The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-02 00:00:00

LO WELL ITS ASPECTS-MANU-
FACTURES - CONDITIONS OF LABOUR -
REFORM.

(From the New York Tribune.)
We spent a few hours in the " City of Spindles" last
week, looking with interest on its thrift, its enterprise,
its busy population. We looked thoughtfully into its
rattling, whirring factories, and anxiously into the faces
of its labourers.
Lowell was never more active, more " growing," or
apparently more prosperous than now. New factories,
new works of all kinds, new dwellings are being con-
structed; and the company, which is now running some
fifty carpet-looms, is about to tear all down, and cover
an acre with mills, in which some two hundred looms
will weave carpets, with a spinning-mill, dying-rooms,
and everything complete for making the car-
petings directly from the fleeces. The new ma-
nufacturing city going up a few miles lower
on the Merrimac seems to have abstracted
little of capital, enterprise, or business from the " Man-
chester of America." The repeal of the tariff is re-
garded there with general incredulity and partial de
fiance. We were shown several descriptions of goods
(heavy checks, brown drills, &c.), which the makers
assured us could not be made in England or any where
else cheaper than they are now made and sold at Lowell,
while some, they were confident, could be sold in Eng-
land at a profit if ull tariffs were abolished on both sides.
In carpets the English have greatly the advantage in the
cost of stock (working in a great proportion of ground
rags, while ours are made entirely of unworn wool), but
they are woven cheaper in Lowell than anywhere in
Great Britain, owing to a great Yankee improvement, of
machinery, though the girls who tend the carpet looms
of Lowell (hard and difficult work) earn
ri
rrAtheF dollar a
dTade,
costwhich f
a nog
ood carpetingrain
gwr
ae
ianverinGreat
carpet at Lowell is
ce.lnts
scoan do.
per yard against 67 in Leeds for what passes for a s"m
British article, though the British is vastly inferiorj ianr
strength and durability.
No tariff that will pay Polk's war expenses can be
low enough to swamp the bulk of the Lowell nsanufao-
turers. In fact, they rather seem to doubt the Govern-
ment's ability to get along with as low duties as they
can. Certain descriptions of fabrics, of which the mar-
ket price depends rather on style, fashion, or novelty,
than on actual cost, would suffer from a reduction of
the tariff ; but Lowell could stand this far better than
the younger and feebler manufactures of other sections:
in fact, she would receive an incidental benefit from the
check necessarily given to the extension and diffusion
of manufactures through the country. If any body ima-
gines that the West is to be benefited at the expense of
the East, or labour achieve a triumph over capital by
reducing the tariff, then that body will find himself mis-
taken in the event.
Visitors to Lowell generally see but one side of the
picture—the bright or the darker ; we endeavoured to
look fairly on both. With one class, we saw and were
delighted with the general activity, the ready employ-
ment for labour of almost every description, the won-
drous inventions and combinations of machinery whereby
such stupendsus results are produced that ten thousand
workers produce more and better fabrics than one hun-
dred thousand could have done a bare century ago. We
do not believe there is on the face of the earth a com-
munity of thirty thousand people who add so much every
year to the amount and value of articles necessary to
human subsistence and comfort as do those of Lowell.
He who views Lowell in this light only, may well go
away admiring and delighted.
Yet there is another and, as we have intimated, a
darker side of the picture, which is not the less real be-
cause it has usually been grossly exaggerated by those
who have presented it to the public. He who tells you
that the working men and women of Lowell are slaves to
the capitalists—that the men must vote as their em-
ployers direct—that the women are so crowded, over-
worked, badly fed, &c., that they are dying of consump-
tion and other chronic diseases, do grossly vary from the
truth. We believe it is a fact that a majority of the
workmen usually vote against what is supposed to be
the interest and the wish of their employers ; at all
events, we know that they vote as they please, and
that it would be impossible to make them vote otherwise.
ll anufacturing labour is not such a heaven that able-
bodied, strong-limbed, two-handed men are eager to sell
their souls for the privilege of doing it ; and our manu-
facturing labourers are quite as intelligent and as
independent as any other class of labourers for wages.
He who employs a few men and is constantly with
them, may possibly influence their votes ; but a
great company, employing its hundreds, can never
even know what sort of ballots its workmen see fit to
deposit. Even though it were to attempt to exert
an undue influence, and go to the length of pro
viding a peculiar ballot, it could eft; ct nothing.
The inside of a vote need not correspond with its exte-
rior ; and the workman generally knew how to get a
living before any company hired him. We believe the
cry of political tyranny raised against the corporations,
by those who justify the national executive in exercising
this very same power over the nation's servants which
they justly stigmatise when exerted by a private com-
pany, is unfounded and unjust. There may have been
Instances of undue influence, but not one by corporations
where there are a hundred, openly, notoriously, by the
Federal Government by whose partisans this clamour is
raised.
On another point, we obtained the unanimous testi-
mony of all parties in Lowell that the Corporations have
been unjustly assailed. We have heard it asserted as a
notorious fact by intelligent demagogues here, who have
made it a current belief among the ignorant here, that
the workmen in factories are paid half in barter, goods,
.tore-orders, &c. Nothing like this is true. The workers,
whether male or female, for the Corporations have uni-
formly been paid every two weeks, and paid wholly in
..wmoryour sn urpiaster trash, borrowed or bought
at a discount of a broker, but par money, such as will pay
rent, a note in bank, or any thing else. Honour to the
Boston Banks for their noble stand years ago in behalf
of a Uniform Currency throughout all the country,
whereof Boston was the commercial centre ! That much
abused policy known as the Suffolk system' has shielded
the labourers of New England from heavy aggregate
losses and infinite vexations.
As to the regulation which requires the " operatives "
(we cordially detest the term), who are in the employ of
any manufacturing Corporation in Lowell, to board at
some one of the boarding-houses on the grounds of that
Corporation, we believe it was intended for the good of
labourers, and has done good. These houses are rented
at low rates ; the price of board in them is moderate
(1 dol. 25 c. to 1 dol. 37i c. per week); and it is not pre-
tended that the Companies have any interest in the mat-
ter, except to have board cheap and the labourers handy
to their work. In fact, many workmen board elsewhere
than in Corporation boarding-houses, as all have the right
to do who have relatives to board with. No inquiry is
made by the companies unless some of the boarding-
house keepers complain of being so slenderly patronised
that they cannot live and pay rent. This produces a
requisition that the labourers shall board on the premises
according to the regulations. There is no complaint that
board is too dear, rather the contrary; but many of the
boarding-houses are too crowded, and lack accommoda-
tions essential to health and cleanliness. We believe these
are equal to those enjoyed by labourers in cities gene-
rally, but they ought to be improved. We should think the
girls especially, who are mainly farmers' daughters
and have been accustomed to ample sleeping-room, op-
portunities for washing, &c., would remedy the matter
themselves by just uniting to pay 25 or 37i cents more
per week, on condition of having ample and comfort-
able accommodations. There is no regulation in the
way of this—nobody would wish to prevent it—and
they would still earn more, beside their board, than is
earned by working women almost anywhere else than in
American factories. Will they not think of this ?
We fear there is not care enough taken to provide for
the ventilation of the factories. We know that ig-
norance and indifference in this respect is all but uni-
versal, but this is no excuse. The owners of factories
are usually men of decided intelligence ; they under-
stand the laws of life and health ; they are aware that
the mills are often required to be kept at as high a
temperature as is consistent with health ; that a hundred
human beings being employed for day after day in one
room must have large and constant supplies of fresh air,
or their health will suffer. We entreat them to give
earnest heed to this matter, not only in building new
factories, but with reference to those now existing.
They should at least consider that ventilation is
cheaper than hospital treatment, which we believe in
Lowell is afforded to those who need it gratuitously.
The great master evil in operation at Lowell, however,
and too generally in American factories, is that of ex-
cessivepeeted toh ho of
no fw lab.orokuar t
fi Av
et
A. Lowell,an d
tallo l
ahbaonudrs,
wairteh ebxust
half an hour's intermission for breakfast, and as much
tdhairt.een hourslttl
more for dinner, till seven P.M , making
steady employment daily. The working
longer at some seasons and a little
shorter atyoltshears, butte
this is about the average, and it is entirely too much. It
is a severer tax on human energies than formerly, because,
with the progress of machinery, the attention required is
more constant and the work more exacting. Many
oo
nf t
wh ea s
sog iten.
osrsr a
enctrrehacil
nteht
ishom ur etugoeshcbtl
uoel oalmrif
enough,. st
effort
on at
tttpwil;
naoti plain
ornolvdvraetl
aast
ih:oiorinuJegggshus
requiring
mas avmye re
bey c ac
more healthful than merely mending threads and
supplying spools all day, it not the less contributes to
increase the fatigue created by thirteen hours of scarcely
remitted toil. Most of the women employed in the fac-
tories are still voung ; a large proportion mere girls of
fifteen to twenty ; and when it is considered that they
are hereafter to become wives and mothers, it will be seen
that the preservation of their constitution is of the highest
public importance. And it is not enough that they
should continue healthful and vigorous. They should
have time for and be encouraged to form habits of daily
reading and study. Yet what can be expected of girls of
ssleelnv
edse r forms
first
rst n
at
leisuree tl
a immaturelittle
strength, w
before
eig hthoo,efiloned them
o'clock
p.ro.,
after having been on their feet with barely time for
hasty meals since five, a.m. ? Can they be expected
now to apply themselves with alacrity and perseverance
to any means of mental improvement ? Surely not.
Hence must grow habits of indifference to books and of
mental frivolity, very mournful to think of as character-
ising the mothers of those who will rule the destinies of
our country in the next generation.
Now we know very well that women are more un-
healthfully employed, confined more hours, and far worse
paid in many other branches of industry, than in manu-
facturing. We know that those engaged in sewing in
our cities, are a special instance of this—that there are
thousands on thousands of household servants, for whom
even "Sunday shines no holiday," and who would be
deemed upstart and affected, if they should even indicate
a wish for mental improvement. It is not a question
whether manufacturing is worse than other employment
for women—we have often enough expressed our
conviction that it is not—that the introduction of this
branch of industry into New England has largely con-
tributed to emancipate woman there from pecuniary de-
Tendence, and to increase the reward of her honest toil.
hep is no question with us 45 to the utility and ad-