616 
Zweites Buch, Cap. 5. 
nicht leichtfertig beschädigt und durch Sorglosigkeit zu Grunde 
gerichtet werden.“ 
Das Unwesen begann mit den Armenkindern, die man 
als sogenannte Lehrlinge für die mit Wasserkraft getriebenen 
Fabriken kaufte‘) und 1796 nahm sich das Manchester Board 
of health schon der Sache an %. Die Verwilderung der öffent- 
1) S. auch Cap. I 8 2, oben S. 419 ff. 
?) Gaskell a. a. O0. S. 174. Nach dem Report etc, on children em- 
ployed in manufactures 1816 S. 139 sagte Sir Robert Peel über dieses 
Board: 
With the permission. of the committee, I will read the heads of 
Resolutions for the consideration of the Manchester Board of Health, 
by Dr. Percival, January 25%., 1796. 
„It has already been stated, that the objects of the present institu- 
tion are to prevent the generation of diseases; to obviate the spreading 
of them by contagion; and to shorten the duration of those which exist 
by affording the necessary aids and comforts to the sick. In the prose- 
cution of this interesting undertaking, the Board have had their attention 
particularly directed to the large cotton factories established in the town 
and neighbourhood of Manchester; and they feel it a duty incumbent 
on them to lay before the public the result of their inquiries: 
1. It appears that the children and others who work in the large 
cotton factories, are peculiarly disposed to be affected by the contagion 
of fever and that when such infection is received, it is rapidly propa- 
gated, not only amongst those who are crowded together in the same 
apartements, but in the families and neighbourhoods to which they belong. 
2, The large factories are generally injurious to the constitution of 
those employed in them, even where no particular diseases prevail, from 
the close confinement which is enjoined, from the debilitating effects of hot or 
impure air, and from the want of the active exercises which nature points 
out as essential in childhood and youth to invigorate the system and 
to fit our species for the employments and for the duties of manhood. 
3. The untimely labour of the night, and the protracted labour of 
the day, with respect to children, not only tends to diminish future ex- 
pectations as to the general sum of life and industrie, by impairing the 
strength and destroying the vital stamina of the rising generation, but it 
too often gives encouragement to idleness, extravagance and profligacy 
in the parents, who, contrary to the order of nature. subsist by the op- 
pression of their offspring. 
4. It appears that the children employved in factories are generally