same time for all, and conformably to the conditions of 1844. By this an end was put to the relay-system once for all.[1] For children's labour, the Act of 1844 remained in force.
One set of masters, this time as before, secured to itself special seigneurial rights over the children of the proletariat. These were the silk manufacturers. In 1833 they had howled out in threatening fashion, "if the liberty of working children of any age for 10 hours a day were taken away, it would stop their works."[2] It would be impossible for them to buy a sufficient number of children over 13. They extorted the privilege they desired. The pretext was shown on subsequent investigation to be a deliberate lie.[3] It did not, however, prevent them, during 10 years, from spinning silk 10 hours a day out of the blood of little children who had to be placed upon stools for the performance of their work.[4] The Act of 1844 certainly "robbed" them of the "liberty" of employing children under 11 longer than 612 hours a day. But it secured to them, on the other hand, the privilege of working children between 11 and 13, 10 hours a day, and of annulling in their ease the education made compulsory for all other factory children. This time the pretext was "the delicate texture of the fabric in which they were employed, requiring a lightness of touch, only to be acquired by their early introduction to these factories."[5] The children were slaughtered out-and-out for the sake of their delicate fingers, as in Southern Russia the horned cattle for the sake of their hide and tallow. At length, in 1850, the privilege granted in 1844 was limited to the departments of silk-twisting and silk-winding. But here, to make amends to capital bereft of its "freedom," the work time for children from 11 to 13 was raised from 10 to 1012 hours. Pretext: "Labour in silk mills was lighter than in mills for other fabrics, and less likely in other respects also to be prejudicial to health."[6] Ofiicial medical inquiries proved afterwards that, on the con-
- ↑ "The present law (of 1850) was a compromise whereby the employed surrendered the benefit of the Ten Hours' Act for the advantage of one uniform period for the commencement and termination of the labour of those whose labour is restricted." (Reports, &c., for 30th April, 1852, p. 14.)
- ↑ Reports, &c., for Sept., 1844, p. 13.
- ↑ l. c.
- ↑ l. c.
- ↑ l. c.
- ↑ Reports, &c., for 31st Oct, 1861, p. 26.
