36 Human Physiology. 



Bearing prodigious burdens of clay on their heads and in their 

 arms, they totter to and fro during many hours of toil. When 

 I spoke to them they either remained aghast with astonishment 

 or ran away screaming as though some evil spirit had appeared 

 to them. I could not restrain my indignation, nor can I now, 

 at this wicked scorn of female rights, this wicked waste of 

 female excellence and virtue." 



For the physical effects of labour look at the once stalwart 

 and hardy, but now stunted and miserable weavers of Spitals- 

 fields; at the dwarfed and short-lived operatives of Lancashire ;. 

 at the Sheffield grinders, who seldom live to the age of thirty; 

 at pale tailors stitching in hot and crowded rooms in an atmos- 

 phere that meets one like the breath of pestilence; at the vast 

 multitudes of women and children who earn the most meagre 

 fare by sewing, making lace, artificial flowers, matches, boxes; 

 in the thousand trades that make up the industry of London 

 or Birmingham. 



A boy born in a workhouse, or taken to one in infancy 

 there are thousands such who never knows father or mother, 

 is bound apprentice with a small premium, to a master lock- 

 smith, or maker of any kind of small iron or brass work, and 

 learns to file files through his apprenticeship, files all his life, 

 his monotonous work only interrupted by drunken holidays, 

 until he goes to the workhouse to die. His children follow 

 the same career, or do worse. There are few who rise above 

 this condition, but many sink below it, and become thieves 

 and prostitutes. 



If the hours of labour could be diminished and the wages 

 of many of the labourers increased, and the time and 

 money gained could be spent in improving their physical, 

 mental, and moral condition, it would be a great blessing; 

 but, in the state of ignorance and vice to which great 

 masses of working men are reduced more time and money will 

 mean more drunkenness and depravity. A man of impulsive 



