These conditions with respect to the children not only tended to diminish the sum of life by destroying the health and thus affecting the vital stamina of the rising generation; but it also encouraged idleness and profligacy in the parents, who, in many instances, lived upon the labor of their children. It further appeared that the children employed in factories were debarred from all opportunities of education as well as from moral and religious instruction. The investigation produced this report and nothing more—“when the dangers of infection were removed the precautions of mercy were forgotten.” Later, in the Parliamentary debate of 1815, Mr. Horner, one of the early factory reformers, graphically described the practices of the apprentice system. He told how, with a bankrupt’s effects, a gang of workhouse children were put up for sale and publicly advertised as a part of the property; how a number of boys apprenticed by a parish in London to one manufacturer, had been transferred to another and in the process were left in a starving condition; how an agreement had been made between a London parish and a Lancashire manufacturer by which it was stipulated that with every twenty sound children one idiot should be taken. Among the master manufacturers who had been incredulous concerning these conditions until the alarm of contagion arose, was the first Sir Robert Peel. He made a personal investigation and saw the abominations of the system; he declared his convictions and introduced into Parliament the first legislative measure for the protection of children. This was in the year 1802, and after many reverses he ultimately obtained the act known as the 42d Geo. III, “for the preservation of the Health and Morals of Apprentices and others, employed in Cotton and other mills.” This act is chiefly interesting because it established the principle of factory legislation, a principle which later in the century was greatly to promote the welfare of the masses. His first bill, however, referred only to apprentices and after its enactment children instead of being imported from the workhouses as formerly were nevertheless hired from their parents. Their services were dignified by the name of free labor, but because they were not accorded the protection given to apprentices their condition was little better than that of actual slavery. The next step in the progress of factory legislation was to extend the protection to young persons engaged in manual employment whether apprentices or not. Time does not permit us to follow the interesting history of factory legislation, under the devoted leadership of Mr. Horner, Sir John Hobhouse (afterwards Lord Broughton), Mr. Saddler, and Lord Astley (afterwards the Earl of Shaftesbury). But the evidences of the social condition of the toilers brought out by the Parliamentary debates of 1816, 1818, 1819, and 1832, are all of the same nature and reveal a state of human misery without a parallel in history.