_know_ that in some cases when the mills only worked four days in the week, they have often produced five days' quantity, and the men earned five days' wages. That this would be the case to a considerable extent every one must be aware; as all men will be able to work much harder for ten hours than they can for twelve. The objection above mentioned we consider to be much over-stated; and we are convinced that the _loss_ incurred would only amount to a _part_ of the reduction. And we think that _all_ loss to the masters might be prevented, and the necessity of a _real_ reduction of wages obviated, were all duties on raw materials, and those taxes which greatly raise the price of provisions, abolished by the legislature. It is principally the shackles and drawbacks to which the Cotton Manufacture is subjected which renders it so difficult, and as some think so impracticable, to adopt a measure without which all extensive and general Plans for improving and regenerating our manufacturing poor must approach the limits of impossibility. At present (in the cotton trade at least, which is already restricted by law) the hours of work generally extend from half-past five or six in the morning till half-past seven or eight at night, with about two hours' intermission, making in all about twelve hours of clear labour. This we would reduce to _ten_ hours (if such a measure should be rendered practicable and safe by a removal of all taxes on manufactures and provisions); and we again express our conviction, after regarding the subject in every possible point of view, that till this measure is adopted all plans and exertions for ameliorating the moral and domestic condition of the manufacturing labourer can only obtain a very partial and temporary sphere of operation. We say this with confidence, because in every project of the kind which we have been enabled to form, in every attempt for this purpose which our personal acquaintance and habitual intercourse with the people could suggest, we have been met and defeated by the long hours (absorbing in fact the whole of the efficient day) which the operative is compelled to remain at his employment. When he returns home at night, the sensorial power is worn out with intense fatigue; he has no energy left to exert in any useful object, or any domestic duty; he is fit only for sleep or sensual indulgence, the only alternatives of employment which his leisure knows; he has no moral elasticity to enable him to resist the seductions of appetite or sloth, no heart for regulating his household, superintending his family concerns, or enforcing economy in his domestic arrangements; no power or capability of exertion to rise above his circumstances or better his condition. He has no time to be wise, no leisure to be good; he is sunken, debilitated, depressed, emasculated, unnerved for effort, incapable of virtue, unfit for everything but the regular, hopeless,