ping it next morning, when their parents dragged them out of
bed. Half asleep they stumbled or were carried to the mill, to begin
again the ceaseless round.'

'It keeps them out of mischief', said the opponents of shorter hours.
Besides, the conditions were no worse than any other industries! Factory
work, however, as the doctors show, was different from work in the
mines. The heat and confinement of the mill caused precocious sexual
development, whilst in the mines the result of exaggerated muscular
development was to delay maturity.

In 1842 conditions are better than they were in 1833--thanks to the
factory inspectors. There is little positive cruelty, and the sight of
deformity--enlarged ankle bones, bow legs, and knock knees, caused by
excessive standing as a child--is rare. The problem now is one of
industrial fatigue. The children are 'sick-tired'.

5. The Midlands of Leicestershire, Notts, and Derbyshire are a region of
red bricks and pantiles, dotted over valleys of exquisite green. So let
us leave the smoke of Lancashire and hover here for a while. Here dwell
the stocking workers or frame-work knitters--the people who knit on
frames stockings, gloves, and other articles of hosiery. It does not
look like a region of industry. There are only a few towns, such as
Nottingham, Leicester, and Loughborough; and except for a few lace
factories in Nottingham, large buildings are rare. The town knitters
either work in their own homes or in shops with standings for perhaps as
many as fifty frames. In the villages the knitting is nearly all done in
the cottages, opposite long low windows, or in a small out-house which
might well be a fowl-house.

But in the streets of Leicester we can see 'life' of a sort. We can
watch the procession to the pawnbrokers. Some of the knitters pawn their
blankets for the day, and most lodge their Sunday clothing during the
week. Says a Leicester pawnbroker:

'We regularly pay away from L40 to L50 (to some 300 persons)
every Monday morning or on the Tuesday. They will, perhaps, wash
on the Monday and get their linen clean preparatory to the next
Sunday, and in the course of the week they bring all the linen
things they can spare. Friday is the worst; they will then bring
their small trifling articles, such as are scarcely worth a
penny, and we lend on them, to enable them to buy a bit of meat
or a few trifles for dinner.'[41]

They are too poor