180 LAISSEZ FAIRE 
A.D. 1776 
—1850. 
them was very considerable; while a frightful amount of 
dust was set free in the process, and the state of the atmo- 
sphere in the room was exceedingly bad. 
iii. The conditions of cotton-spinning were similar, in 
many ways, to those of flax, though there was nowhere so 
much dust as in the heckling rooms, and no wet spinning, 
but the temperature in which the hands worked was often 
very high; to this, the operatives did not object, but it was 
anwholesome, and there is no reason to believe there had 
been any improvement in the state of things which existed 
in 1816. 
iv. The silk mills, in 1833, were generally speaking in a 
most unsatisfactory condition’. The work was chiefly done 
by girls who were parish apprentices, and there was grave 
reason for complaint as to the demoralising effect of huddling 
them together during their years of service, as well as of the 
reckless manner in which they were cut adrift when they had 
served their time. 
In attempting to estimate the general result, it is well to 
bear in mind that, in 1833, weaving-sheds were not a regular 
department of a mill, and that the mill hands were chiefly 
engaged in preparing the materials and in spinning, though 
in some cases the work of cloth dressing had been added. 
The early Though there were some differences in the machinery em- 
ix A. ployed, the necessity of standing for long hours and of 
mera Stooping was similar in most of them ; and there is abundant 
wil, evidence that many children were crippled for life and that 
young women were seriously injured by their occupations. 
The worsted-spinning at Bradford had a special notoriety in 
this respect’. The Commissioners rightly connected it with 
the very early age at which children went to work, and the 
long hours during which they were employed, and the 
medical testimony proved that mischief of this kind was 
common in all the great industrial centres’. The Com- 
missioners are careful to note that the physical evils due to 
sotton and 
silk mills. 
1 In this branch of industry, as in the woollen trade, the arrangements in the 
West of England district were so good that the Commissioners saw no cause for 
egislative interference. Reports, 1833, xx. 968 (Ap. B. 1, 70). 
* Reports. 1833, xx. 603. 8 Ih. 32—35.