DISMAL ENGLAND.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15894, 19 January 1924, Page 9

DISMAL ENGLAND.

LAST CENTURY RECALLED.

MERRIER TO-DAY. England at the prsscnt day may not be very merrio, but it is certainly a merrier England than lit was :n the forties of last c-cntury, so far as the lot of the poor ws_s concerned. The bringing about of happier circumstances is durt not a little to the humanitarian courage of Anthony Ashley Cooper, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. A volume has just been published, "Lord Shaftesbury'," by Mr and Mrs J. L. Hammond, which gives some terrible pictures of the social conditions that existed in England in the early Victorian days. The untiring and noble labours of Lord Shaftesbury to tome extent improved those conditions, and by his efforts certain forms of work were abolished, which were a disgrace to any kind of civilisation. He was the author of the Factories Acts which regulated the hours of work for women and young children, fixed the minimum wase at which children could be employed, and prevented some debasing employments entirely. Abuse of Child Labour. .. In 1831 a committee of Che House cf Commons investigated industrial, conditions in the North, and some of the evidence laid before it makes astounding reading. Here is one example: A tailor at Stunningly, Samuel Coulson, who had three daughters in the mill, described the condition of his household when the mill was busyIn the ordinary time the hours were from sixm the morning till half-past eight at night; in the brisk time for six weeks in the year, those girls, the youngest of them "going eight," worked from three in the morning to ten or half-past ten at night. "It was near ele\en before we could get them into bed after getting a little victuals, and then my mistress used to stop up all night, for fear that we. could not get them ready for the time; sometim.es we have gene to bed and one of us generally awoke."

"We have cried often when- we have given them the little victualling we had to give them, and Uicy have fall-in asleep with their victuals in their mouths many a time." In the mines conditions were worse than in the nrulls, and one eon scarcely credit the work done by women and young clridrcn. Seven was a common age of employment, w'uile at many pits children cf six or seven or even live year-; of age were doing work underground. Tile youngest children were employed as trappers; that Is, lhey were in charge of the doors in the galleries, on the opening and closing cf which the safety of the mine depended. The little boys and girls sat in a small hole with a string attached to the djor in their hands, for 12 hours or longer at a lime. Chimney Sweepers' Boys. Of all the unhappy children in these days the chimney-sweepers' boy was perhaps the most unhappy. Consider this case; The mischief went on until public opinion was shocked by a terrible case at Manchester in 18-47, in which a master sweeper, John Gordon, was triod for the d?'alh of a boy of seven aamed Thomas Pihie. The child was forced to go, for the second time, into a hot ■ flue' at Messrs Tennant's chunicfd works; he screamed and sobbed, but In vain, for the master declared, "the young devil is foxing.'' Finally he was taken out half asphyxfliated, thrown ion straw, and cruelly 1 eaten in the hope that he might be beaten back U) consciousness. Sjion tJ'ter he died in convulsions. A medical witness found that death was due to convulsions produced by suffocation, and that there were severe traises. Lord Shaftesbury's work to remedy these evils is his eternal monument, and though social conditions 'are still far from perfect, they are much better generally than when his noble spirit entered into the fight against lliem.