"In Sedgley they are sometimes struck with a red-hot iron, and burned and bruised simultaneously; sometimes they have 'a flash of lightning' sent at them. When a bar of iron is drawn white-hot from the forge it emits fiery particles, which the man commonly flings in a shower upon the ground by a swing of his arm, before placing the bar upon the anvil. This shower is sometimes directed at the boy. It may come over his hands and face, his naked arms, or on his breast. If his shirt be open in front, which is usually the case, the red-hot particles are lodged therein, and he has to shake them out as fast as he can."—_Horne, Report_, p. 76, § 757. See also witnesses, p. 56, 1. 24; p. 59, 1. 54. "In Darlaston, however, the children appear to be very little beaten, and in Bilston there were only a few instances of cruel treatment: 'the boys are kicked and cuffed abundantly, but not with any vicious or cruel intention, and only with an idea that this is getting the work done.'"—Ibid. p. 62, 65, §§ 660, 688. "In Wednesbury the treatment is better than in any other town in the district. The boys are not generally subject to any severe corporal chastisement, though a few cases of ill-treatment occasionally occur. 'A few months ago an adult workman broke a boy's arm by a blow with a piece of iron; the boy went to school till his arm got well; his father and mother thought it a good opportunity to give him some schooling.'"—Ibid. _Evidence_, No. 331. "But the class of children in this district the most abused and oppressed are the apprentices, and particularly those who are bound to the small masters among the locksmiths, key and bolt makers, screwmakers, &c. Even among these small masters, there are respectable and humane men, who do not suffer any degree of poverty to render them brutal; but many of these men treat their apprentices not so much with neglect and harshness, as with ferocious violence, the result of unbridled passions, excited often by ardent spirits, acting on bodies exhausted by over-work, and on minds which have never received the slightest moral or religious culture, and which, therefore, never exercise the smallest moral or religious restraint."—Ibid. Evidence from all classes,—masters, journeymen, residents, magistrates, clergymen, constables, and, above all, from the mouths of the poor oppressed sufferers themselves, is adduced to a heart-breaking extent. The public has been excited to pity by Dickens's picture of Smike—in Willenhall, there are many Smikes.