cesses have
reached the pitch which I have already described. {178}

Further, the slavery in which the bourgeoisie holds the proletariat
chained, is nowhere more conspicuous than in the factory system. Here
ends all freedom in law and in fact. The operative must be in the mill
at half-past five in the morning; if he comes a couple of minutes too
late, he is fined; if he comes ten minutes too late, he is not let in
until breakfast is over, and a quarter of the day's wages is withheld,
though he loses only two and one-half hours' work out of twelve. He must
eat, drink, and sleep at command. For satisfying the most imperative
needs, he is vouchsafed the least possible time absolutely required by
them. Whether his dwelling is a half-hour or a whole one removed from
the factory does not concern his employer. The despotic bell calls him
from his bed, his breakfast, his dinner.

What a time he has of it, too, inside the factory! Here the employer is
absolute law-giver; he makes regulations at will, changes and adds to his
codex at pleasure, and even, if he inserts the craziest stuff, the courts
say to the working-man: "You were your own master, no one forced you to
agree to such a contract if you did not wish to; but now, when you have
freely entered into it, you must be bound by it." And so the working-man
only gets into the bargain the mockery of the Justice of the Peace who is
a bourgeois himself, and of the law which is made by the bourgeoisie.
Such decisions have been given often enough. In October, 1844, the
operatives of Kennedy's mill, in Manchester struck. Kennedy prosecuted
them on the strength of a regulation placarded in the mill, that at no
time more than two operatives in one room may quit work at once. And the
court decided in his favour, giving the working-men the explanation cited
above. {179a} And such rules as these usually are! For instance: 1. The
doors are closed ten minutes after work begins, and thereafter no one is
admitted until the breakfast hour; whoever is absent during this time
forfeits 3d. per loom. 2. Every power-loom weaver detected absenting
himself at another time, while the machinery is in motion, forfeits for
each hour and each loom, 3d. Every person who leaves the room during
working-hours, without obtaining permission from the overlooker, forfeits
3d. 3. Weavers who fail to supply themselves with scissors forfeit, per
day, 1d. 4. All broken shuttles, brushes, oil-cans,