection, in his

opinion, for their own sakes, and for the sake of future generations of English labourers; because every succeeding generation will be progressively deteriorated, if we do not stop these sins against nature and humanity. Nature has been very wise in punishing all the offences we commit against her in our own person. If young persons between nine and eighteen are worked longer than twelve hours, including two for meals, their employers, he adds, must consider them machines or mere animals, not moral beings. Sir Anthony does himself great honour by the spirit in which he speaks of the poor. On Sabbath let the children, he says, go to church-let the church be well ventilated, and there from a good scholar and divine, let them derive instruction, moral and religious. He cannot, as matters now are, approve of Sunday schools. It is only changing the week-day labour. of the body, for the Sunday labour of the mind. Let the little wornout creatures have some little time for repose, for domestic enjoyment and instruction, and for the exercise of the domestic and kindred affections. For

"Gravely says the mild physician," "I am of opinion that the instinctive and natural affections of the industrious classes of society are more pure, more sincere, and more active, than among the educated classes; I have witnessed sacrifices on the part of people in the lowest condition of life, which I never saw among people educated artificially from the commencement of life. The yearnings of those people after their progeny, and their filial affections, disparage the heartless manners and cold morals which too often prevail in fashionable life." And is it not, in great measure, for sake of people in fashionable life, with their "heartless manners and cold morals," that the Factory-System, by its unnatural labours, dulls and deadens those affections in the hearts of the poor, which this man of experience and wisdom so truly and beautifully describes ?

Dr Blundell, on being asked what he thinks of some of the extreme cases of long-continued labour, without intermission for sleep, which