"The hours of labour in mechanical callings are usually twelve, two of them devoted to meals, or seventy-two hours (less by the permitted intervals) in a week. In the course of my inquiries for the _Chronicle_, I met with slop cabinet-makers, tailors, and milliners, who worked sixteen hours and more daily, their toil being only interrupted by the necessity of going out, if small masters, to purchase materials, and offer the goods for sale; or, if journeymen in the slop trade, to obtain more work and carry what was completed to the master's shop. They worked on Sundays also; one tailor told me that the coat he worked at on the previous Sunday was for the Rev. Mr. —, who 'little thought it,' and these slop-workers rarely give above a few minutes to a meal. Thus they toil forty hours beyond the hours usual in an honourable trade, (112 hours instead of 72,) in the course of a week, or between three and four days of the regular hours of work of the six working days. In other words, two such men will in less than a week accomplish work which should occupy three men a full week; or 1000 men will execute labour fairly calculated to employ 1500 at the least. A paucity of employment is thus caused among the general body, by this system of over-labour decreasing the share of work accruing to the several operatives, and so adding to surplus hands. "Of over-work, as regards excessive labour, both in the general and fancy cabinet trade, I heard the following accounts, which different operatives concurred in giving; while some represented the labour as of longer duration by at least an hour, and some by two hours a day, than I have stated. "The labour of the men who depend entirely on 'the slaughter-houses' for the purchase of their articles is usually seven days a week the year through. That is, seven days—for Sunday-work is all but universal—each of thirteen hours, or ninety-one hours in all; while the established hours of labour in the 'honourable trade' are six days of the week, each of ten hours, or sixty hours in all. Thus fifty per cent. is added to the extent of the production of low-priced cabinet work, merely from 'over-hours'; but in some cases I heard of fifteen hours for seven days in the week, or 105 hours in all. "Concerning the hours of labour in this trade, I had the following minute particulars from a garret-master who was a chair-maker:—