DIFFERENT CLASSES OF SOCIETY. 281 



prosperous or natural, which subjects them to be 

 cut off by death so many years before the term 

 allotted to those by whom they are employed 1 It 

 also illustrates, strikingly, what I have said about 

 bad health being more frequently the result of grad- 

 ual causes long in unperceived operation, than of any 

 sudden or accidental exposure ; and proves that a 

 mode of life or degree of labour is not to be rashly 

 pronounced harmless, merely because its injurious 

 effects are not immediately seen, and because years 

 may elapse before it breaks down the constitution. 

 It is blindness to the perception of this principle 

 which still misleads mankind, and renders them in- 

 sensible to the agency of numerous hurtful influences 

 from which, by a little exertion, they might easily 

 be relieved. 



Much angry discussion lately took place as to the 

 reality of the mischief inflicted by the long hours 

 and unremitting exertion required in our factories 

 and spinning-mills, where an unerring test might 

 easily have been found. If those who contended 

 that the hours of labour were not too long, either 

 for the children or adults, could have produced evi- 

 dence to show that, among operatives, the average 

 of life was equally high as among the apparently 

 more favoured classes, there would have been, at 

 once and for ever, an end of the argument ; while, 

 had the result proved different, the system of labour 

 might justly have been deemed oppressive in the 

 precise ratio in which the mortality among the ope- j 

 ratives exceeded that among their wealthier coun- 

 trymen. No criterion could be so infallible as the 

 one now proposed ; and if government possessed 

 the means of obtaining accurate returns, it seems to 

 me that the expense of procuring them would be 

 well bestowed, as, whatever might be the result, it 

 could not fail to produce greater harmony of views 

 and purpose than now unhappily prevails between 

 the different classes of society. 



