100 MY LIFE [Chap. 



appearance of the children, and many visitors declared that 

 they had never seen so many beautiful girls and boys as 

 in the schools at New Lanark. 



The effect of his system on the adult workers was hardly 

 less remarkable. To stop the continued pilfering of bobbins 

 and other small articles used in the mills, he invented a 

 system (unfortunately not explained) by which the many 

 thousands of these articles which passed from hand to hand 

 daily were so recorded automatically that the loss of one by 

 any particular worker could be always detected. In this way 

 robbery, large or small, was always discovered, but no one was 

 ever punished for it. The certainty of discovery, however, 

 prevented its being attempted, and it very soon ceased alto- 

 gether. 



Equally novel and ingenious was his method of avoiding 

 the necessity for punishment, or even for a word of censure, 

 for the many petty offences or infractions of rules that are 

 inevitable in every large establishment. Owen calls it "the 

 silent monitor," but the workers called it the "telegraph." 

 Each superintendent of a department had a character-book, 

 in which the daily conduct of every worker was set down by 

 marks for each of the ordinary offences, neglect of work, 

 swearing, etc., which when summed up gave a result in four 

 degrees — bad, indifferent, good, excellent. For every in- 

 dividual there was a small wooden, four-sided tally, the sides 

 being coloured black, blue, yellow, and white, corresponding 

 to the above degrees of conduct. This tally was fixed at 

 each one's work-place, with the indicative colour outward, so 

 that as Owen or his representative passed down the shops 

 at any time during the day, he could note at a glance the 

 conduct of each one during the preceding day, and thus get 

 both a general and a detailed view of the behaviour of the 

 workers. If any one thought they were unfairly treated they 

 could complain to him, but in hardly any cases did this 

 happen. He tells us, " As I passed through all the rooms, and 

 the workers observed me always to look at these telegraphs — 

 and when black I merely looked at the person, and then at 

 the colour — but never said a word to one of them by way of 



