CONDITIONS OF WORK IN MINES 805 
important as the evils were increasing with frightful rapidity, AD lms 
and were to some extent an indirect consequence of the ’ 
Factory Act of 1838. The education clauses in that Act had 
resulted in the discontinuance, in many districts, of the 
employment of children in factories who were under thirteen The em- 
o . ployment 
years of age. There was, however, nothing to prevent their of young 
working in mines from very early years and for the longest Joys in 
hours. “Amongst the children employed,” as Mr Hickson 
writes, “ there are almost always some mere infants * * *; 
the practice of employing children only six and seven years 
of age is all but universal, and there are no short hours for 
them. The children go down with the men usually at 
4 o'clock in the morning, and remain in the pit between 11 
and 12 hours.” To ascertain the nature of the employment 
of these young children, he went down a pit 600 feet deep. 
The galleries were secured by traps or doors to prevent 
inflammable drafts. “The use of a child six years of age 
is to open and shut one of these doors when the trucks pass 
and repass. For this object the child is trained to sit by 
itself in a dark gallery for the number of hours I have de- 
scribed.” In some of the collieries young girls as well as boys tad been 
oy increasing, 
appear to have been employed, and the British parent who 
could no longer exploit his children in factories forced them 
bo go to work in the neighbouring mines. This is one of the 
pieces of evidence which goes to show that the capitalist was 
not solely to blame in regard to the maltreatment of children, 
but that there was at least a reckless connivance on the part 
of the parents. This fact became still more obvious when 
colliers worked their own children in this way; they had 
not, generally speaking, the excuse of poverty, as their wages 
ranged considerably higher than in other callings? The 
measure, which was passed, followed on the lines which had 
proved successful in regard to factories, by arranging for the 
employment of inspectors, but in other ways the circum- 
stances of the case demanded special treatment. Boys under but was 
ten vears of age were not to be emploved in the pits. and the raga 
L Reports, 1840, xx1v. 687. 
3 Reports, 1840, xxiv. 688. Their average wages, according to the Report, 
were 243, a week, cottage rent-free, garden ground and coal free.