of age from the factory surgeon, and a certificate of school attendance
from the teacher. As recompense, the employer was permitted to withdraw
one penny from the child's weekly earnings to pay the teacher. Further,
surgeons and inspectors were appointed to visit the factories at all
times, take testimony of operatives on oath, and enforce the law by
prosecution before a Justice of the Peace. This is the law against which
Dr. Ure inveighs in such unmeasured terms!

The consequence of this law, and especially of the appointment of
inspectors, was the reduction of working-hours to an average of twelve to
thirteen, and the superseding of children as far as possible. Hereupon
some of the most crying evils disappeared almost wholly. Deformities
arose now only in cases of weak constitution, and the effects of overwork
became much less conspicuous. Nevertheless, enough testimony remains to
be found in the Factory Report, that the lesser evils, swelling of the
ankles, weakness and pain in the legs, hips, and back, varicose veins,
ulcers on the lower extremities, general weakness, especially of the
pelvic region, nausea, want of appetite alternating with unnatural
hunger, indigestion, hypochondria, affections of the chest in consequence
of the dust and foul atmosphere of the factories, etc. etc., all occur
among employees subject to the provisions of Sir J. C. Hobhouse's law (of
1831), which prescribes twelve to thirteen hours as the maximum. The
reports from Glasgow and Manchester are especially worthy of attention in
this respect. These evils remained too, after the law of 1834, and
continue to undermine the health of the working-class to this day. Care
has been taken to give the brutal profit-greed of the bourgeoisie a
hypocritical, civilised form, to restrain the manufacturers through the
arm of the law from too conspicuous villainies, and thus to give them a
pretext for self-complacently parading their sham philanthropy. That is
all. If a new commission were appointed to-day, it would find things
pretty much as before. As to the extemporised compulsory attendance at
school, it remained wholly a dead letter, since the Government failed to
provide good schools. The manufacturers employed as teachers worn-out
operatives, to whom they sent the children two hours daily, thus
complying with the letter of the law; but the children learned nothing.
And even the reports of the factory inspectors, which are limited to the