The reformers, however, carried their point and achieved success. That very year the Factory Act passed, and the recommendations of the Report were nearly all embodied in it. No child was allowed to be employed at all under eight years old; children between eight and thirteen were only allowed to work six and a half hours a-day; and all those employed were obliged to attend school for three hours a-day. Inspectors were appointed to see that the provisions of the Act were fully carried out. Of course there was considerable indignation on the part of the millowners, but many of those who at first objected to the restrictions were afterwards convinced of their utility, and as time passed on this conviction spread amongst all classes and gathered strength. The only modifications of the Act of 1833 which have been made since, have been mere extensions of its principles. The regulations, which at first applied to cotton, cloth, and silk mills only, have been extended by subsequent Acts to bleaching and dyeing works. Powers have also been given to compel the fencing of machinery, and to enforce other safeguards against injury to the workpeople. Even after the Factory Commission had finished its work, and had ceased to exist, my grandfather continued to watch with interest the results of what had been done. Five years afterwards, the House of Commons having ordered a Return showing the working of the educational provisions of the Act, he went down himself to various mills, and I find his copy of the Return thickly pencilled with marginal notes like the following:-- "I visited this mill myself with a view to examine the school." "The whole neighbourhood was opposed to the direction of the mill. They now consider it a great blessing." "The children of the higher class of people are anxious to get employment in the mills." It must have given him great delight to feel that, as was said by a writer eleven years later-- "The present Act has led to an amelioration of the treatment, and an improvement in the physical and moral character, of the vast juvenile population, such as was never before effected by an Act of Parliament; while the benefits resulting from it to all parties, the employers no less than the employed, are not only rapidly multiplying and extending, but are becoming more and more the subjects of general acknowledgment and gratulation. There is reason to believe that the total number employed in factory labour in the United Kingdom is little short of 1,000,000.[15] In one district, not by any means one of the largest, the number of children attending school was increased from 200 to 2316." Footnote 13: M. Fielden, M.P., 'The Curse of the Factory System.' Footnote 14: This Commission, for considering the employment of children in _factories_, preceded by eleven years the one relating to their employment in _mines_ alluded to in the Introduction. Footnote 15: This was in 1844.