pain in the back, hips, and
legs, swollen joints, varicose veins, and large, persistent ulcers in the
thighs and calves. These affections are almost universal among the
operatives. The reports of Stuart, Mackintosh, and Sir D. Barry contain
hundreds of examples; indeed, they know almost no operative who did not
suffer from some of these affections; and in the remaining reports, the
occurrence of the same phenomena is attested by many physicians. The
reports covering Scotland place it beyond all doubt, that a working-day
of thirteen hours, even for men and women from eighteen to twenty-two
years of age, produces at least these consequences, both in the
flax-spinning mills of Dundee and Dunfermline, and in the cotton mills of
Glasgow and Lanark.

All these affections are easily explained by the nature of factory-work,
which is, as the manufacturers say, very "light," and precisely by reason
of its lightness, more enervating than any other. The operatives have
little to do, but must stand the whole time. Any one who sits down, say
upon a window-ledge or a basket, is fined, and this perpetual upright
position, this constant mechanical pressure of the upper portions of the
body upon spinal column, hips, and legs, inevitably produces the results
mentioned. This standing is not required by the work itself, and at
Nottingham chairs have been introduced, with the result that these
affections disappeared, and the operatives ceased to object to the length
of the working-day. But in a factory where the operative works solely
for the bourgeois, and has small interest in doing his work well, he
would probably use the seats more than would be agreeable and profitable
to the manufacturer; and in order that somewhat less raw material may be
spoiled for the bourgeois, the operative must sacrifice health and
strength. {155} This long protracted upright position, with the bad
atmosphere prevalent in the mills, entails, besides the deformities
mentioned, a marked relaxation of all vital energies, and, in
consequence, all sorts of other affections general rather than local. The
atmosphere of the factories is, as a rule, at once damp and warm,
unusually warmer than is necessary, and, when the ventilation is not
_very_ good, impure, heavy, deficient in oxygen, filled with dust and the
smell of the machine oil, which almost everywhere smears the floor, sinks
into it, and becomes rancid. The operatives are lightly clad by reason
of th