assure the competence of the schoolmaster who
certifies, and the tale of hours is made up at
odd times, in such a manner that very little
benefit would come to the children even if there
were some care to ensure their being fairly
taught. As to this matter, a joint report of all
the factory inspectors urged in vain the following
opinion a few years ago: " There are some
instances of the owners of printworks having
provided good schools, and in such cases, and
when the attendance of the children is carefully
looked after, and they are not stinted to the
legal minimum of attendance, such schooling
may do good; but as regards the great majority
of these children, this nominal school attendance
has been found in practice a mischievous delusion,
for it is a semblance of education without
any reality. The children get no good; their
attendance at school is at uncertain intervals,
and the records of such very irregular attendance,
required by the law to be made out by
the teachers, can be very little relied upon. An
amendment of this part of the Printworks Act
is much wanted. There is nothing in the
employment of the children in these works to
prevent their labour being restricted, as in the
factories, to half a day, with a regular attendance
at school of three hours a day for five
days in every week; so that the day's work
might be done by two sets of children."

But even the partial regulation for protection
of young children against undue extortion of
labour in printworks does not extend to the lace
trade, and to many other trades. These children
become workers at any age between four and
eight, up with the sun and never in bed before
ten, bred with no sense of the love to parents
that comes of the right use of a parent's influence
and power, denied all recreation, even the
natural stir of their limbs as they go through
their long monotony of toil, want all that
belongs to childhood. A lace runner, who had
worked at the trade for twenty one years, and
had the weak sight, the pains and the debility
that come of a calling so pursued, said that after
five or six years of the work, eyesight was
commonly much injured. " Girls," she said, " begin
about six or seven years, some as early as five
or six; the hours depend greatly on the
mistress; some work from about eight in the
morning to ten at night; these are the common
hours in Nottingham. The mistresses who
employ children often work them very hard; has
known children kept at it from six in the morn-
ing until ten at night, sometimes not going out
of the room, but eating their meals as they sat
at work. A man who employs many girls in
Cheovil street, used to sit in the room with his
cane, and not allow any one to speak or look off
if he could help. After sitting some time at lacework,
the fingers get stiff, and in cold weather
are benumbed for want of circulation; this
would cause the work to go on slowly, and then
the children were beaten; has known children
to drop and faint at their work; many go off in
consumption." Another woman, who had been
such a girl, and growing to be an employer, had
under her children who began as early as five,
but usually at seven or eight, said that " the
children got very tired and sleepy towards the
evening, and frequently complained that they
could scarcely see. Never corrected them
herself, finding that a little threatening was
sufficient. The children occasionally became
shortsighted; sometimes, especially towards night,
they required spectacles." We quote only a
witness or two from a strong body of witnesses
bearing like testimony. Here is one, for
example, " a married woman, unable, of course, to
read and write, who had been a lace runner ever
since she was 'a little bit of a thing that could
stand on two bricks to reach the frame,' works
as a woman, generally from five in the morning
until nine or ten at night; ' can't sit any longer,
because she is a poor creature now.' Earns in
this way, with hard work, half a crown a week.
Her sight has suffered a great deal; this happens
generally to runners; she cannot see what
o'clock it is across her room; her eyes are
getting worse. Almost all the children of the poor
people in the town are employed in drawing,
running, purling, &c. &c.; the common age to
begin is six." That woman's earnings are below
the average, of which excess is represented by
nymph Sabrina, who had been a lace runner
since six years old, and being very quick at her
work, earned ninepence a day, or three fartlungs
an hour. " Many," she said, " cannot earn more
than a halfpenny an hour."

A woman who was employing about forty
hands as cheveners, each a woman having two
or four, or ten or twenty children under her,
estimated the worth of a child's labour at
about eighteenpence a week. She said,
"Chevening causes short-sightedness; it also makes
the eyes weak. Children when they begin are
sometimes, but very rarely, obliged to use
spectacles. They are generally very delicate in
health, and often sick and ill. They are not
allowed to talk at work. Finds that the children
become very much tired towards the evening;
they are partly asleep for hours before
they leave off. The younger they are the more
tired they become. To keep them to their
work has heard that mistresses are obliged to
give a cuff to one and the cane to another.
Does not think it would be possible to get their
children to work twelve or fourteen hours a day
without the cane. These children have no time
to go to school in the week days; they have no
time to get exercise or recreation; they go from
bed to work, and from work to bed. Should
think they would be stupified on Sunday, and
not, likely to learn much at a school."

In one house the almost incredible fact was
elicited, that the mother, wife of a joiner earning
twenty three shillings a week, and herself
earning, when work was not slack, a shilling a
day, had four little girls, of the ages of eight,
six, four, and two, of which the three elder had
all been employed as lace-workers, and the baby
of two had already "tried and drawn a few-
threads out." Of the three elder, the first had
begun to work at three years old, the second at