and were injured—possibly crushed,—an occurrence which caused little concern to any except the mothers, who had learned to bear their pangs in silence. These children, who were stunted in size and disposed to various acute diseases, were often scrofulous and consumptive."
The Encyclopædia Britannica, in an article on Socialism, describes the conditions of the working people in England at that time as follows: "The English worker had no fixed interest in the soil. He had no voice either in local or national government. He had little education or none at all. His dwelling was wretched in the extreme. The right even of combination was denied him. The wages of the agricultural laborer were miserably low. The workman's share in the benefits of the industrial revolution was doubtful. Great numbers of his class were reduced to utter poverty and ruin by the great changes consequent to the introduction of improved machinery; the tendency to readjustment was slow and continually disturbed by fresh change. The hours of work were mercilessly long. He had to compete against the labor of women, and of children brought frequently at the age of five or six from the workhouses. These children had to work the same long hours as the adults, and they were sometimes strapped by the overseers till the blood came. Destitute as they so often were of parental protection and oversight, with both sexes huddled together under immoral and unsanitary conditions, it was only natural that they should fall into the worst habits and that their offspring should to such a lamentable degree be vicious, improvident, and physically degenerate."
A report, delivered at the "International Congress of Women," held in July, 1899, at London, states that the weak legs of those children, which were not strong enough to support the body for hours, were sustained by boots of wood and lead, in which they were obliged to stand. Hence the high scale of mortality among the children.
Most revolting conditions prevailed in the English coal mines. Married women, girls and children worked here, harnessed to trucks and nearly naked, dragging on their hands and knees loads of coal through long low galleries to the pit mouth.
When some philanthropists made complaints about these conditions, Parliament instituted a commission to inquire into the state of working women in these mines and the wages paid them. From its official report we quote the following: "Betty Harris, one of the numerous persons examined, aged thirty-seven, drawer in the coal-pit, said: 'I have a belt around my waist and a chain between my legs to the truck, and I go on my hands and feet. The road is very steep and we
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