is a great question, embracing many considerations which it
would be quite foreign to my purpose to enter upon here. But I may
observe that there is much in this matter which might be done by the
masters, individually, and collectively. They have to consider how the
time that they may get for the recreation of their men is to be
apportioned. For instance, whether it is better to give it in whole
days, or by half-days, or to spread it over the ordinary days of work.
These are questions that cannot be answered without much thought and
knowledge respecting the social habits of the labouring people.

All that we have addressed to the manufacturer on the subject of his
Mill, applies even more cogently to the minor superintendent of labour
and his workshop. There, the evils complained of are often far greater.
Ventilation is less attended to; less pains are taken to diminish the
peculiar dangers of the craft; the hours of labour are more numerous; and
the children sometimes exposed to cruelties utterly unheard of in
factories. Read the evidence respecting the employment of milliners, and
you will wish that dresses could be made up, as well as the materials
made for them, in factories. Alas! what a striking instance the
treatment of these poor milliner girls is of the neglect of duty on the
part of employers: I mean of those who immediately superintend this
branch of labour, and of those who cause it. Had the former been the
least aware of their responsibility, would they have hesitated to
remonstrate against the unreasonable orders of their customers? And, as
for the latter, for the ladies who expect such orders to be complied
with, how sublimely inconsiderate of the comfort of those beneath them
they must have become. I repeat it again: the careless cruelty in the
world almost outweighs the rest.

2. THE SCHOOL-ROOM.

Some manufacturer may think that this branch of the matter does not
belong to him, as he does not employ children of the age which makes it
incumbent upon him by law to have anything to do with their schooling.
But I would venture to suggest that it is a matter which belongs to all
of us, and, especially, to those who are able to pay attention to the
habits of large masses of people, put, as it were, under their care.
Suppose that there had been no such thing in the world's history as a
decline and fall of the Roman Empire. In the course of time, though we
should probably have had our Domitians