deplorable condition if this were to be a fair sample of the soldiers
that were to be sent from her factories. The term "crooked legged 'uns"
stuck to these specimens through life; and, in fact, some of them still
survive.

"WHITE SLAVERY"

Asked as to his recollections of early factory life, Bill said he
believed that parents took the children to work in the mills from the
very early morning till late at night; and in some cases they even
allowed them to work on Sunday. One manufacturer allowed the children to
work all night, but one father, who was accustomed to travelling away
from home, returned to Addingham, and found three of his children
undergoing this horrible white slavery. He went to the factory, demanded
his children, and assaulted the caretaker. The matter was brought to a
trial at Bingley, Oastler backing the father. The poor man was fined for
assault, but Captain Ferrand, who had been disgusted with factory
oppression, assisted in taking the case further. The upshot was that the
manufacturer was fined. Captain Ferrand's interest in the relief of the
poor was deep and abiding, and he did a great and mighty work in
connection with the factory laws. It was said at the time by the Radicals
that his work was dictated by political expediency rather than by pure
humane feelings. However, Bill is of opinion that the Radicals were
mistaken. The Captain was a stern disciplinarian, but, under a rough
exterior, Bill was sure there beat a warm heart for the weal of the poor,
and especially of pity for those confined so long in factories.

OASTLER ON FACTORY LIFE

In volume II of _Cobbett's Magazine_, there is an article on "Doctrinaire
Government and the factory system," and a quotation is made from a speech
by Oastler, asserting that "the factory system has caused a great deal of
the distress and immorality of the time, and a great deal of the weakness
of men's constitutions." Oastler said he would not present fiction to
them, but tell them what he himself had seen. "Take," he said, "a little
child. She shall rise from her bed at four in the morning of a cold
winter's day--before that time she awakes perhaps half-a-dozen times, and
says, 'Father, is it time--father, is it time?' When she gets up she
feels about her for her little bits of rags, her clothes, and puts them
on her weary limbs and trudges on to the mill, through rain or snow, one
or two miles, and there she works from thirteen to eighteen