f-an-hour earlier than usual, and secures them
places close to the platform, where he can watch them to his
satisfaction.

Two further arrangements contribute especially to force the operative
under the dominion of the manufacturer; the Truck system and the Cottage
system. The truck system, the payment of the operatives in goods, was
formerly universal in England. The manufacturer opens a shop, "for the
convenience of the operatives, and to protect them from the high prices
of the petty dealers." Here goods of all sorts are sold to them on
credit; and to keep the operatives from going to the shops where they
could get their goods more cheaply--the "Tommy shops" usually charging
twenty-five to thirty per cent. more than others--wages are paid in
requisitions on the shop instead of money. The general indignation
against this infamous system led to the passage of the Truck Act in 1831,
by which, for most employees, payment in truck orders was declared void
and illegal, and was made punishable by fine; but, like most other
English laws, this has been enforced only here and there. In the towns
it is carried out comparatively efficiently; but in the country, the
truck system, disguised or undisguised, flourishes. In the town of
Leicester, too, it is very common. There lie before me nearly a dozen
convictions for this offence, dating from the period between November,
1843, and June, 1844, and reported, in part, in the _Manchester Guardian_
and, in part, in the _Northern Star_. The system is, of course, less
openly carried on at present; wages are usually paid in cash, but the
employer still has means enough at command to force him to purchase his
wares in the truck shop and nowhere else. Hence it is difficult to
combat the truck system, because it can now be carried on under cover of
the law, provided only that the operative receives his wages in money.
The _Northern Star_ of April 27th, 1843, publishes a letter from an
operative of Holmfirth, near Huddersfield, in Yorkshire, which refers to
a manufacturer of the name of Bowers, as follows (retranslated from the
German):

"It is very strange to think that the accursed truck system should
exist to such an extent as it does in Holmfirth, and nobody be found
who has the pluck to make the manufacturer stop it. There are here a
great many honest hand-weavers suffering through this damned system;
here is one sample from a good many out of the noble-hearted