Democratic standard. [volume] (Georgetown, Brown County, Ohio) 1837-1850, 1841-08-24
From the United States.
THE FACTORY SYSTEM.

AN'" H'iN NV" ''ISehSSs
THE FACTORY SYSTEM.
We have lately seen in some of the
newspapers extracts from the evidence
taken before the British Parliament, upon
the inquiry induced by the bill to regu-
late the employment of children in facto-
ries. These extracts disclose degree
of cruelty in the conductors of factories,
and of suffering in the children, which
call upon human nature to cry out against
the constitution of society in which such
things are tolerated. We are told that
little children are compelled TO labor
until they fall asleep with fatigue, and
then are beaten with rods, too heavy even
for horses, to keep them awake and that
the consequences of these cruelties are
sorrow, sickness, deformties, and perma-
tuEe death. And the nation that toIer-
ates such denominations talk about their
humanity! Away with such can't 1t be-
longs to the same category with the cru
elites of the Jersey prison ship, the artifi-
cial famines in India, the bombardment
Of Beyrout, and the attack on China to
enforce the opium trade. Such things
are gross aud criminal violations of all
right, and put into the shade even the
wholesale bntcheries of Jenghis Khan,
or of the Spaniards in South America
The system Of Government which toler-
ates them is system Of abOminable cru
elites, the judgment of Heaven is upon
it, and according to the operation of i'm
mutable physical and moral laws, it must
fall.
Such crueIties necessarily taint the
moral character of a whole people. The
officers and agents in factories, who en-.
force this discipline, must be cruel by ma
ture and habit. The owners. who know
that il exists, and who thrive upon it, are
cruel from interest. The Government.
which is supported by the fruits of the
system, is. likewise cruel from interest
The sd rers become cruel under the iu-
Fiction hid burn foF revenge. The look'
ers on become cruel through a frequent
repetition ofsuch sights aid sounds. The
consequence is cruelty in all public ac
,liou; outrage against the rights of others
wherever interest is to be served. And
whence originate all these cruelties? In
the spirit of avarice and the spirit of ar
istocracy. When Napolean character
lied the British as nation of shop keep.
ers, he implied that, as a people, they
would sacrifice every moral consideration
to gain. And accordingly we find Them
carrying this spirit Ofgain over the world
not in attempts to persuade other nations
into cOmmercal,ntercOurs upon terms
mutually advantageous, but in attempts to
force them into it upon terms advanta-
geous only to the assailants. So much for
the spirit of avarice. The spirit of ars-
tocracy is equally potent, and equally
mischievous. English society is scale
of contenpts and aduhtions, in which
each degree is servile to all above, and
insolent to all below it. Contempt al
WAYS produces cruelty. No human be-
ing can despse his neighbor without de-
string to make him feel his inferority;
Sand when means Of mental and corporeal
'inflicton are equally ready, they will be
used with equal profnsion. Hence blows
and vituperatioa are characteristics of
English discipline, in the army, tSe navy
the prison, the factory, the school, every
where; and hence also sneering, contempt
assertion ofsuperiorty, impulation of in
feriority, are characteristics of English So
ciety, English literature, English diploma,
cy, from the lowest TO the highest. In
its intercourse with other governments,
that Of Britain is proverbially arrogant.
We are not blind to the merits of the
AnglO-Saxon character, or of Anglo-Sax
on Institutions. The legal institution
of English society, Of which our own is
an improvement, is the best which ever
existed in the old world. With the An
glo-Ameriean improvements, it is destn.
ed % spread every where, and carry lib
erty and civilization wherever it goes
We regard the Anglo-Saxon race as a
chosen people, like the Israelites, and be.
lieve that the mission iatrusted to them
is the mission of political liberty, as the
instrument of moral elevstion, But &he
legal and conventional constitutions OF
English society are totally different, and
in continual conflict; and from this con-
ffict result the extraordinary diversiiies