Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1847-03-17
Factory Slaves.

Inc iollowlng extract we have from
the "Nazarine," by George Lippard, Esq.
The sketch is a thrilling one:
"Do you see that huge building lifting
its enormous walls high over the surround.
ing structures, which seem dwindled into
nothing by comparison, with red glare,
flashing from each of the thousand win
dows? Do you hear the sounds that groan
and thunder from the cellar OF this man.
moth ediice to the roof Perhaps it is
great festival hall, where an army Of re-
vellers feast with wine and musc2-
Wherefore this sound, this light, this mo-
ton? Look through those windows, rem
dered almost opaque BY foul air, look by
the glare ofihe red lights, and the mystery
is explained.
Inere you may see an army, but such
an army never crouched beneath the lash
of the Slave Driver in the South While
the steam Engine growls his unceasing
thunder, here in the rooms, filled with an
atmosphere as dense and deadly as the
blast of Enclosed charnel, you may see the
men and women and children bending
down over their labor, which begins with
the sun and ceases not when the night
comes on. But such men, such women,
such children! The women with their pale
4 faces. reddening by an unhealthy glow on
their cheek, while their heavy eyes with
swollen lids, look like the eyes OF dead
f people, reused from their graves by some
unearlhly spell; the men with contracted
forms, shrunken limbs and faces, stamped
by the iron hoofs Of Want, the children,
dwaried, stunted and hollow.eyed with no
smile upon their white lips, no hope in their
} leaden glance. This is a Factory. This
place crowded by miserable forms, swarm
ing to their labor in rooms rendered loath.
some by foul air, and filled with floating
particles Of cotton, that seize upon the
lungs and bite them into rottenness, is a
Slave House. These men, these women,
yes these children, are only called so by
stretch oil courtesy. Their real name
which they all bear written in fearful
characters, upon the brow Of man, women,
and children, is-SLAvE.
In the South they drive stalwart negroes
to the cotton fields, and bid them labor; but
they feed and clothe them well; nay, in
some cases the ebony-iaced African is
treated with the same kindness as the
4 Planters own child.
}, In the North they are too liberal to our
, white slaves; they manage the thing better.
First they rear an immense structure, filled
with innumerable looms and laundering
with the roar ofthe Steam Engine. Then
f they call aloud to every man who has a
, family to feed, to every woman who has a
sick mother to support, to every child who
: is in rags: Come we say, come and toll
for us, We are the manufacturers: Come,
we say, and toll for US, from daybreak until
f dark, and after dark. Every year, from
! the sweat and blood which you expend in
our Factory, we will coin our thousand OF
bright, round solid, beautiful dollars. We
do not force you to work. Oh, no. This
is q free country. But if you do not work
for us, and work for q pittance, which
would not feed the Dog which is kennelled
in our factory yard, why God help you
this is a free country, and you must starve!
And then the poor wretches crowd to
, the Factory, and labor till consumption
: gives them welcome release; or until
1 they forsake the cells of the Slave House,
for the more cheerful haunts of the grog
shop, or the brothel, and all the while the
grave Editors-who abuse the Planters OF
: the South as heather tyraAts and man-steal.
ers-cry hail to the blessed spirit of the
, Manufacturers! And solemn Senators on
the floor of Congress, who thank God they
do moi represent slave State-swell the
shout, and brawl at the top of their voices,
Glory TO God for the Revolution, but ten
thousand Glories for the Tariff of'42.
We do not mean to express an opinion,
. either one way or the other, on this Tariff,
j or anything ofthe kind. All we desire to
. do is to bring single question home to
! your heart. Mechanics and Laborer. Does
the Manufacturer give you one dollar more
for weeks labor, when the tariff is called
az, than when.it is styled '46?
Does he not discharge you, when his
party is beaten atthe ballot box? Does he
not threaten you with starvatian, unless
you vote for his Political Greed? In fact,
b does not every manufacturer hold the lives
at least of three hundred men and women
and children in his grasp.
When the Manufacturer or the Monop.
list, secures to you, Mechanic and Laborer
NOT good wages merely-but your just
proportion of the profits which he makes
out of your flesh and blood, then join in
this Political War Cry, but not till then"
1 .
The DIFFERENcE.-M Monroe Edwards,
who swinded the banks out of some fifty