The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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CONDITIONS OF CHILDREN'S WORK - 779 for legislative interference, was “the liability of children to A.D. 1776 be exposed, during a very tender age, to confinement, and a >, standing position for a period daily,” which was “often pro- tracted beyond their physical power of endurance” ii. This cause of mischief was common to all the textile linen. factories; but there were special evils which were peculiar to the linen trade. Owing to the nature of the material, it was convenient to spin and weave flax when it was wet; and, as a consequence, the workers were subjected to a continual spray, from which special clothing was unable to protect them adequately; while they were also forced to stand in the wet, and their hands were liable to constant sores from never being dry. Long-continued work of this kind was fraught with serious mischief, and the Commissioners felt that every effort should be made to reduce these causes of discomfort? There was besides a process known as heckling?, which was almost entirely done by children. The machines ased in heckling were not large, so that there could be great numbers working in each room; the children had to be on the alert all the time, and to be so quick that the strain on 1 The culpability of parents for the overworking of children in their own homes was recognised by the Children's Employment Coirmission, who stated that children have a right to protection against the abuse of parental power (Reports, 1864, xxi1. 25, 26). The case of sending them to work in anwholesome conditions is less clear: *“ Up to a certain period of life, the children are absolutely dependent on their parents for support ; and before that period it is that a tyranny is often imposed on them, beyond their physical powers of endurance. I have found andombted instances of children five years old sent to work thirteen hours a day; and frequently of children nine, ten and eleven consigned to labour for fourteen and fifteen hours. The parents, at the same time, have appeared to me, in some of these instances, sincerely foud of their children, and grieved at a state of things they considered necessary to the subsistence of themselves and families. The parental feeling, however, is certainly not displayed in sufficient intensity to be trusted on this point, as will have been gathered most abundantly from the evidence which I have heretofore submitted to the Central Board; I allude both to evidence derived from the parents themselves, and particularly to that of the masters of workhouses in Leeds and the neighbourhood; from whom it appears, ‘hat although the difference in income from a child employed as compared with that from a child unemployed at the age of nine or ten, is only 1s. or at most ls. 6d. in the week, it never happens that they attempt to excuse the non-employ- ment of their children at that age, by alleging the length of the factory hours, or that, in fact, they seek to evade their employment there in any way, at as early an 1ge as they can induce the masters to take them.” Reports, 1883, xx. 604. Reports, etc., 1833, xx. 328. 3 13. 600.

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