ExiuBiTioN Addresses. 193 



long must we expect tlie continuance of a preference of the factory to 

 domestic duties: but the sad consequences might be mitigated if 

 proper and well-ordered nurseries were established, were children 

 could be taken care of, for tlie same charge as is now made by these 

 private nurses. Tlie extent to which children are exposed to risk can 

 not be shown more clearly than by the following extract from the- 

 Asliton Reporter^ of an account of the proceedings of the coroner's 

 inquest upon the death of a child aged six months, who died during 

 the mother's absence at the factory : 



" ' A juror paid there were many married women who would sooner 

 go to the mill than stop at home and nurse their children. Another 

 juror remarked that hundreds of married women in Stalybridge went 

 to the mills in ordinary times, and left their children to be nursed by 

 neighbors. Another juror said that, cold as the weather was that day 

 — and it was the coldest he remembered — children had been dragged 

 out of their beds between five and six in the morning, and taken 

 through the streets in the cold air to the residences of those who 

 nursed them, which were in some cases hundreds of yards ofi". 

 Another a juror said he had worked in a Lancashire town six years, 

 and had never seen what might be witnessed any working morning 

 in Stalybridge, namely, men going through the streets with cradles 

 in their arms before six o'clock, and women with their babies in their 

 arms, wrapped in shawls, in order to protect them as much as possi- 

 ble.'" 



But even witli such a social condition and all the suffering and 

 want it suggests, English manufacturers cannot hold their own against 

 other European manufacturers ; for there is cheapness elsewhere, 

 and still lower depths of misery. 



The following circular, issued from the English Foreign Office, 

 speaks for itself: 



Dispatch Addressed by Loed Stanley to Foreign Ministers. 

 " Foreign Office, January lY, 1867. 



" My Lord. — The extent to which foreign industry and production 

 now competes with that of England, has of late attracted much atten- 

 tion in this country, and it has been publicly stated that increased 

 production abroad, by diminishing profits at home, is tending seri- 

 ously to effect British commercial interests, and possibly to divert 

 British capital to a more profitable scene of operations. 



" The comparatively matured industry and commercial enterprise 



[Inst.] 13 



