102 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



" In the adult inhabitants of New Lanark we saw much 

 to commend. In general they appeared clean, healthy, and 

 sober. Intoxication, the parent of so many vices and so 

 much misery, is indeed almost unknown here. The conse- 

 quence is that they are well clad, well fed, and their dwellings 

 are inviting. ... In this well-regulated colony, where almost 

 everything is made that is wanted by either the manufactory 

 or its inhabitants, no cursing or swearing is anywhere to be 

 heard. There are no quarrelsome men or brawling women." 



Every visitor to New Lanark who published any account 

 of his observations seems to have agreed as to the exceptional 

 health, good conduct, and well-being of the entire population ; 

 while residents in the vicinity, as well as the ruling authorities 

 of the district, bore witness that vice and crime were almost 

 wholly unknown. And it must be remembered that this was 

 all effected upon the chance population found there, which 

 was certainly no better if no worse than the usual lowest 

 class of manufacturing operatives at that period. There 

 appears to have been not a single case of an individual or a 

 family being expelled for bad conduct ; so that we are com- 

 pelled to trace the marvellous improvement that occurred 

 entirely to the partial application of Owen's principles of 

 human nature, most patiently and skilfully applied by him- 

 self. They were necessarily only a partial application, 

 because a large number of the adults had not received the 

 education and training from infancy which was essential for 

 producing their full beneficial results. Again, the whole 

 establishment was a manufactory, the property of private 

 capitalists, and the adult population suffered all the dis- 

 advantages of having to work for long hours at a monotonous 

 employment and at low rates of wages, circumstances wholly 

 antagonistic to any full and healthy and elevated existence. 

 Owen used always to declare that the beneficial results at 

 which all visitors were so much astonished were only one- 

 tenth part of what could and would be produced if his 

 principles were fully applied. If the labour of such a com- 

 munity, or of groups of such communities, had been directed 

 with equal skill to produce primarily the necessaries and 



