LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class - 
 
LETTERS 
 
 FACTORY ACT, 
 
 it affects t&c <2f otton JWanufacturc, 
 
 ADDRESSED TO 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE, 
 
 NASSAU W. SENIOR, ESQ. 
 
 LONDON : 
 B. FELLOWES, LUDGATE STREET. 
 
 1837. 
 

 LONDON : 
 CLAY, FRINTEU, BREAD-STREET-HILL. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 FROM MR. SENIOR TO MR. THOMSON, 
 
 York Hotel, Manchester, Tuesday, March 28, 1837. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 WE have now been for some time in the centre of the 
 cotton district. Our principal objects of inquiry have 
 been the effects of the Factory Regulation Act, as respects 
 the cotton manufacture, and the consequences which may 
 be expected from further legislative interference. And as 
 Lord Ashley's motion is at hand, and will probably be 
 disposed of before our return, I think you may not be 
 unwilling to hear the results to which we have as yet 
 come ; although, in stating them, I have no doubt that I 
 shall say much with which you are familiar. 
 
 I have always been struck by the difference between 
 the hours of work usual over the whole world in cotton 
 factories and in other employments ; and did not, until 
 now, perceive the reasons. It seems to arise from two 
 causes : first, the great proportion of fixed to circulating 
 capital, which makes long hours of work desirable ; and, 
 secondly, the extraordinary lightness of the labour, if 
 labour it can be called, which renders them practicable. 
 I will take them separately : 
 
 I. I find the usual computation to be that the fixed 
 capital is in the proportion of four to one to the 
 circulating; so that if a manufacturer has 50,000/. to 
 employ, he will expend 40,000/. in erecting his mill, and 
 filling it with machinery, and devote only 10,000/. to the 
 purchase of raw material (cotton, flour, and coals) and 
 I A 2 
 
the payment of wages. I find also that the whole capital 
 is supposed in general to be turned over (or, in other 
 words, that, goods are produced and sold representing the 
 value of the whole capital, together with the manufac- 
 turer's profit) in about a year ; in favourable times in 
 rather less, in others, such as the present, in rather more. 
 I find also that the net profit annually derived may be 
 estimated at ten per cent., some computations placing it 
 as low as seven and a half, others as high as eleven ; 
 ten I believe to be about the average. But in order to 
 realize this net profit, a gross profit of rather more 
 than fifteen per cent, is necessary ; for although the 
 circulating capital, being continually restored to its ori- 
 ginal form of money, may be considered as indestructible, 
 the fixed capital is subject to incessant deterioration, not 
 only from wear and tear, but also from constant mecha- 
 nical improvements, which in eight or nine years render 
 obsolete, machinery which when first used was the best 
 of its kind. 
 
 Under the present law, no mill in which persons under 
 eighteen years of age are employed (and, therefore, scarcely 
 any mill at all) can be worked more than eleven and a 
 half hours a-day, that is, twelve hours for five days in the 
 week and nine on Saturday. 
 
 Now, the following analysis will show that in a mill so 
 worked, the whole net profit is derived from the last hour. I 
 will suppose a manufacturer to invest 100,000/. : 80,000/. 
 in his mill and machinery, and 20,000/. in raw material 
 and wages. The annual return of that mill, supposing 
 the capital to be turned once a -year, and gross profits to 
 be fifteen per cent, ought to be goods worth 115,000/., pro- 
 duced by the constant conversion and reconversion of the 
 20,000/. circulating capital, from money into goods and 
 from goods into money, in periods of rather more than two 
 months. Of this 1 1 5,000/. each of the twenty-three half 
 hours of work produces 5-ll5ths, or one twenty-third. Of 
 these 23-23ds, (constituting the whole 115 3 000/.) twenty, 
 
 * 
 
that is to say, 100,000/. out of the 115,000/., simply re- 
 place the capital one twenty-third (or 5,000/. out of the 
 1I5,000/.), makes up for the deterioration of the mill 
 and machinery. The remaining 2-23ds., that is, the last 
 two of the twenty-three half hours of every day, produce 
 the net profit of ten per cent. If, therefore, (prices re- 
 maining the same,) the factory could be kept at work thir- 
 teen hours instead of eleven and a half, by an addition of 
 about 2,600/. to the circulating capital, the net profit 
 would be more than doubled. On the other hand, if the 
 hours of working were reduced by one hour per day 
 (prices remaining the same), net profit would be de- 
 stroyed if they were reduced by an hour and a half, 
 even gross profit would be destroyed. The circulating 
 capital would be replaced, but there would be no fund to 
 compensate the progressive deterioration of the fixed 
 capital. 
 
 And it is to be remarked, that there are many causes 
 now at work tending to increase the proportion of fixed 
 to circulating capital. The principal, perhaps, is the 
 tendency of mechanical improvement to throw on ma- 
 chinery more and more of the work of production. The 
 self-acting mule is a very expensive machine ; but it 
 dispenses 'with the services .of the most highly paid 
 operatives the spinners. It has acquired, indeed, the 
 sobriquet of <l the Cast Iron Spinner.' ? Though of re- 
 cent introduction, we found it employed in a large pro- 
 portion of the principal factories. At Orrell's splendid 
 factory, we found a new blower enabling three persons 
 to do the work of four. At Birley's, we found prepara- 
 tion making for a newly invented process, by which the 
 wool was to be conveyed direct from the willow to the 
 blowing machine, without requiring, as it now does, a 
 whole set of work-people for that purpose. At Boiling- 
 ton, we found a new machine, which transfers the sliver 
 direct from the cards to the drawing-frame, and thus dis- 
 penses with another class of attendants. At another 
 
6 
 
 place, we found a weaving process, on a vast scale, dif- 
 fering from all others that we observed during our tour. 
 And at Stayley Bridge we found a factory nearly finished, 
 covering two acres and a half of ground, with buildings 
 only one story high, (that is, ground floor and first floor,) 
 so that on each floor the whole operations will be car- 
 ried on in one vast apartment or gallery, forming the four 
 sides of a quadrangle, each side 450 feet long; thus 
 saving all the labour employed in, mounting or descending. 
 Each of these five last improvements is recent, so recent, 
 indeed, as not to have been as yet copied by other esta- 
 blishments. One of them, the new weaving process, is 
 still kept so secret, that we were allowed to visit it only 
 as a special favour, and on the promise of not revealing 
 its nature. And the effect of every one of them is to 
 increase fixed, and diminish circulating capital. 
 
 Another circumstance, producing the same effect, is the 
 improvement of the means of transport, and the consequent 
 diminution of the stock of raw material in the manufacturer's 
 hands waiting for use. Formerly, when coals and cotton 
 came by water, the uncertainty and irregularity of sup- 
 ply forced him to keep on hand two or three months' 
 consumption. Now, a railway brings it to him week by 
 week, or rather day by day, from the port or the mine. 
 
 Under such circumstances, I fully anticipate that, in a 
 very few years, the fixed capital, instead of its present 
 proportion, will be as 6 or 7 or even 10 to 1 to the 
 circulating ; and, consequently, that the motives to long 
 hours of work will become greater, as the only means by 
 which a large proportion of fixed capital can be made 
 profitable. " When a labourer," said Mr. Ashworth to 
 me, " lays down his spade, he renders useless, for that 
 period, a capital worth eighteen pence. When one of 
 our people leaves the mill, he renders useless a capital 
 that has cost 100J." 
 
 2d. The exceeding easiness of cotton-factory labour 
 renders long hours of work practicable, j With the ex- 
 
ception of the mule spinners, a very small portion of the 
 operatives, probably not exceeding 12 or 15,000 in the 
 whole kingdom, and constantly diminishing in number, 
 the work is merely that of watching the machinery, and 
 piecing the threads that break. I have seen the girls 
 who thus attend standing with their arms folded during 
 the whole time that I stayed in the room others sewing 
 a handkerchief or sitting down. \ The work, in fact, is 
 scarcely equal to that of a shopman behind a counter in 
 a frequented shop mere confinement, attention, and at- 
 tendance. 
 
 Under these circumstances, cotton factories have 
 always been worked for very long hours. From thir- 
 teen to fifteen, or even sixteen hours, appear to be the 
 usual hours per day abroad. Our own, at their com- 
 mencement, were kept going the whole twenty-four hours. 
 The difficulty of cleaning and repairing the machinery, 
 and the divided responsibility arising from the necessity 
 of employing a double staff of overlookers, book-keepers, 
 &c. have nearly put an end to this practice ; but until 
 Hobhouse's Act reduced them to sixty-nine, our factories 
 generally worked from seventy to eighty hours per week. 
 Any plan, therefore, which should reduce the present 
 comparatively short hours, must either destroy profit, or 
 reduce wages to the Irish standard, or raise the price of 
 the commodity, by an amount which it is not easy for 
 me to estimate. 
 
 The estimate in the paper, signed by the principal 
 fine spinners, is, that it would raise prices by 16 per cent. 
 That the increase of price would be such as to occasion, 
 even in the home market, a great diminution of con- 
 sumption, I have no doubt ; and from all that I read and 
 hear, on the subject of foreign competition, I believe that 
 it would, in a great measure, exclude us from the foreign 
 market, which now takes off three-fourths of our annual 
 production. 
 
 It must never be forgotten, that in manufactures, with 
 
8 
 
 every increase of the quantity produced, the relative 
 expense of production is diminished and, which is the 
 same thing, that with every dimii ution of production, 
 the relative expense of production is increased. If only 
 ten watches were produced in a year, it is probable, that 
 a watch would cost 100/. If there were an annual 
 demaod for 10,000,000 of watches, they would not, in all 
 probability, cost a guinea a-piece. And this general 
 law applies more and more forcibly, in proportion as the 
 manufacture in question employs more expensive ma- 
 chinery and a greater division of labour : to the cotton 
 manufacture, therefore, beyond all others. Up to the 
 present time, production and cheapness have increased 
 together. The yarn that cost forty shillings a pound 
 when we consumed only 10,000,000 of pounds of cotton, 
 now, when we consume 280,000,000, costs two shillings. 
 Increase of price, and diminution of consumption, will 
 therefore act and re-act on one another. Every increase 
 of price will further diminish consumption ; and every 
 further diminution of consumption will occasion an in- 
 creased relative cost of production, and consequently a 
 further increase of price. First will go the foreign 
 market already in a precarious state, and, once lost, 
 irrecoverable ; since, according to the Jaw to which I 
 have referred, the more our rivals produce, the wider the 
 markets which are opened to their competition, in conse- 
 quence of the rise of English prices, the cheaper they 
 will be able to produce. This again, by diminishing the 
 quantity produced at home, will increase its relative cost 
 of production ; and that again will increase prices, and 
 diminish consumption ; until I think I see, as in a map, 
 the succession of causes which may render the cotton 
 manufactures of England mere matter of history. 
 
 I have no doubt, therefore, that a ten hours' bill would 
 be utterly ruinous. And I do not believe that any 
 restriction whatever, of the present hours of work, could 
 be safely made. 
 
To-morrow, or the next day, I will endeavour to give 
 you the result of our inquiries as to the working of the 
 present Act. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 N. W. SENIOR. 
 
 The Right Hon. Charles Poulett Thomson, 
 8fc. $c. Sfc. 
 
 York Hotel, Manchester, April 2, 1837. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 I NOW proceed to give you the result of our inquiries 
 as to the operation of the Factory Act. 
 
 In considering that Act, care must be taken to distin- 
 guish between its substance and its machinery. 
 
 1st. The substance is, that, in factories, children under 
 nine years of age shall not be employed at all, and those 
 under thirteen not for more than eight hours a- day ; and 
 that they shall pass two hours a-day in school. The 
 hours of working, except on Saturday, being twelve, it 
 was supposed that by means of relays, the services of 
 children might be obtained for the whole twelve hours. 
 
 2d. The machinery consists of enactments, that no 
 child under thirteen shall be allowed to remain in a 
 factory without a certificate of age from a surgeon, nor 
 for more than eight hours a-day, nor without a certificate 
 of its having attended school for twelve hours in the 
 preceding week ; and also in the appointment of inspec- 
 tors, empowered to issue regulations and visit factories, 
 and superintendents or sub-inspectors acting under their 
 direction, and empowered to enter all school-rooms and 
 counting-houses, but not those parts of a factory in which 
 manufacturing processes are carried on. 
 
 The relay system appears on the whole, as far as this 
 district is concerned, to have failed. Of the factories 
 
10 
 
 that we visited, only four employ it. Three of these are 
 situated in country villages, and the number of children 
 in the whole four is small, being only 243 out of 4,800 
 operatives, or about l-20th. The objections urged were, 
 in some places, the difficulty of obtaining children, and 
 in all, the constant trouble and difficulty of making correct 
 entries in the time-books, the exposure to disgrace and 
 loss from the penalties inflicted for unavoidable errors, 
 and the disturbance arising from a change of hands in 
 the middle of work. 
 
 On the other hand, the fear that all the children under 
 thirteen would be everywhere dismissed has proved vain. 
 Of the factories that we have inspected, four only have 
 adopted that course, the same number as that of those 
 who employ relays. 
 
 The usual plan is to employ one set of children for the 
 first eight hours of the day, and to get on as well as may 
 be during the remaining four without them. 
 
 The consequences are 
 
 1st. Loss to the parents who have children under 
 thirteen, by the non- employment of those under nine, and 
 by the reduced wages of those between ten and thirteen. 
 
 2d. Loss to the operatives who are the direct employ- 
 ers of the children as their assistants, first, by their having 
 to employ more assistants above thirteen and at higher 
 wages, and secondly, by their being able to get through less 
 work after they lose the assistance of the younger children. 
 
 3d. Loss to the mill-owner, whose produce during 
 the last four hours of each day is diminished in quantity, 
 and deteriorated in quality, and who has sometimes to 
 repay to his operatives a part of their loss. 
 
 The gainers are the children above thirteen, whose 
 wages have risen, and the children under thirteen, so far 
 as they are better educated and have less fatigue than 
 before. 
 
 As to the value of this gain, however, as far as edu- 
 cation is concerned, I am sceptical. If good schools and 
 
11 
 
 a good system of instruction were established, no doubt 
 much could be learned in the two hours a-day of com- 
 pulsory schooling. 
 
 But those portions of the bill which provided for the \J 
 establishment of schools having been thrown out by 
 the Lords, the school appears to be generally rather a 
 place for detaining and annoying the children than of 
 real instruction. Instead of the vast and airy-apartments 
 of a well-regulated factory, they are kept in a small, low, 
 ciose^ room ; and instead of the light work, or rather 
 attendance, of a factory, which really is not more 
 exercise than a child voluntarily takes, they have to sit on 
 a form, supposed to be studying a spelling-book. We 
 found a universal statement that the. jdiildren could not 
 be gaLiato~th- .school except.. by force ; that they tried 
 every means to remain in the factory, or, if excluded, to 
 ramble over the fields or the streets. 
 
 It may easily be supposed that the operatives are 
 outrageous against this state of things. Their original 
 object was to raise the price of their own labour. For 
 this purpose the spinners, who form, as I stated in my first 
 letter, a very small (about l-20th) but a powerful body 
 among them, finding that they could not obtain a limita- 
 tion of the hours of work to ten by combination, tried 
 to effect it through the legislature. They knew that 
 Parliament would not legislate for adults. They got 
 up therefore a frightful, and (as far as we have heard 
 and seen) an utterly unfounded picture of the ill treat- 
 ment of the children, in the hope that the legislature 
 would restrain all persons under 18 years old to ten 
 hours, which they knew would, in fact, restrict the labour 
 of adults to the same period. The Act having not only 
 defeated this attempt, but absolutely turned it against 
 them, having, in fact, increased their labour and dimi- 
 nished their pay, they are far more vehement for a ten 
 hours' bill than before, and are endeavouring by every 
 means to impede the working of the existing Act, and to 
 
' 
 
 , 
 
 12 
 
 render its enactments vexatious or nugatory. We hear 
 everywhere of their conspiring to entrap the masters into 
 penalties, by keeping the children too long in the mill, 
 by keeping them from school, and by all the petty annoy- 
 ances by which trouble can be created. 
 
 With respect to the masters, we have found them, with 
 only two exceptions, favourable to the substance of the 
 Act. They maintain, indeed, that the long hours of 
 attendance did not injure the health of the children, 
 provided the work-rooms were sufficiently ventilated : 
 a thing which may be accomplished by the mere addition 
 of a fan, worked by the engine with little trouble or ex- 
 pense, and, as we felt at Ashton's and Ash worth's, with per- 
 fect successjThey maintain also that the factory children 
 
 ere not worse educated, indeed were better educated, 
 than the children employed in other trades : and they com- 
 plain that they alone are selected to be charged with the 
 education of their dependants. But they admit that em- 
 ployment, however light, for twelve hours a-day, must 
 prevent education. They are, as far as we have seen, 
 without any exception, most earnest that their work-people 
 should be educated ; and they are ready, for that purpose, 
 to submit to their being restricted, while under thirteen, 
 to eight hours a-day of employment ; but they do com- 
 plain most bitterly of the machinery of the Act. 
 
 1st. They complain of the clauses by which a master 
 may be called before the magistrates, exposed, and fined, 
 " for overworking a child," because a child has remained 
 a minute too long within the walls of the mill from heed- 
 lessness, or from dislike of being turned out in the snow, 
 or perhaps as part of a conspiracy to make the act in- 
 tolerable. 
 
 2d. They object to being liable to be accused, con- 
 victed, and fined, " for making false entries in the time- 
 book," because one of 80 children has one day come at 
 half-past eight and gone at half-past four, instead of com- 
 ing at eight and going at four, the hours fixed for it; and 
 
13 
 
 entered in the time-book, on the supposition that they had 
 been adhered to. It is to avoid this danger that the relay 
 system has generally been unattempted or disused. 
 
 3d. They object to being convicted and fined " for 
 neglecting the education of thg children," because they 
 have been unable to force a child to school, or have al- 
 lowed one to work without a regular certificate of school 
 attendance. They say that the children will work, arid 
 will not go to school ; and that the mill-owner, whose 
 time is filled with other things, cannot employ it in pre- 
 venting eighty urchins from truancy. 
 
 Under such circumstances, we found, in some of the 
 best regulated establishments, the forms of the Act in this 
 last respect systematically disregarded ; the master, re- 
 lying on his general high character, and not fearing to be 
 suspected of having intentionally violated its substance. 
 Others, however, were in constant anxiety lest it should 
 be infringed ; and others we found in a state of absolute 
 exasperation at the convictions which had been obtained 
 against them while they were most diligently endeavour- 
 ing to carry it into effect. 
 
 The same may be said as to the clauses which 
 render the remaining of a child in a factory, without proof 
 of its employment, conclusive evidence of its being over 
 worked. In some mills, indeed in most, this is adhered 
 to. The children are turned into the fields, or the streets, 
 whatever be the weather, the instant the hour begins to 
 strike. In others again it is systematically violated. 
 Care is taken that they shall not work, but they are al- 
 lowed to remain. But this again can be done with 
 tolerable safety, only by a master who feels that he can- 
 not be suspected of real misconduct, though he may be 
 convicted and fined for noncompliance with forms. 
 
 4th. They complain of the power of the inspectors to 
 issue regulations, which, after having been twice pub- 
 lished in a county paper, become laws. They say, that 
 regulations, minute and troublesome, are suddenly issued 
 
14 
 
 and suddenly altered or withdrawn ; that they are not 
 easily comprehended, and, by the time they have been 
 understood, are revoked. 
 
 5th. They complain of the constant recurrence of Par- 
 / liamentary interference. They are tired of having to 
 come to town, canvass and expostulate every year, in 
 0f A* j order to keep off a ten hours' bill, or some other equally 
 wild proposal. They say, that if they can once be sure that 
 they shall have nothing worse than the present Act, they 
 shall endeavour to work it, and believe that it may be 
 made to work well ; but that any further restrictions will 
 \J>e ruinous, and that even the fear of them is most mis- 
 chievous. 
 
 It will appear from this statement, that the Govern- 
 ment is not likely to be much troubled by demands from 
 the manufacturers for improvements in the Factory Act. 
 The manufacturer is tired of regulations what he asks is 
 tranquillity implora pace. But, if alterations are to be 
 made, the following are those which have been suggested 
 to us : 
 
 1st. That Government shall provide schools, and, at 
 least, lolerabje teachers. At present there seem to be 
 none that deserve the name, except a few whom some 
 opulent and enlightened mill-owners, such as the Gregs, 
 Ashton, and Ashworth, have established themselves. 
 
 2d. That the duty of forcing the^chiLdren-to-be educated, 
 shall be transferred fcornMjie mill-owner to the parent ; 
 or (which they, with one exception, prefer) _lhat educa- 
 tion shall be enforced only by making a certain amount of 
 it a preliminary to employment by enacting, for instance, 
 that after a^given time no child shall be admitted to a fac- 
 tory til.l it can read, or be allowed to work full time until 
 it can read and write fluently. 
 
 3d. That the mill-owner shall be punishable only for 
 substantial, not for mere formal, violations of the law. 
 That he shall no longer be liable to be fined and dis- 
 oraced as a violator of the law, for an incorrect entry in 
 
15 
 
 a time-book, inadvertently made by his book-keeper, or 
 because a child has stayed in the mill five minutes too 
 long, in order to tie a shoe, or warm itself by the stove. 
 
 4th. That gome control shall be exercised over the 
 promulgation of rules by the inspectors; some appeal 
 from their regulations, and some better mode of publish- 
 ing them. 
 
 These seem to be all their wishes ; and I must sai 
 that they appear to me to be reasonable. The first ap- 
 pears to be the most important ; an.d I only repeat my 
 own words on the Poor Law Report when I say, that the 
 most pressing duty now incumbent on the GovernmenTis, 
 to provide for the_j^ligiousand moral education of the . f 1 
 peopled In" fact, the Factory Act, by driving many chil- 
 dren into other employments, makes the expediency of 
 adoptmg"a~ generaFsystem of education for all children 
 even rogrejargent_than "it wasjbefore. " WbaLare you 
 doing herej" said Mr. Ashton to .a_Jjttle., fellow, whom 
 he founoTmorjie of his coal-mines. " Working in mine, 
 till I am old enough to go into factory." 
 
 The general impressionon us all as to the r effects of 
 factory labour has been _M,^E^l^!zJ5 voura ^^ e - The 
 factory work-people in the country districts are the plump- 
 est, +">** jCJgjJlfA fl"d...hpfl.l.tliip-st 1nnl^ng^p.rsnng__nf the 
 
 labouring_class that I have ever seen. The girls, espe- 
 cially, are far more good-looking (and goodjpoks are fair 
 evidence of health and spirits) than the daughters of agri- 
 cultural labourers. The wages earned per family are 
 more than double those of the south. We examined at 
 Egerton three of the Bledlow pauper migrants. Being 
 fresh to the trade, they cannot be very expert ; yet one 
 family earned II. 19s. 6d. ; another, 21. 13s. 6d. ; and the 
 other, I/. 16s. per week. At Hyde we saw another. 
 They had six children, under 13 ; and yet the earnings of 
 the father and two elder children were 30s. a week. All 
 these families live in houses, to which a Gloucestershire 
 cottage would be a mere out-house. And not only are 
 
16 
 
 factory wages high, but, what is more important, the 
 
 employment is constant. Nothing, in fact, except the 
 
 strikes of the work-people themselves, seems to interrupt it. 
 
 Even now, when the hand-loom weavers and lacemakers 
 
 are discharged by thousands, the factory operatives are 
 
 in full employ. This is one of the consequences of 
 
 /the great proportion of fixed capital, and the enor- 
 
 ' mous loss which follows its standing idle for a single 
 
 : day. Nothing can exceed the absurdity of the lament- 
 
 I ation over the children as u crowded in factories." 
 
 j Crowding in a factory is physically impossible. The 
 
 1 machinery occupies the bulk of the space ; the persons 
 
 1 who have to attend to it are almost too distant to con- 
 
 iverse. Birley's weaving room, covering an acre of 
 
 ground, had not space among the looms for more than 
 
 170 persons. Bailey's factory, covering two acres and 
 
 a half, one story high, and therefore, taking together 
 
 the ground-floor and first-floor, containing five acres of 
 
 apartment, was to be worked by about 800 operatives, 
 
 which gives more than J5 yards square to each. I only 
 
 wish that my work-room in Southampton Buildings had 
 
 as much space, in proportion to the people in it. 
 
 The difference in appearance when you come to the 
 Manchester operatives is striking; they are sallow and 
 thinner. But when I went through their habitations in 
 Irish Town, and Ancoats, and Little Ireland, my only 
 wonder was that tolerable health could be maintained by 
 the inmates of such houses. These towns, for such they 
 are in extent and population, have been erected by small 
 speculators with an utter disregard to every thing except 
 immediate profit. A carpenter and a bricklayer club to 
 buy a patch of ground, and cover it with what they call 
 ouses. In one place we saw a whole street following- 
 he course of a ditch, in order to have deeper cellars 
 cellars for people, not for lumber) without the expense 
 f excavation. Not a house in this street escaped cholera, 
 nd generally speaking throughout these suburbs the 
 
17 
 
 streets are unpaved, witli a dunghill or a pond in the 
 middle; the hj^es^iirbackto back, without ventilation 
 or drainage ; and whole families occupy each a corner of . i 
 a cellar__C_^a_arret. A good Building Act f strictly t. 
 enforced, might give health not only to the factories" but 
 to thC^pIe^pop^la-tion . We tried, indeed, an experi- ' 
 ment as to the comparative appearance of different classes 
 of the Manchester population. We went last Sunday to 
 the great Sunday-school in Bennett-street, where we 
 found about 300 girls in one large room. We desired 
 first all the carders to stand up alone, then all the piecers, 
 then all the reelers, and so on through the various de- 
 partments. Then we desired all those not employed 
 in factories to stand up ; then all those employed in 
 factories ; and on each of these trials not one of us could 
 perceive the least difference between the apparent health 
 of the different classes of factory children, or between the 
 children employed in factories and those not so employed. \ 
 We inquired very sedulously as to the mode in which ' 
 Mr. Homer has carried out the Act ; and the testimony 
 was generally, I may almost say unanimously, favourable. 
 The mill-owners are angry, indeed, at his last report, and 
 most vehemently opposed to his demand for further 
 powers, and for authority to his superintendents to enter 
 the mills ; but, notwithstanding this, they agree that he 
 has performed his very difficult duties mildly and judi- 
 ciously. Ever yours, 
 
 N. W. SENIOR. 
 
 P.S. On looking back at this letter I see that I have 
 omitted one point which was earnestly pressed on us, 
 namely, that the superintendents should be appointed by 
 the inspector, and removable by him ; and the inspector 
 made responsible for their conduct. Under the present 
 system they may, and I believe often do, pull different 
 ways. 
 
 The Right Hon. Charles Poulctt Thomson, 
 
18 
 
 York Hotel, Manchester, April 4, 1837. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 I MUST own that I am somewhat alarmed at the 
 rumours that the Government propose to render the 
 Factory Act more stringent, in compliance with Mr. 
 Horner's requisitions. 
 
 Those requisitions are two : 
 
 1st. That magistrates who are mill -owners, or have 
 some property in mills, or who are by trade or near 
 relationship connected with factories, should not sit on 
 the bench on prosecutions connected with offences under 
 the Act. 
 
 2d. That the sub-inspectors or superintendents should 
 have free access, without asking permission, to every part 
 of a factory. 
 
 1st. The first of these proposed enactments would 
 exclude from the bench on factory questions, all manu- 
 facturers or commercial men ; for who is there among 
 them, in the manufacturing districts, who is not by trade 
 or near relationship connected with factories ? It would 
 therefore leave the enforcement of the Act to the clergy 
 and country gentlemen, classes generally opposed to the 
 mill-owners in habits and politics, and without practical 
 knowledge of the system in the working of which they 
 would have to interfere. This might not, perhaps, be of 
 great importance if the offences on which they would have 
 to adjudicate were substantial offences. If wilful over- 
 working a child, wilful false entries, or wilful obstructions 
 of education were the punishable acts, the adjudication 
 might, perhaps, be safely left with the country gentlemen ; 
 but as the Act is worded, the offences may be mere 
 formal ones. They may be the permitting a child to 
 remain too long in a mill, or an inadvertent error in one 
 among 1000 entries ; or non-compliance with the educa- 
 tion clauses, with which Mr. Homer himself declares 
 that " in many cases strict compliance is nearly imprac- 
 
19 
 
 ticable." If for such offences as these the judge is to be 
 a person without sympathy for the accused, or knowledge 
 of the difficulty, I fear that provisions now severely vex- 
 atious may become almost intolerable. 
 
 2d. The free admission of the sub-inspectors would, 
 however, be still more opposed. The "personel" of a 
 large factory is a machine as complicated as its " mate- 
 riel," and is, I think, on the whole, the great triumph of 
 Sir R. Arkwright's genius. In such an establishment from 
 700 to 1400 persons, of all ages and both sexes, almost 
 all working by the piece, and earning wages of every 
 amount between two shillings and forty shillings a-week, 
 are engaged in producing one ultimate effect, which is 
 dependent on their combined exertions. Any stoppage, 
 even any irregularity in one department, deranges the 
 whole. A strict and almost superstitious discipline is 
 necessary to keep this vast instrument going for a single 
 day. Now how, ask the mill-owners, could this discipline 
 be kept up, if the sub-inspectors were at liberty to walk 
 over our establishments at all hours ; listen to the com- 
 plaints and jealousies of all our servants, and at their in- 
 stigation summon us as criminals before the magistrates ? 
 Could the discipline, they ask, of a regiment or of a ship 
 be carried on, if we had sub-inspectors of regiments, with 
 power to ask all the privates for grievances, and summon 
 their officers for penalties ? 
 
 I firmly believe that if this enactment is carried, the 
 following will be the consequences : 
 
 1st. That a considerable number of the educated and 
 intelligent mill-owners, that is, of those who have the 
 sensibilities of gentlemen, will cease to follow their occu- 
 pation within the British Islands. 
 
 We have already found one who is preparing, if such 
 a clause is passed, to form an establishment in the Tyrol ; 
 and others have told us that they shall resist it by main 
 force. This was probably an idle menace ; but it shows 
 the degree of irritation that the mere proposal has excited. 
 
20 
 
 2d. That from a large proportion of the Mills, the 
 children under thirteen will be excluded, and forced, 
 therefore, into other employments, unprotected by any 
 regulations whatever. 
 
 I mentioned in my former letter, that this has already 
 been done to some extent. And it is remarkable, that of 
 the four establishments seen by us, which have adopted 
 this manner of escaping from the Act, three, that is 
 to say, Lambert Hoole and Jackson's, Cheetham's 
 new mill, and Orrell's, are of first-rate magnitude. 
 A very slight additional pressure, occurring too at a 
 time of diminished manufacturing activity, would render 
 it prevalent. Mr. Homer disbelieves the probability 
 of such an event, because " it cuts off the future sup- 
 " ply of useful hands ; as children, to be profitable to 
 "their employer, must begin to learn their trade at a 
 " much earlier age than thirteen." I agree as to this 
 fact, but not as to the inference. A manufacturer who 
 excludes children under thirteen, may still carry on his 
 business with work-people who acquired their skill under 
 the old regulations, or with a supply from other mills. 
 Some years hence, the evil may be great, and may be 
 irremediable ; but, by that time, the manufacturer in 
 question may have quitted business. 
 
 3d. I fear a very 9angerous state of feeling among 
 the work-people. I need not tell you, that we are 
 approaching a season of great difficulty. Excessive 
 shipments have injured the Asiatic market, internal 
 supply, the continental, and financial embarrassment, 
 the American. Already the manufacturers complain of 
 diminished or suspended demands, are holding stocks, 
 and talking of working short time. If the dense and 
 ignorant population of the manufacturing districts, trained 
 in combinations, and accustomed to high wages, is partly 
 thrown out of work, and the remainder. reduced in in- 
 come, scenes of violence may follow, which may frighten 
 away capital, already having a tendency to emigrate. 
 
21 
 
 On the whole, the result of my tour has been a mixture 
 of pain and pleasure. I have seen a vast, well paid, 
 thriving, and apparently happy population. But I see, 
 impending over that population, calamities which may 
 be, and I hope will be averted but which will inevi- 
 tably fall on them, if the suggestions of those who call 
 themselves their friends are even partially followed. 
 
 To enforce ventilation and drainage, and give means 
 and motives to education, seems to me all that can be 
 done by positive enactment. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 N. W. SENIOR. 
 
 The Right Hon. Charles Poulett Thomson, 
 Sfc. 8fc. 8fc. 
 
 
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