n a multitude of
examples of such distortions, and those of Tufnell and Sir David Barry,
which are less directed to this point, give single examples. {153b} The
Commissioners for Lancashire, Cowell, Tufnell, and Hawkins, have almost
wholly neglected this aspect of the physiological results of the factory
system, though this district rivals Yorkshire in the number of cripples.
I have seldom traversed Manchester without meeting three or four of them,
suffering from precisely the same distortions of the spinal columns and
legs as that described, and I have often been able to observe them
closely. I know one personally who corresponds exactly with the
foregoing description of Dr. Ray, and who got into this condition in Mr.
Douglas' factory in Pendleton, an establishment which enjoys an
unenviable notoriety among the operatives by reason of the former long
working periods continued night after night. It is evident, at a glance,
whence the distortions of these cripples come; they all look exactly
alike. The knees are bent inward and backwards, the ankles deformed and
thick, and the spinal column often bent forwards or to one side. But the
crown belongs to the philanthropic manufacturers of the Macclesfield silk
district. They employed the youngest children of all, even from five to
six years of age. In the supplementary testimony of Commissioner
Tufnell, I find the statement of a certain factory manager Wright, both
of whose sisters were most shamefully crippled, and who had once counted
the cripples in several streets, some of them the cleanest and neatest
streets of Macclesfield. He found in Townley Street ten, George Street
five, Charlotte Street four, Watercots fifteen, Bank Top three, Lord
Street seven, Mill Lane twelve, Great George Street two, in the workhouse
two, Park Green one, Peckford Street two, whose families all unanimously
declared that the cripples had become such in consequence of overwork in
the silk-twisting mills. One boy is mentioned so crippled as not to be
able to go upstairs, and girls deformed in back and hips.

Other deformities also have proceeded from this overwork, especially
flattening of the foot, which Sir D. Barry {154a} frequently observed, as
did the physicians and surgeons in Leeds. {154b} In cases, in which a
stronger constitution, better food, and other more favourable
circumstances enabled the young operative to resist this effect of a
barbarous exploitation, we find, at least,