376 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



Indeed, all the married women, and there were 

 many examined, relate their experience to the 

 same purport, and it may be asked without exag- 

 geration, whether such a system can be rewarded 

 as any thing less than murderous, it is not for us 

 in this place to assign where the blame lies, but 

 we cannot Ibrbear inserting a significant passage 

 from the evidence of anoUier, Margaret Bextel. 

 " The work," she says, " is not fit lor women, and 

 the men could prevent it if they labored more 

 regular. Indeed, men about this place don't wish 

 their wives to work in the mines, but the masters 

 eeem to encourage it— at any rate, the masters 

 never interlere to prevent it." 



But revolting as all ihis is, there is something 

 Btili more so behind. The demoralization oj' ihe 

 lemales, old and yonng, is greaser even than their 

 oppression. We should hardly venture to de- 

 scribe its extent except in the words of the com- 

 missioners themselves, and that as briefly as pos- 

 sible. 



" In the southern parts oT the west riding of 

 Yorkshire," says the report, " as far as relates to 

 the underground employment, there is no distinc- 

 tion of sex, but the labor is distrihuted indifier- 

 ently among both sexes, except that it is compa- 

 ratively rare lor the women to hew or get ihe 

 coals, although there are numerous instances in 

 which the women regularly perlorm even this 

 work. In great numbers of the coal pits in this 

 district the men work in a stale of perfect naked- 

 ness, and are in this slate assisted in their labor 

 by females of all ages, from girls of six years old 

 to women of tweoty-one, these lemales being 

 themselves quite, naked down to the waist." 



The extreme indecency remarked in this pas- 

 sage we should infer (from Appendix, part 1, page 

 181) to be confined to the Fiockion and Thornhill 

 pits ; but in all of them it prevails to a degree 

 very slightly mitigated in shamelessness. In 

 none do the men wear any other dress than a flan- 

 nel jacket, or the females add to the breeches, 

 which they wear as a protection against the gall- 

 ing chain which passes from a girdle round ihe 

 waist between their legs lo the load they ate 

 drawing, more than a loose ragged shill ; and 

 these two very slender improvements are rarely 

 remarked together in the same district. In lact, 

 '< the girls are not a bit ashamed among their own 

 pit set^" and in the neighborhood of Halilax the 

 practice seems to reach a climax positively dis- 

 gusting. Mary Barrett, aged 14, told the sub- 

 commissioners that " she always worked without 

 shoes, stockings or trousers, wearing nothing but a 

 shift. She had to go up the headings with the 

 men ; they are all naked there ; she had got well 

 used to if, and did not care much about it now, 

 but at first was afraid, and did not like it." 



We are sorry that the magnitude of the evil 

 compels us, even so briefly, to enter into such de- 

 tails of it, nor must we suppose that the women 

 merely discard all modesty on entering the mouth 

 of the pit. Though the words we have quoted 

 tvould seem to reler to their conduct under ground, 

 abundance of evidence is scattered through the 

 report that they have not much more delicacy in 

 their recreations and occupations above ground 

 than in their labors below.— The men meet to 

 fight and wrestle in complete nudity, except their 

 clogs ; and though the women affect finery when 

 they are " holidaying," they are not at all shy of 



such exhibitions, nor at any time sensitive about 

 appearing half naked themselves. 



" All classes of witnesses," says the report, 

 " bear the strongest testimony to the immoral 

 effects ol the practice of lemales working in 

 mines," " I wish the government," says one 

 witness, (a collier,) " would expel all giria and 

 females from mines. I can give proof that they 

 are immoral ; arid I am certain that the girls are 

 worse in point of morals ihan the men, and use 

 more indecent language." " It is impossible," 

 says another, "lor girls to remain modest who 

 are in pits, regularly mixing with such company 

 and hearing such language as they do. 1 have 

 worked myself in pits for above ten years, where 

 girls were constantly employed, and can safely 

 say that it is an abominatile system." "Where 

 ifirls are employed," is the tesiimony of Mr. 

 Ellison, of Berkinsh^w, " the immoralities prac- 

 tised are most scandalous," and Mr. Sadler, sur- 

 geon of Barnsley; whose profession enables him 

 to know intimately the habits of the miners around 

 him, co[ifirms it in these striking words—" I 

 sirongly disapprove of females being in pits; the 

 female character is totally destroyed by it ; their 

 habits and feelings are altogether different; they 

 can neither discharge ihe duties of wives or 

 moihers. It is a brutalizing practice." 



Thomas Wilson, esq., of the Banks Silkstone, 

 and owner of three collieries, though satisfied that 

 " ihe employment of females of any age in mines 

 is most objectionable," is nevertheless of opinion 

 that It would be impossible for any individual to 

 put an end to it. " 1 should rejoice to see it put 

 an end to, but in the present lieeiing of the colliers, 

 no individual would succeed in stopping it in a 

 neighborhood where it prevails, because the men 

 would immediately go to those pits where their 

 daughters are empl^iyed." Of the correctness of 

 this'opinion, however, there may be some doubt. 

 The mischief seems to have arisen from the 

 practice of the masters (lor some reason or other,) 

 allowing the men to find their own drawers and 

 hurners" "Mr. Hilton, of Wigan," says Mr. 

 sub-commissioner Kennedy, "told me that he 

 should be glad to discontinue the employment of 

 females in his mines ; but that it was a custom 

 lor the men to find iheir own drawers, and that 

 the masters did not interfere." Why ihey do 

 not interfere is not shown. They have interfered 

 in other districts, and with the most happy re- 

 sults ; lor we find that from all the mines in the 

 vast coal fields of Cumberland, Durham and 

 Northumberland, there is now an "absolute ex- 

 clusion of all female workers, except in one old 

 colliery belonging to the Earl of Lonsdale." 



We may conclude this branch of the subject in 

 the words of sub-commissioner Symonds, that 

 "under no conceivable circumstance is anyone 

 sort of employment in collieries proper for females; 

 and that the practice is flagrantly disgraceful to a 

 Christian as well as a civilized country." 



RISKS OF MERCANTILE LIFE. 



General Dearborn, in a lecture delivered last 

 winter before the farmers of the Massachusetts 

 ietrislature, declared that 97 out of every 100 per- 

 sons who obtained their livelihood by buying and 



