So much for the slavery of the factories—a slavery which destroys human beings, body and soul. The fate of the helpless children condemned to such protracted, exhausting toil, under such demoralizing influences, with the lash constantly impending over them, and no alternative but starvation, is enough to excite the tears of all humane persons. That such a system should be tolerated in a land where a Christian church is a part of the government, is indeed remarkable—proving how greatly men are disinclined to practise what they profess. We cannot close this chapter upon the British factories without making a quotation from a work which, we fear, has been too little read in the United Kingdom—a fiction merely in construction, a truthful narrative in fact. We allude to "The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy," by Frances Trollope. Copious editions of this heart-rending story should be immediately issued by the British publishers. This passage, describing the visit of Michael Armstrong to the cotton factory, in company with Sir Matthew Dowling and Dr. Crockley, is drawn to the life:— "The party entered the building, whence—as all know who have done the like—every sight, every sound, every scent that kind nature has fitted to the organs of her children, so as to render the mere unfettered use of them a delight, are banished for ever and for ever. The ceaseless whirring of a million hissing wheels seizes on the tortured ear; and while threatening to destroy the delicate sense, seems bent on proving first, with a sort of mocking mercy, of how much suffering it can be the cause. The scents that reek around, from oil, tainted water, and human filth, with that last worst nausea arising from the hot refuse of atmospheric air, left by some hundred pairs of labouring lungs, render the act of breathing a process of difficulty, disgust, and pain. All this is terrible. But what the eye brings home to the heart of those who look round upon the horrid earthly hell, is enough to make it all forgotten; for who can think of villanous smells, or heed the suffering of the ear-racking sounds, while they look upon hundreds of helpless children, divested of every trace of health, of joyousness, and even of youth! Assuredly there is no exaggeration in this; for except only in their diminutive size, these suffering infants have no trace of it. Lean and distorted limbs, sallow and sunken cheeks, dim hollow eyes, that speak unrest and most unnatural carefulness, give to each tiny, trembling, unelastic form, a look of hideous premature old age.