To attempt a specific statement, how often Blincoe has been kept to work from five in the morning till midnight, during his period of servitude, would be hazardous! According to his own testimony, supported by that of many others, it was, at times of common occurrence, more especially on the Saturday! In most mills, the adult spinners left off on that day at _four_ in the afternoon, whilst in these, where parish apprentices were employed, it was often continued, not only till midnight; but till six o’clock on the Sunday morning! Exertion so incessant could not fail to reduce the majority of apprentices to a state of exhaustion and lassitude, so great as nearly to disqualify them to benefit by such instructions as an illiterate clown could afford, who officiated on Sundays as schoolmasters, or by divine worship, when they were allowed to attend. Nothing could be more cheerless, than the aspect of these juvenile sufferers, these helpless outcasts, nor more piteous than the wailings and lamentations of that portion, chiefly of the tenderest years, whom long familiarity with vice and misery had not rendered wholly callous. A blacksmith or mechanic, named William Palfrey, who resided at Litton, worked in a room under that where Blincoe was employed. He used to be much disturbed by the shrieks and cries of the boys, whom the manager and overlookers were almost continually punishing. According to Blincoe’s declaration, and that of others, human blood has often run from an upper to a lower floor, shed by these merciless task-masters. Unable to bear the shrieks of the children, Palfrey used to knock against the floor, so violently, as to force the boards up, and call out “for shame! for shame! are you murdering the children?” He spoke to Mr. Needham, and said, he would not stay in the mill, if such doings were allowed. By this sort of conduct, the humane blacksmith was a check on the cruelty of the brutal overlookers, as long as he continued in his shop; but he went away home at seven o’clock, and as soon as Woodward, Merrick, and Charnock knew that Palfrey was gone, they used to pay off the day’s score, and to beat and knock the apprentices about without moderation or provocation, giving them black eyes, broken heads; saying, “I’ll let you know old Palfrey is not here now!” To protract the evil hour, the boys, when they used to go down stairs for rovings, would come back and say—“Palfrey and the joiner are going to work all night,” and sometimes by this manœuvre, they have escaped punishment.