e of
three years from factories and workshops;" and his conviction voiced
that of every examiner into the situation as it stood at that time.

The Factory and Workshop Act came as partial solution to the many
problems; and though regarded by the working-class as a mass of
arbitrary restrictions whose usefulness they denied and in whose
benefits they had no faith, it has actually proved the Great
Charter of the working-classes. There are points still to be
altered,--modifications made necessary by the constant change in methods
of production, as well as in the enlarging sense of the ethical
principles involved. But our own legislation is still far behind it at
many points, and its work is done efficiently and thoroughly. Laws had
been made, one by one, fifteen standing on the Statute Books in 1878,
when all were abrogated, their essential features being codified in the
Act as it stands to-day,--a genuine industrial code in one hundred and
seven sections.

Up to this date violation of its provisions had been incessant; but
determined enforcement brought about a uniform working day, protection
of dangerous machinery, proper ventilation, improved sanitary
conditions, an interdict on Sunday labor, and many other reforms in
administration. Fourteen years have seen next to no change in the Act,
and the condition of women and child workers in factories and workshops
has come to be regarded as the best that modern systems of production
admit. These workers, whose numbers now mount to hundreds of thousands,
are a class apart, and for them legislation has accomplished all that
legislation seems able to do in alleviating social miseries. Content
with the results achieved, need of further effort in other directions
failed of recognition, and apathy became the general condition.

It was during this season of repose that the public mind received first
one shock and then another. "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London" appalled
all who read; and leaf by leaf the new book of revelations disclosed
always deeper depths of misery and want among all workers with the
needle,--from the days of the fig-leaf the symbol of grinding toil and
often hopeless misery.

Not alone from professional agitators, so called, but from
philanthropists of every order, came the cry for help. The Factory and
Workshop Act had not touched home labor. The sweating-system, born of
modern conditions, had risen unsuspected, and ran riot, not only in East
London, but e