A Memoir of Robert Blincoe, an Orphan Boy: Sent from the workhouse of St. Pancras, London, at seven years of age, to endure the horrors of a cotton-mill, through his infancy and youth, with a minute detail of his sufferings, being the first memoir of the kind published. — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
A Memoir of Robert Blincoe, an Orphan Boy: Sent from the workhouse of St. Pancras, London, at seven years of age, to endure the horrors of a cotton-mill, through his infancy and youth, with a minute detail of his sufferings, being the first memoir of the kind published.
John Stuart Mill · en
effect inevitably must be the same. Each of the task-masters, to acquire
favour and emolument, urged the poor children to the very utmost!—Such is
the driving system, which still holds its course, and which leads to the
exhaustion and destruction of annual myriads, and to the utmost frightful
crimes;—and such is the force of avarice, there are plenty of spinners,
so depraved, as not only to sacrifice other people’s children, but even
_their own_. Blincoe, was not treated with that sanguinary and murderous
ferocity in this mill which these pages will soon delineate; but from
morning till night, he was continually being beaten, pulled by the hair
of his head, kicked or cursed.
It was the custom, in Lowdham Mills, as it is in most water-mills, to
make the apprentices work up lost time, by working over hours! a custom,
that might not be deemed unreasonable, or found oppressive, if the
regular hours were of moderate duration. Blincoe did not say, that this
custom was abused at Lowdham Mill, in an equal degree, to what it was
in others; but when children of seven years of age, or, by probability,
younger, and to work fourteen hours every day in the week, Sundays
excepted, any addition was severely felt, and they had to stop at the
mill during dinner time, to clean the frames every other day. Once in
ten days, or a fortnight, the whole of the finer machinery used to be
taken to pieces and cleaned, and then they had to remain at the mill from
morning till night, and frequently have been unable to find time to get
any food from this early breakfast till night, after they had left off, a
term frequently extended from fifteen to sixteen hours incessant labour.
As an inducement to the children to volunteer to work, the whole
dinner-hour, a premium of a halfpenny was allowed! Small as was the
bribe, it induced many, and Blincoe amongst the number! On such
occasions, the dinner was brought up in tin cans, and often has Blincoe’s
allowance stood till night, whilst he was almost famished with hunger,
and he has often carried it back, or rather eaten it on the road, cold,
nauseous, and covered with flue.