ENGLAND. 



761 



Statistics, this circumstance ; and it is peculiarly striking, and al- 

 'Y"' most forces itself upon a person who crosses the coun- 

 try from York to Manchester, and consequently passes 

 immediately from the woollen district of the West Rid- 

 ing, to the cotton district of Lancashire. In the for- 

 mer, he observes much of the comfort and feelings of 

 domestic life; the habits and manners of the manufactur- 

 ing classes are sober, decent, and regular ; they seem 

 to have an interest and a pride in keeping up the re- 

 spectability of their character, in setting a good ex- 

 ample to their children, and in bringing them up in 

 the paths of virtue. But, even before a traveller has 

 time or opportunity to ascertain these facts, he is struck 

 with the cleanliness and neatness of their dress and 

 persons, with the healthiness of their looks, and with 

 their steady and cheerful manners. Let him pass into 

 the cotton district, and the case is most miserably re- 

 versed : the manufacturing classes are dirty, squalid, 

 and unhealthy in their looks, having the appearance of 

 debauchery and poverty strongly marked in their per- 

 sons. Nor will these appearances, on enquiry, be found 

 to be erroneous : the utmost ignorance and dissolution 

 of manners prevail ; there is none of that laudable 

 feeling of independence, none of that prospective pru- 

 dence, without which the manufacturing classes must 

 always be sunk in poverty and vice. Such being the 

 striking contrast, it is important to endeavour to ascer- 

 tain its causes, and these by no means lie deep ; they 

 are sufficiently obvious. Before stating them, however, 

 it may be proper to recal to our readers, that the prin- 

 cipal points of contrast regard the health and morals 

 of the manufacturing classes in the two districts : what- 

 ever causes will account for their difference in these 

 respects, will also account for their difference in respect 

 to comparative cleanliness, comfort, and pecuniary 

 means. In the first place, then, the factory system 

 being more prevalent in the cotton than in the woollen 

 district, must be looked to as one of the primary and 

 great causes : it is unnecessary to explain how this 

 must operate in giving rise to disease and vice ; but it 

 may be remarked, that, in all probability, even if the 

 factory system should become as prevalent in the wool- 

 len as it is in the cotton district, it will not produce 

 effects equally prejudicial ; and this, from the opera- 

 tion of the second cause of the contrast between the 

 two trades, to which we shall now allude : In the cot- 

 ton trade, the number of children employed is very 

 great ; and it is easy to conceive how their health must 

 be affected in a crowded factory, where they are obli- 

 ged to work long before their strength is adequate to 

 the task, and at a period of life when close and long 

 confinement are extremely prejudicial. As they are sent 

 to these factories before they receive any education, 

 they can attain little while they are there, associate, 

 while in them, with depraved characters, and at home 

 meet with no encouragement or example to cleanliness 

 or propriety of conduct ; it is not to be wondered that 

 they should almost universally exhibit instances of most 

 disgusting filth, of most pitiable want of health, and 

 of vice, which at any age would be shocking, and at 

 their early age is peculiarly so. But there is still ano- 

 ther cause to which we must advert, in order satisfac- 

 torily to account for and explain the contrast between 

 the woollen and the cotton manufacturers. It has al- 

 ready been remarked, that in the woollen trade, the 

 demand is more regular and steady than it is in the 



cotton trade ; consequently, in the former, there are 

 not so many, nor so great inequalities in the wages I 

 of the manufacturers. Besides, in the woollen trade, 

 when the demand slackens, it is customary to dis- 

 miss as few hands as possible, but rather to keep them 

 on at a lower rate of wages : whereas, in the cotton 

 trade, when the demand diminishes in any consider, 

 able degree, multitudes of work people are thrown out 

 of employment. Now, no person who is in the least 

 acquainted with the habits and feelings of the labour- 

 ing classes in England, need be told, that to them, high 

 wages at one time, and low wages at another time, 

 constitutes one of the greatest evils to which they can 

 be exposed. They almost uniformly live up to the 

 maximum rate of their wages; consequently, when 

 they are not employed, or but partially employed, they 

 have no means, or very inadequate means, of support- 

 ing themselves. Nor is this the only evil ; while trade 

 was brisk, they indulged in various things, which, of 

 course, they cannot acquire when trade is bad: of 

 course, in the latter state of things, they retain all the 

 wants and habits which they acquired in the former 

 state of things, and are no longer able to satisfy them. 

 Thus, with high wages, they are extravagant, debauch- 

 ed, and thoughtless; and with low wages, they are 

 starving. It must be obvious, that the more frequent- 

 ly those fluctuations in trade occur, which produce 

 corresponding fluctuations of wages, the more confirm- 

 ed and inveterate will all the consequences produced 

 by these fluctuations become ; and these consequences 

 of extreme high and low wages, frequently, and often 

 rapidly, succeeding one another, are the more dread- 

 ful, as they fall on a set of people not prepared by edu- 

 cation or habits of reflection and prudence to avoid 

 them. In the woollen trade, the case is different; 

 wages are much more regular and steady; and the peo- 

 ple employed in it are better able, from their education 

 and habits, to withstand the temptation of high wages, 

 and consequently are less exposed to the evil conse- 

 quences of low wages. Such appear to us to be the 

 chief causes of the difference so visible and general be- 

 tween the condition and morals of the labouring classes 

 in the cotton and in the woollen districts : it may 

 be added, that the cotton factories in the former are 

 generally in large towns, and that at least, so far as re- 

 spects Manchester, the principal seat and centre of the 

 trade, a great number of Irish people are employed in 

 it, who certainly, from the peculiarities of their na- 

 tional character, are as little able to withstand the temp- 

 tations of vice, and of alternate high and low wages, 

 as any race of people in the world. On the contrary, 

 the factories in the woollen district are generally not 

 in towns, and the people who work in them are gene- 

 rally natives. It is proper, however, to remark, that 

 the filth, poverty, unhealthiness, and dissipation, which 

 characterize, in such a striking and lamentable man- 

 ner, the spinning branch of the manufacture of cotton, 

 do not exist, in nearly an equal degree, in the weaving 

 and other branches ; many of the weavers, on the con- 

 trary, are industrious, sober, and intelligent men; and 

 in the neighbourhood of Manchester, particularly, fre- 

 quently possess small farms, which they manage along 

 with their weaving business : these farms, it is true, 

 are too often neglected, in consequence of their atten- 

 tion and time being almost exclusively devoted to their 

 other business, (w. s.) 



VOL. Jvin. PART n. 



(Continued in Vol. IX. Part I.) 



