aged industry and
efficient work, destroyed self-respect, and pauperised the poor.

[Sidenote: _FACTORY CHILDREN._]

While then the last sixteen years of the century, of which the political
history still lies before us, were, except at certain crises to be noted
hereafter, marked by a rapid expansion of commerce and trade, and an
increase in the wealth of the richer landowners, manufacturers, and
merchants, they were, as we have seen, a period of change in the
conditions of labour and, as such, brought much distress on the working
class, which was aggravated by the high prices consequent on bad seasons
and the risks of war. Of all the sufferings of the poor during this
period none are so painful to remember as those of the children employed
in factories, the helpless victims of _laissez-faire_ for whose relief
the state did nothing until a later date. The greater number of them
were pauper apprentices bound by parochial authorities to mill-owners,
others the children of very poor or callous parents. From little more
than infancy, sometimes under seven years old, children were condemned
to labour for long hours, thirteen or more in a day, at tasks which
required unremitting attention, and in rooms badly ventilated and
otherwise injurious to health; they were half-starved and cruelly
punished when their wearied little arms failed to keep up with the
demands of the machinery. The smaller mills were the worst in this
respect, and as the supply of water-power was not constant, the children
in mills worked by water were often forced to labour far beyond their
strength to make up for lost time. Such of them as survived the
prolonged misery and torture of their early years often grew up more or
less stunted and deformed men and women, physically unfit for parentage,
morally debased, ignorant, and brutalised by ill-treatment.

FOOTNOTES:

[178] Walpole to Mann, April 29, 1784, _Letters_, viii., 473; _Parl.
Hist._, xxv., 1434.

[179] _Parl. Hist._, xxi., 592; xxix., 1034.

[180] Colquhoun, _Treatise on the Police_, pp. 108, 110, 228, 364, 2nd
edit., 1796.

[181] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Modern
Times_, pt. ii., 931.

[182] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Modern
Times_, pt. i., 583-608.

[183] Young, _Southern Counties_, p. 325; _Northern Counties_, iv., 453.

[184] Howlett, _Enquiry into the Influence which Enclosure has had on
Population_, p. 10.

[185] Webb, _Hist