investigations and reports on the
subject, an important law was passed. It applied practically to all
textile mills, not merely to those for the spinning of cotton. The
prohibition of employment of all below nine years was continued,
children between nine and thirteen were to work only eight hours per
day, and young persons between thirteen and eighteen only twelve
hours, and none of these at night. Two whole and eight half holidays
were required to be given within the year, and each child must have a
surgeon's certificate of fitness for labor. There were also clauses
for the education of the children and the cleanliness of the
factories. But the most important clause of this statute was the
provision of a corps of four inspectors with assistants who were sworn
to their duties, salaried, and provided with extensive powers of
making rules for the execution of the act, of enforcing it, and
prosecuting for its violation. The earlier laws had not been
efficiently carried out. Under this act numerous prosecutions and
convictions took place, and factory regulation began to become a
reality. The inspectors calculated during their first year of service
that there were about 56,000 children between nine and thirteen, and
about 108,000 young persons between thirteen and eighteen, in the
factories under their supervision.

The decade lying between 1840 and 1850 was one of specially great
activity in social and economic agitation. Chartism, the abolition of
the corn laws, the formation of trade unions, mining acts, and further
extensions of the factory acts were all alike under discussion, and
they all created the most intense antagonism between parties and
classes. In 1844 the law commonly known as the "Children's Half-time
Act" was passed. It contained a large number of general provisions for
the fencing of dangerous machinery, for its stoppage while being
cleaned, for the report of accidents to inspectors and district
surgeons, for the public prosecution for damages of the factory owner
when he should seem to be responsible for an accident, and for the
enforcement of the act. Its most distinctive clause, however, was that
which restricted the labor of children to a half-day, or the whole of
alternate days, and required their attendance at school for the other
half of their time. All women were placed by this act in the same
category as young persons between thirteen and eighteen, so far as the
restriction of hours of labor to t