ainting,
pains in the head, sides, back, and hips, palpitation of the heart,
nausea, vomiting and want of appetite, curvature of the spine, scrofula,
and consumption. The health of the female lacemakers especially, is
constantly and deeply undermined; complaints are universal of anaemia,
difficult childbirth, and miscarriage. {192a} The same subordinate
official of the Children's Employment Commission reports further that the
children are very often ill-clothed and ragged, and receive insufficient
food, usually only bread and tea, often no meat for months together. As
to their moral condition, he reports: {192b}

"All the inhabitants of Nottingham, the police, the clergy, the
manufacturers, the working-people, and the parents of the children are
all unanimously of opinion that the present system of labour is a most
fruitful source of immorality. The threaders, chiefly boys, and the
winders, usually girls, are called for in the factory at the same
time; and as their parents cannot know how long they are wanted there,
they have the finest opportunity to form improper connections and
remain together after the close of the work. This has contributed, in
no small degree, to the immorality which, according to general
opinion, exists to a terrible extent in Nottingham. Apart from this,
the quiet of home life, and the comfort of the family to which these
children and young people belong, is wholly sacrificed to this most
unnatural state of things."

Another branch of lace-making, bobbin-lacework, is carried on in the
agricultural shires of Northampton, Oxford, and Bedford, chiefly by
children and young persons, who complain universally of bad food, and
rarely taste meat. The employment itself is most unwholesome. The
children work in small, ill-ventilated, damp rooms, sitting always bent
over the lace cushion. To support the body in this wearying position,
the girls wear stays with a wooden busk, which, at the tender age of most
of them, when the bones are still very soft, wholly displace the ribs,
and make narrow chests universal. They usually die of consumption after
suffering the severest forms of digestive disorders, brought on by
sedentary work in a bad atmosphere. They are almost wholly without
education, least of all do they receive moral training. They love
finery, and in consequence of these two influences their moral condition
is most deplorable, and prostitution alm