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CONSEQUENCES OF MACHINERY. 423 
of mechanics would reduce the working class to complete 
inaction, have been followed by others quite of a different 
character, and on which it appears indispensable to dwell 
for a moment. 
By suppressing all efforts of strength in manufactories, 
machines allow of a great number of children of both 
sexes being called in. Some industrial and some avari- 
cious parents often abuse this power. The time devoted 
to work is most unreasonably long. For the daily pay 
of eight or ten centimes, some minds are devoted to eter- 
nal stupidity, which a few hours of study would have 
rendered fruitful; limbs are condemned to be rickety, 
that required open air, and exercise in the wholesome 
rays of the sun for their development. 
To ask a legislator to put an end to this hideous ex- 
haustion of the poor by the rich; to solicit measures for 
combating the demoralization which is the usual conse- 
quence of numerous gatherings of young work-people ; 
to try to introduce and distribute certain machines among 
the cottages, so that, according to the seasons, agricultural 
labours might be interspersed with the industrial ;—this 
would be an act of humanity, an act of patriotism ; this 
would show a knowledge of the present requirements of 
the working classes. But to persist in executing labori- 
ously and expensively, by hand, works that machines can 
perform in a twinkling and at a low price, would but as- 
similate proletaries to brutes. To ask daily efforts from 
them which ruin their health, and which science can pro- 
eure a hundredfold by the action of wind, of water, or of 
steam, would be going in the contrary direction to the 
wished-for result: this would be devoting the poor to 
nudity ; reserving exclusively for the rich a host of enjoy- 
ments, which at present are shared by everybody: this, 
