beside a machine which would not stop, and which he could not leave? We can imagine the difference to him of spending three hours daily in a cool and airy room, among companions, all of them resting their minds while their bodies were exercised and amused by a total change of thoughts. These lads and their parents might well be content that their earnings should be somewhat smaller now, in order to become larger hereafter: but this is the very lowest and least important view of the case. For better reasons than this, “Half-time and education would be a grand thing” and we may confidently hope they will get it.
I need not tell the dreary story over and over again of the way in which children of the gay and frolicsome age are kept at work all their days, like machines. We will pass lightly over the rest of the six trades described in the Commissioners’ Report,—only glancing at the Hookers and Finishers as eminent among the sufferers in virtue of their numbers. They are the largest class except the Potters, amounting to 2300. It is as well to try to imagine these children at their employment, in contrast with the young clodpoles droning over their spelling in the old parish school, or whittling the benches for want of something to do, or making a row because they cannot sit quite still any longer. The poor Hookers are hauling at great lengths of heavy rough calico or other cotton cloths, hanging the material on a frame, on hooks at a measured distance, in preparation for the lengths being packed for the bale. The youngest cut the tickets, and stitch the lengths. The others measure off on the hooks about thirty yards, and then carry this heavy piece of goods to the table close at hand, to be regularly “made up” for packing. For doing this at the rate of thirty pieces an hour, a boy gets half-a-crown a week! For all above that rate he is paid so much a hundred; and an active and handy lad may earn ten shillings a week. One would think there can be little need for “long hours” at such a work as this: but it appears that when goods have to be shipped in large quantities, and also where habits of idling are indulged, lights may be seen in the buildings till midnight. When great houses underlet their packing, the lessees are sometimes hard and grudging about the supply of workers. This is guarded against sometimes by a stipulation that more hands shall be taken on on occasions of pressure, such as the departure of a cargo; and some houses refuse to depute the packing, and themselves take on the extra hands required. All this indicates the case to be one for the Factory Act; and we may confidently hope that the 2300 of these Finishers and Hookers will soon be free to go to school, and protected in doing so.
The Fustian cutters are three-fourths or nearly girls, and 1563 in all. The vicious custom of “play-days” at the beginning of the week exposes these children to be shockingly overworked at the end,—sometimes being unrelieved for thirty hours at a time. Fourteen hours, including meals, is a fearful daily task for young girls and boys; and in this business the work occasions deformity and lameness, whether the hours are in excess or not.
It is probably the greatest event in the lives of the seventeen thousand young workers in these trades, that the discovery has been made in their time of the fitness of combining education of the mind with the labour of the hands, and of the completeness of each when the two are combined.
As much learning can be gained in three hours as in six: and as much pay may be, or soon will be, earned on the whole by those who go to school as when they never left their work. “Half-time and education is a grand thing!” as the workman said; and any of us who can in any way aid in getting Parliament to extend the benefits of the Factory Act to these hardworked children, will surely try their utmost, after seeing what their case is, and what it might be. An effort in any degree proportionate to the value of the object is sure of success.
PATENT GHOSTS.
Perceptive faculties, and the want of them, constitute a very large part of the difference between the progress and non-progress of humanity. Those who possess perception are the great purveyors for those without it. The great mass have eyes, but they see not with them till they fall into the hands of guides who direct their vision. Why should not the guides be paid for this, as much as the Swiss guides who take people up Swiss mountains? There was a time when the world was ignorant of the optical effect of two strips of glass, placed edgewise together, to form a hollow prism, till Sir David Brewster patented the matter, and gave the kaleidoscope to the world.
The principle of Mr. Pepper’s popular Ghost is the same that produces giant shadows projected on mountain mist; and thousands of shadows of this kind may be seen between sunrise and sunset throughout London streets every day; but as they happen to be common objects, nobody heeds them. But a ghost, or gaseous vapour supposed to resemble a human being after death, excites most people’s imaginations more or less morbidly, and when Mr. Pepper used a common principle to produce a ghost, all the world ran mad, and the process of producing this ghost became a valuable source of profit for public exhibition. If amusement be a good and useful thing, Mr. Pepper has done good service to the community. At all events he thought so; and therefore, in concert with Mr. Dircks, he applied for a patent on the 5th of February, 1863. The application was opposed, for the exhibition was a very profitable one, and every proprietor of a theatre or exhibition was interested in not paying a royalty for what was so very simple, after it was once pointed out. Any number might assert their previous knowledge of an invention which existed everywhere spontaneously, and so up to this day no patent has been granted: whether on the ground that it is an abstract principle and not a subject of manufacture, or whether on account of disputes between claimants, does not appear.
In October, 1858, Mr. Dircks contributed to the “Mechanics’ Magazine” an article, in which the optical principle was described, and herein is evidence of the importance to the public of giving