English fiction -- 19th century; Labor unions -- Fiction
“7th. If files can only be cut on BARE lead, the men ought to cut their
hair close, and wear a light cap at work. They ought to have a canvas
suit in the adjoining place (see above); don it when they come, and doff
it when they go. They ought to leave off their insane habit of licking
the thumb and finger of the left hand--which is the leaded hand--with
their tongues. This beastly trick takes the poison direct to the
stomach. They might surely leave it to get there through the pores; it
is slow, but sure. I have also repeatedly seen a file-cutter eat his
dinner with his filthy poisoned fingers, and so send the poison home
by way of salt to a fool's bacon. Finally, they ought to wash off the
poison every two hours at the taps.
“8th. Since they abuse the masters and justly, for their greediness,
they ought not to imitate their greediness by driving their poor little
children into unhealthy trades, and so destroying them body and soul.
This practice robs the children of education at the very seed-time of
life, and literally murders many of them; for their soft and porous
skins, and growing organs, take in all poisons and disorders quicker
than an adult.
C. What the Legislature might do.
“It might issue a commission to examine the Hillsborough trades, and,
when accurately informed, might put some practical restraints both on
the murder and the suicide that are going on at present. A few of the
suggestions I have thrown out might, I think, be made law.
“For instance, the master who should set a dry-grinder to a trough
without a fan, or put his wet-grinders on a mud floor and no fire, or
his file-cutters in a room without taps and basins, or who should be
convicted of willfully buying a faulty grindstone, might be made subject
to a severe penalty; and the municipal authorities invested with rights
of inspection, and encouraged to report.
“In restraint of the workmen, the Legislature ought to extend the
Factory Acts to Hillsborough trades, and so check the heartless avarice
of the parents. At present, no class of her Majesty's subjects cries
so loud, and so vainly, to her motherly bosom, and the humanity of
Parliament as these poor little children; their parents, the lowest
and most degraded set of brutes in England, teach them swearing and
indecency at home, and rob them of all decent education, and drive them
to their death, in order to squeeze a few shillings out of their young
lives; for what?--to waste in drink and debauchery. Count the public
houses in this town.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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