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The man who voluntarily addicts himself to it would commit in cutting his throat a suicide only swifter and less ignoble. The habit is gaining fearful ground among our professional men, the operatives in our mills, our weary sewing-wormen, our fagged clerks, our disappointed wives, our former liquor-drunkards, our very day-laborers, who a generation ago took gin.
The agricultural classes did not suffer as much as operatives in mills, since they got a high price for their grain; but the more remunerative agriculture became to landlords, the more miserable were those laborers who paid all they could earn to save themselves from absolute starvation.
"There is no question of criticizing Mrs. Westmore's dealings with her operatives as far as I know, she has had none as yet," he rejoined, unable to control his voice as completely as his hand. "And the proof of it is the impunity with which her agents deceive her in this case, for instance, of Dillon's injury. Dr. Disbrow, who is Mr.
"It has its roots in the way the business is organized in the traditional attitude of the company toward the operatives. I hoped that Mrs. Westmore might return to the mills might visit some of the people in their houses. Seeing their way of living, it might have occurred to her to ask a reason for it and one enquiry would have led to another.
And one of the first questions which the partners considered was whether the change from farm to factory life would effect for the worse the character of these girls. This, says Appleton, "was a matter of deep interest. The operatives in the manufacturing cities of Europe were notoriously of the lowest character for intelligence and morals.
"The late Mr Richard Cobden, M.P., attended, and recommended a bold appeal to the whole country, declaring with prophetic keenness of vision that not less than 1,000,000 pounds would be required to carry the suffering operatives through the crisis, whilst the subscriptions up to that date amounted only to 180,000 pounds."
Thus, finally, it has come about that nearly 70 per cent. of the cotton operatives at Holyoke are of French-Canadian origin, and the social condition of all these people is precisely similar to that which has already been described as characterizing the inhabitants of "Little Canada" in Lowell.
Meanwhile, the demand for a ten hours' law had become lively among the operatives; that is, for a law which should forbid all operatives under eighteen years of age to work longer than ten hours daily; the Trades Unions, by their agitation, made this demand general throughout the manufacturing population; the philanthropic section of the Tory party, then led by Michael Sadler, seized upon the plan, and brought it before Parliament.
A year or more after his arrival in America he wrote to Jack Trevellian as follows: "I hardly think you would know the once fastidious Neil McPherson, if you could see him now in a noisy cotton-mill, screaming at the top of his voice to the stupid operatives, and button-holed confidentially by the Brother Jonathans, who address him as 'Square, and speak of his aunt as the 'old woman. But it is astonishing how soon one gets accustomed to things, and I really am very happy, especially when scouting the country on my beautiful bay, a present from my aunt, who gave it to me on condition that I would take care of it myself.
Operatives' homes are often better guarded against sanitary evils than those of farmers or the ordinary laborer. Under "C" it is shown conclusively that the factory has diminished intemperance, Reybaud's "History of the Factory Movement" giving full statistics on this point, as well as in regard to the growth of banks and benefit societies.
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