SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 283 



then they would spring up and work pretty well for an- 

 other hour — but the last two or three hours was my hard- 

 est work, for they then got so exhausted." 



Sir Robert Peel, in speaking of the factory that he 

 owned, deposes as follows : 



"I was struck, whenever I visited the factories, with 

 the uniform appearance of bad health, and, in many 

 cases, the stinted growth of the children." 



Witnesses also prove that the mind and morals suffer 

 equally with the body. That death, a lingering miser- 

 able death, which some of the eminent medical witnesses 

 do not hesitate to call "murder" and "infanticide,'" is the 

 effect of working children in a close room of confined 

 atmosphere, sixteen hours a day. That such unremitting 

 toil, and meagre diet, deforms the body, impairs the 

 health, breaks the constitution, and swells the bills of 

 mortality, among the freemen of slave-denouncing old 

 England. Shall I be told that this is free labor — that 

 the master in England has no power to compel these 

 slaves of the factory system (or "operatives," I must call 

 them, since slave sounds offensive to freeman's ears) to 

 overwork themselves — that they can quit their employer 

 whenever they please, etc.? Alas the law of necessity 

 is upon them — endure or die ! 



Now, lest this language sound too strong, allow me to 

 present language from high quarters. It is extracts from 

 English papers, prefaced by one of our own country. 

 Here it is : 



"Suffering in England. — It is next to impossible for 

 the people of this country to form any opinion of the 

 suffering condition of the immense masses of the hopeless 

 poor in England. We learn, from an English paper, that 

 a public meeting of the inhabitants of Leeds was held a 

 few weeks before the sailing of the last steamer, to inves- 

 tigate the condition of the unemployed poor — and a re- 

 port, carefully drawn up from detailed accounts, was 

 read to the meeting. The extent of destitution, as repre- 

 sented in this report, is indeed frightful. It appears 



