APPENDIX 111 
These abuses affected however not only orphan 
children but also not infrequently the children of 
parents who were willing to take the pittance of 
wages paid their little ones in the factories to spend 
on drink. They acually opposed legislation to pre- 
vent such abuses lest they should be deprived of the 
miserable wage their children earned. Sometimes 
unfortunately the wages paid the heads of families, 
and not infrequently both father and mother 
worked, were so low that they needed the wages of 
the children to eke out payment for the absolute 
necessities of food and clothing for the family. The 
conditions in the coal mines were so bad that a par- 
liamentary investigation shocked the world. ‘Lhe 
English newspaper comment on the report of the in- 
vestigation made by a parliamentary commission 
was, “The infernal cruelties practised upon boys and 
girls in the coal mines, those graves of comfort and 
virtue, have never been outdone.” 
These utterly neglected social conditions leading 
to positively barbaric results of many kinds were 
particularly noticeable in jails and government in- 
stitutions of all kinds. Fortunately those two noble 
Quakers, John Howard and Mrs. Fry, did much to 
reveal the actual conditions and lead to the initia- 
tion of something like reform. The state of things 
‘n the woman's prison in Newgate with about 500 
women, half of them criminals of all kinds and the 
other half prisoners accused of various lesser crimes 
who could not secure bail, all mingled together in 
a single large room where it was possible easily to 
358