ts
by the time they were eight. For twelve or fourteen hours a day these
poor little toilers had to sit in the mines, opening and shutting trap
doors as the coal was pushed along in barrows. All alone, with no one
to speak to, sitting in a damp, stifling atmosphere, the poor children
had to stay day after day; and if they went to sleep they got well
beaten. Rats and mice were their only companions, and Sunday was the
only day on which they were gladdened by the daylight.

It was a shocking state of existence, nor did it grow better as the
children got older.

Then they had to drag heavy loads along the floors of the mine. When
the passages were narrow the boys and girls had a girdle fastened
round their waists, a chain was fixed to this, and passed between
their legs and hooked to the carriage. Then, crawling on hands and
knees through the filth and mire, they pulled these trucks as cattle
would drag them, whilst their backs were bruised and wounded by
knocking against the low roof.

Girls and women were made to carry heavy weights of coal. Children
stood ankle deep in water, pumping hour after hour, and their work was
sometimes prolonged for thirty-six hours continuously; so that it
was no wonder the children died early, that they suffered much from
disease, and led cheerless, wretched lives.

Against such cruelties Lord Shaftesbury was constantly warring; and
his warfare was not in vain.

Quite as badly off were the little chimney sweeps. Boys were
kidnapped, and sold to cruel masters, who forced them to climb high
chimneys filled with soot and smoke. If they refused, a fire was
perhaps lighted below, and they would thus be forced to ascend. The
consequence was that many terrible accidents happened, resulting in
the deaths of these poor little fellows, whilst numbers died early
from disease.

Lord Shaftesbury roused the country to a sense of the wrong that was
being done to the chimney sweeps, and Bills were passed in Parliament
for their protection.

Not only children, but men and women also, needed to be defended from
wrong and overwork.

Lord Shaftesbury visited the factories to see how the labourers were
actually treated; and this is one of the things that came under his
notice.

A young woman whilst working in a mill at Stockport was caught by the
machinery and badly injured. When the accident happened she had not
completed her week's work, so eighteenpence was deducted from her
wages!

Horrified