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 employed
 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 institution
 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 prosecution
 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 propagated,
 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 expectations
 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 oppression
 of their offspring.
4. It appears that the children employved in factories are generally