14 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS. 



sioners, we searched the evidence given at various times 

 before Committees of Parliament relative to the condition 

 of the people, and to the causes which have directly or re- 

 motely led to that condition, and also the various private 

 publications upon the subject, and consulted those persons 

 who, from their habits and position, were likely to be the 

 best acquainted with the situation of the people. Certain 

 circumstances were stated by those whose opinions were 

 thus obtained, as conveying a faithful representation of 

 the general physical and moral condition of the working 

 classes. Other circumstances were mentioned either as 

 the immediate or remote causes of that condition; and, 

 again, others as the immediate or remote effects. We felt 

 it to be necessary, not only to ascertain to what extent 

 those statements might be facts, but whether they em- 

 braced the whole of the facts ; and whether those facts 

 affected a few districts, or the whole country. With this 

 view, minute Heads of Inquiry, based upon the information 

 thus obtained, were drawn up. Those Heads of Inquiry 

 did not anticipate the negative or affirmative, but were so 

 framed as to admit of any explanation within the range of 

 the class to which each belonged, being general as to that 

 class, but confined to the main subject of which each 

 formed only a sub-division. It was carefully enforced upon 

 the Assistant Commissioners, that those Heads of Inquiry 

 were not for the purpose of restricting them, but merely 

 as an assistance to the memory, ensuring that, at each 

 examination, no portion of the subject, however minute, 

 which was known by us to be worthy of consideration, 

 could be omitted. The Assistant Commissioners were ex- 

 pressly reminded that they were not merely at liberty to 

 probe each portion of the subject as far as it might in their 



