o excellent that I feel confident it will
one day be generally adopted in large factories. A cotton or woolen
mill usually begins work in this country at half-past six, and
frequently the operatives live half an hour's walk or ride from it. This
obliges many of the operatives, especially family men and women, to be
up soon after four in the morning, in order to get breakfast, and be at
the mill in time. It is the breakfast which makes the difficulty here.
The meal will usually be prepared in haste and eaten in haste; late
risers will devour it with one eye on the clock; and of course it cannot
be the happy, pleasant thing a breakfast ought to be. But in Mr.
Smedley's mill the people go to work at six without having had their
breakfast. At eight the machinery stops, and all hands, after washing in
a comfortable wash-room, assemble in what they call the dinner-house,
built, furnished, and run by the proprietors. Here they find good coffee
and tea for sale at two cents a pint, oatmeal porridge with syrup or
milk at about ten cents a week; good bread and butter at cost.

In addition to these articles, the people bring whatever food they wish
from home. The meal is enjoyed at clean, well-ordered tables. The
employers keep in their service a male cook and female assistants, who
will cook anything the people choose to bring. After breakfast, for
fifteen minutes, the people knit, sew, converse, stroll out of doors, or
amuse themselves in any way they choose. At half-past eight, the manager
takes his stand at a desk in the great dinner-room, gives out a hymn,
which the factory choir sings. Then he reads a passage from a suitable
book,--sometimes from the Bible, sometimes from some other book. Then
there is another hymn by the choir; after which all hands go to work,
the machinery starting up again at nine.

There is similar accommodation for dinner, and at six work is over for
the day. On Saturdays the mill is closed at half-past twelve, and the
people have the whole afternoon for recreation. All the other rules and
arrangements are in harmony with this exquisite breakfast scheme.

"We pay full wages," adds Mr. Smedley, "the hands are smart and
effective. No man ever loses a day from drunkenness, and rarely can a
hand be tempted to leave us. We keep a supply of dry stockings for those
women to put on who come from a distance and get their feet wet; and
every overlooker has a stock of waterproof petticoats to lend the women
goi