282 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



them come — infants, youths, adults, men and women, 

 but never old age: that dwells not here. But why are 

 those children carried upon parents' backs — are they 

 sick? No! Then where is the energy of youth that 

 should prompt them to run and skip and shout and play, 

 when escaping from a day of confinement? They have 

 been worked, beat, duck'd and starved, and compelled, 

 like machines, to stand up to their toil, till at the first 

 sound of the releasing bell, they sink to the floor, unable 

 to put forth another effort, and would rather there die 

 than undertake at this hour to walk to their miserable 

 homes. Is it to be wondered that old age, hale and 

 hearty, is not here — when we see such waxen visages, 

 and incubus-like languor, sitting upon the youth and 

 prostrating their vital energies. 



But let us follow the haggard-looking, miserably clad, 

 hard-working operatives of the English factory system, 

 to their homes, their supper, and their bed — down 

 through this filthy lane, down into that dismal cellar, see 

 them go — sixty men women and children in a room not 

 large enough for six, nor fit for the abode of any human 

 being. And there is the supper sumptuously set forth; 

 but there is no table — no chair — no plate — no knife — no 

 fork — no spoon. And why should there be, for there is 

 nothing but a small piece of coarse black bread and a cup 

 of raw Bohea tea for each — and the breakfast will be the 

 same — and the dinner, potatoes fried in lard and perhaps 

 a few small bits of meat; and the lodging, a litter of 

 straw, made filthy by long use — for there straw costs 

 money — in which all huddle together, lying close to keep 

 each other warm, and from which all must rise at early 

 dawn, to resume the daily toil — under a more severe task- 

 master than the southern slave's overseer. 



But to the proof. An extract from the sworn testi- 

 mony of a factory overseer, before a committee of Parlia- 

 ment in 1832. 



"I was obliged to chastise them (the factory children) 

 when they were almost fainting, and it hurt my feelings : 



