Next, for a little specimen of the state of our own working population; and the “compulsory—not measures, but measureless license,” under which their loyalty and love are placed,—here is a genuine working woman’s letter; and if the reader thinks I have given it him in its own spelling that he may laugh at it, the reader is wrong. “May 12, 1873. “Dear —— “Wile Reading the herald to Day on the subject on shortor houers of Labour [33] I was Reminded of A cercomstance that came under my hone notis when the 10 hours sistom Began in the cotton mills in Lancashire I was Minding a mesheen with 30 treds in it I was then maid to mind 2 of 30 treds each with one shilling Advance of wages wich was 5s for one and 6s for tow with an increes of speed and with improved mecheens in A few years I was minding tow mecheens with tow 100 trads Each and Dubel speed for 9s perweek so that in our improved condation we had to turn out some 100 weght per day and we went as if the Devel was After us for 10 houers per day and with that comparative small Advance in money and the feemals have ofton Been carred out fainting what with the heat and hard work and those that could not keep up mst go and make room for a nother and all this is Done in Christian England and then we are tould to Be content in the station of Life in wich the Lord as places us But I say the Lord never Did place us there so we have no Right to Be content o that Right and not might was the Law yours truely C. H. S.” Next to this account of Machine-labour, here is one of Hand-labour, also in a genuine letter,—this second being to myself; (I wish the other had been also, but it was to one of my friends.) “Beckenham, Kent, “Sept. 24, 1873. “That is a pleasant evening in our family when we read and discuss the subjects of ‘Fors Clavigera,’ and we frequently reperuse them, as for instance, within a few days, your August letter. In page 16 I was much struck by the notice of the now exploded use of the spinning wheel. My mother, a Cumberland woman, was a spinner, and the whole process, from the fine thread that passed through her notable fingers, and the weaving into linen by an old cottager—a very ‘Silas Marner,’—to the bleaching on the orchard grass, was well known to my sister [34] and myself, when children. “When I married, part of the linen that I took to my new home was my mother’s spinning, and one fine table-cloth was my grandmother’s. What factory, with its thousand spindles, and chemical bleaching powders, can send out such linen as that, which lasted three generations? [35]