"That the nature of the employment which is assigned to the youngest children—generally that of 'trapping'—requires that they should be in the pit as soon as the work of the day commences, and, according to the present system, that they should not leave the pit before the work of the day is at an end. "That although this employment scarcely deserves the name of labour, yet, as the children engaged in it are commonly excluded from light, and are always without companions, it would, were it not for the passing and repassing of the coal-carriages, amount to solitary confinement of the worst sort. "That in those districts where the seams of coal are so thick that horses go direct to the workings, or in which the side passages from the workings to the horseways are not of any great length, the lights in the main way render the situation of the children comparatively less cheerless, dull, and stupefying; but that in some districts they are in solitude and darkness during the whole time they are in the pit; and, according to their own account, many of them never see the light of day for weeks together during the greater part of the winter season, except on those days in the week when work is not going on, and on the Sundays. "That, at different ages from six years old and upward, the hard work of pushing and dragging the carriages of coal from the workings to the main ways, or to the foot of the shaft, begins; a labour which all classes of witnesses concur in stating requires the unremitting exertion of all the physical power which the young workers possess. "That, in the districts in which females are taken down into the coal-mines, both sexes are employed together in precisely the same kind of labour, and work for the same number of hours; that the girls and boys, and the young men and young women, and even married women and women with child, commonly work almost naked, and the men, in many mines, quite naked; and that all classes of witnesses bear testimony to the demoralizing influence of the employment of females under ground. "That, in the East of Scotland, a much larger proportion of children and young persons are employed in these mines than in any other districts, many of whom are girls; and that the chief part of their labour consists in carrying the coal on their backs up steep ladders. "That, when the work-people are in full employment, the regular hours of work for children and young persons are rarely less than eleven, more often they are twelve; in some districts they are thirteen, and in one district they are generally fourteen and upward.