The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-06-04 00:00:00

FACTORY WORKERS.

In one of the factory reports which have been
presented to Parliament, Mr. Baker, factory
inspector, noticing that it is rather over a qtiarter
of a century since the factory regulations came
into operation, compares the condition of the
workers then and now. Of the change in their
physical condition he speaks with confidence as
a medical practitioner. With an increase between
1834 and 1859 of no less than 327,813 in the
number of workers (upwards of 92 pel Cent.), the
largest proportion women, and with increased
attention demanded by increased speed of ma-
chinery, there is scarcely any longer to be
seen a crooked leg or a distorted spine as the
result of factory labour, and it is considered
that there really is not how any disease which
can be said to be specific of factory labour in cotton
mills. Mr. Baker quotes Mr. Smith, the eminent
surgeon of Leeds, writing in August last of the
200,000- women who in 1833 were employed within
the factories of the United Kingdom :—" They were
a poor emaciated and down-hearted looking racer
with angular shoulders and stooping heads, and
altogether destitute of the roundad form of healthy
women ;" there are now 400,000, and they are

" fair and florid, stout and muscular, cheerful and
happy, and all the outlines are admirable." At
the same time, in no branch of textile labour have
wages been reduced, but there is an average
increase of 12 per cent., and 40 in one instance.
Machinery has displaced manual labour here and
there, but other branches of industry have super-
vened. In 1866 there were at work within the
walls of the factories of the United Kingdom
682,497 persons, who received within that year
£19,037,482 in wages, or about 10s. 61d. a
head a week, man, woman, and child. These
were the smallest classes of wages, more than half
the recipients being women ; where the workers
are adult males the wages are much higher, as, for
instance, in the case of workers in metals, where
the same average rata of wages gives 18s. a week.
Yet Mr. Baker has to add, even now, that there
are whole neighbourhoods where there are no
savings worth mentioning, and within a fortnight
of being out of work the workers are starving.
But after a careful calculation ho has no doubt
that every man in the industrial districts might
save £7O or £BO between eighteen and thirty,
allowing both for sickness and bad times. With
that sum beforehand, he points out working men
would secure independence, and wages would
never be unfairly reduced. Strikes would be pre-
vented ; for, on the one hand, a man with £7O in
the savings' bank would have seventy reasons
why there should not be any cessation from
work; and, on the other, his means of honest re-
sistance would be far greater than those of any
oppressor. In truth, his desires would be
more likely to be regulated by an equi-
table consideration and adjustment of his
master's interest and his own. The supreme
folly of a strike is shown by the fact
that there is seldom or ever a rich workman at
the head of it. Mr. Baker goes on to refer to a
proof of the working man's ability to save capital
if he would .but consider his early wages in that
light. He says there are in Coventry about 300
cottage factories, containing from two to six looms
each, moved by power, besides a large number of
hand-looms. These cottage factories are all occu-
pied by working men, who for the most part
employ their own families, but sometimes hire
labour. Some of the looms are their own, some
hired. The power is hired at so much a week.
The weavers work mostly for employers who do
not care to be manufacturers, or are not anxious
to increase their outlay in machinery. Mr. Baker
notices the system as interesting, because it is
re-transferring labour from the factory to the
home.

THE CHANNEL FLEET.—The Downs how present
very formidable appearance, perhaps more so than when
Sir C. Napier sailed to the Baltic. Since the arrival of
the seven line-of-battle-ships and Diadem frigate last
week, the Channel Squadron has been joined by the
Mersey and Ariadne frigates and the Greyhound sloop-
of-war. The Mersey Par excellence is considered as the
finest and largest ship in the navy; she carries forty
8-p rsand has 1,000 horse-power. Her tonnage
i6scloosuenudpeon 4,000, Admiral Fremantle, in the Royal
Albert, has since joined to assume the command of the
fleet.

ACCIDENT TO MISS VANDENHOITy AT THE NORTH-
HAMPTON THEATRE.—On Tuesday evening last, as the
above eminent lady was descending from the stage to
her dressing-room, she trod upon some slippery
substance, which precipitated her with fearful velocity
down several steps, straining the ligaments of the left
knee. We regret to state, although this mischance is
not so serious as it might have been, that it will deprive
the stage for some time at least 91 Miss Vanclenhorrs
taloa% •

• -

LITE DAILY TIMES, NONDAY, JUNE 4, 1860.--

of iicitAfety, grid assessed damages against Mr. Kennedy
in the slim of L 3,660.