journals. "My attention," says an English factory inspector, "was drawn to an advertisement in the local paper of one of the most important manufacturing towns of my district, of which the following is a copy: Wanted, 12 to 20 young presons, not younger than what can pass for 13 years. Wages, 4 shillings a week. Apply &c."[1] The phase "what can pass for 13 years," has reference to the fact, that by the Factory Act, children under 13 years may work only 6 hours. A surgeon official appointed must certify their age. The manufacturer, therefore, asks for children who look as if they were already 13 years old. The decrease, often by leaps and bounds in the number of children under 13 years employed in factories, a decrease that is shown in an astonishing manner by the English statistics of the last 20 years, was for the most part, according to the evidence of the factory inspectors themselves, the work of the certifying surgeons, who overstated the age of the children, agreeably to the capitalist's greed for exploitation, and the sordid trafficking needs of the parents. In the notorious district of Bethnal Green, a public market is held every Monday and Tuesday morning, where children of both sexes from 9 years of age upwards, hire themselves out to the silk manufacturers. "The usual terms are 1s. 8d. a week (this belongs to the parents) and '2d. for myself and tea.' The contract is binding only for the week. The scene and language while this market is going on are quite disgraceful."[2] It has also occurred in England, that women have taken "children from the workhouse and let any one have them out for 2s. 6d. a week."[3] In spite of legislation, the number of boys sold in Great Britain by their parents to act as live chimney-sweeping machines (although there exist plenty of machines to replace them) exceeds 2000.[4] The revolution effected by machinery in the judicial relations between the buyer and the seller of labour-power, causing the transaction as a whole to
- ↑ A. Redgrave in "Reports of Insp. of Fact. for 81st October, 1858," pp. 40, 41.
- ↑ Children's. Employment Commission, Fifth Report, London, 1866, p. 81, n. 31. Note to the 4th edition: The silk industry of Bethnal Green is now almost ruined.—Ed.
- ↑ Children's Employment Commission, Third Report, London, 1864, p. 58, n. 15.
- ↑ l. c., Fifth Report, p. 22, n. 187.
