We turn now from child labor to the sanitary conditions of the manufacturing towns. The report printed by Doctor Kay in 1832, is an astounding document; it shows that out of six hundred and eighty-seven streets inspected, more than one half contained heaps of refuse or stagnant pools; and of nearly seven thousand houses inspected, more than one third were out of repair, damp, or ill-ventilated, and an equally large proportion lacked all sanitary conveniences, even of the most primitive kind. The population lived on the simplest diet. Breakfast consisted of tea or coffee with a little bread, while sometimes the men had oatmeal porridge; dinner consisted generally of boiled potatoes heaped into one large dish over which melted lard was poured and sometimes a few pieces of fried fat bacon were added. Those who obtained higher wages or families whose aggregate income was large added a greater portion of animal food to this meal at least three times a week, but the quantity of meat consumed by the laboring population was not large. The typical family sat around the table, plunging their spoons into the common dish and with animal eagerness satisfied the cravings of their appetite. The evening meal consisted of tea, often mingled with spirits and accompanied by a little bread. The population thus scantily nourished was crowded in one dense mass in cottages, separated by narrow, unpaved streets, in an atmosphere loaded with smoke. Engaged in an employment which unremittingly exhausted their physical energies, these men and women lacked every moral and intellectual stimulus; living in squalid wretchedness and on meagre food it was small wonder that their superfluous gains were spent in debauchery. With domestic economy neglected, domestic comfort unknown, home had no other relation to the factory operative than that of a shelter. At this period the number of operatives above the age of forty was incredibly small. In a pamphlet printed during a great turnout in 1831, we find certain very interesting statistics concerning 1665 persons whose ages ranged between fifteen and sixty. Of these 1584 were under forty-five years of age, only fifty-one between forty-five and fifty were counted as fit for work, while only three had lived to be sixty years old. Such figures make it evident that large numbers of workers, prematurely unfitted for labor, came to live upon the toil of their own children. Nor was this all, for “puny and sickly parents gave birth to puny and sickly children, and thus the mischief continued its progress, one generation transmitting its accumulated evils to the next.” VI CHARTISM Such was the condition of the manufacturing population of England in the early days of the factory system. It is evident that these conditions must inevitably give rise to a deep social discontent which sooner or later must become articulate, and we find from the very beginning of the factory system the records of innumerable riots.