140 ON BLEACHING. 



and figured by pressure now belong to this department, and afford another 

 variety in the attractions of cotton fabrics. The result has been that the 

 time required for the operation of bleaching is now about as many days as 

 formerly it required weeks to accomplish. Honour to British genius that 

 these advantages have been derived to our country. The general public 

 will no doubt feel curious to ascertain whether any and what proportion 

 of the money saving thus effected has reached the consumer ; some other 

 portion of the public will inquire in what extent the advantages thus 

 achieved by science and art have been shared by the operative class em- 

 ployed ? It is not expected that much concern will be manifested about 

 the interests of the proprietor, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that 

 a still more minute inquiry will be raised about the " human machine," more 

 especially, whether, during the progress of these advances in manufacturing 

 art, the material, moral, and intellectual condition of the working class 

 has been made to keep pace with all these improved manipulations, which, 

 amidst the struggle of changes, have destroyed the character of many 

 employments, but have greatly increased the whole number of persons 

 employed 1 These inquiries it will be my endeavour to satisfy. The advan- 

 tages shared by the consumer will easily be reckoned. I have before me 

 a printed card, or list of prices for bleaching, issued by a leading firm in 

 the year 1803. At that time the charge for bleaching a well-known de- 

 scription of cloth was 7s. 6d. for a piece of 28 yards, and it is now 6d. The 

 case of the labourers employed in bleaching sixty or seventy years ago was, 

 as before stated, a very harassing one — they suffered severely from exposure 

 to wet and cold, and, as a consequence, from rheumatism and asthma. The 

 earnings of a "crofter" would be from 10s. to 15s. per week. Upon 

 wages so scanty, and with some uncertainty of employment, their mode of 

 living was necessarily inexpensive. Oatmeal was the staple commodity of 

 their food. They used it as porridge ; their bread was of oatmeal, either in 

 leavened oat-cakes or baked in the form of a loaf called jannock, which is 

 said to have been introduced by the refugee Flemings ; and animal food, 

 with the exception of bacon, was seldom found at the working man's table. 

 Now-a-days, the workmen in bleach-works perform all their work in-doors, 

 and are therefore no longer exposed to the coldness and moisture of the 

 former period. Their wages are increased in a proportion which cannot 

 easily be estimated, and their employment is one of great regularity. 

 They have nearly ceased to consume oatmeal ; jannock is unheard of ; oat- 

 cakes are seldom seen ; and their tables are now daily spread with wheaten 

 bread, animal food from the shambles, and all the other articles which 

 usually enter into the consumption of families in the other grades in life. 

 The social condition of the operative bleacher of early times cannot easily 

 be separated from the rest of the working population of that day, neither 

 could they now be described in any other manner than that which 

 would apply to the operatives around them in other pursuits. 



