CHAPTER VI: The Chainmakers of Cradley Heath
If the condition of the iron-workers in Cradley Heath is even worse than that of the nail-makers
of Bromsgrove, it may at least be said of Cradley Heath that it makes no pretence of the rustic
beauty with which Bromsgrove hides its cruelty as with a mask. It is frankly an industrial town, a
town of the Black Country, where in smoke and soot and mud, men and women earn their bread with the
abundant sweat not of their brows alone; a terribly ugly and depressing town in which, however,
contrasts too painful are absent.
One expects to find misery here, whereas in Bromsgrove one looked for smiles.
The main industry of Cradley Heath is chain-making, and it may be remarked here that this industry has never been so prosperous, at least in respect of the amount of chain produced and the number of workmen employed. It appears that each week there are manufactured in the Cradley Heath district 1,000 tons of chain. The chains are of every variety, from the huge 4 inch mooring cables down to No. 16 on the wire gauge, and including rigging-chains, crane-cables, mining-cables, cart and plough traces, curbs, halters, cow-ties, dog-chains, and even handcuff-links.
If chains for slaves are not made here also it is doubtless because there are no slaves in England; or it may be because hunger can bind tighter than any iron links. And chronic hunger is the experience of most of the women workers in Cradley Heath, as anyone can learn who cares to converse with them.
“We has to do with two quartern loaves a day,” said one of the women blacksmiths to me, “though three such loaves wouldn't be too much for us.” This woman had six children to keep and her husband into the bargain, for he had been out of work since Christmas. She was good enough to describe to me her manner of living. A pennyworth of bits of bacon, two pennyworth of meat from the “chep-butcher”, and a pennyworth of potatoes, all cooked together, made a dinner for the family of eight.
But such a dinner was rarely to be obtained; most often she had to beg dripping “off them as belongs
to me,” as a relish to the insufficient bread. It appeared that she had influential relations who could
spare a cupful of dripping now and then, and who sometimes passed on some “bits” of cast-off clothing.
She showed me that she was wearing a pair of men's high-low boots, which had come to her in this way.
She “never see no milk”, and in the matter of milk her children (even the youngest) had “to do the same as we.” These children, like all other children in the Cradley Heath district had been weaned on “sop.” Sop is a preparation of bread and hot water, flavoured with the drippings of the tea-pot. This plat is much esteemed by children, and the woman said: “If them's got a basin of sop, them's as proud as if them'd got a beefsteak.”
In good weeks she could get a bit of margarine, and each week she bought a quarter of a pound of tea at one shilling the pound, and four pounds of sugar at a penny halfpenny. As to eggs, she said: “My gum, I'd like one for my tea; I haven't had an egg for years.”¹ For clothes for her children and herself, she depended entirely on charity. None of her family had more “nor he stood up in”, and when her children's stockings wanted washing she had to put them to bed, for none of them has more that “one bit to his feet.” The washing was actually done on Saturday evenings when she had finished her work.
This work consisted in making heavy chains at 5s. 4d. the cwt. By working incessantly for about twelve hours a day, she could make about one cwt.and a half in a week. Her hands were badly blistered and she was burnt in different parts of the body by the flying sparks. In spite of things, she was a well-set, jovial woman, not without a rude beauty, which she explained thus: “It's not what I gets to eat. It's me having a contented mind and not letting nothing trouble me.” And she asked me to compare her with a woman who sat next to her, and who was lamentable thin and worn.
“Look at my sister,” she said, “who worrits herself.” Some money was given to this woman and she departed joyfully to pay some little debts. “If there's anything over,” she said, “I'll get a booster tonight.” I learnt that a “booster” was a quartern loaf.²
This conversation took place in the “Manchester Arms”, which is a house of call of the chain-makers, both male and female. Beer plays a great part in the lives of the men, and even amongst the women a prediliction for drink may be observed. The number of quarts of “threepenny”, or even “twopenny” consumed by the men in the chain factories is very great. A master told me that some of his men must have a sponge beneath their belts, as they often consume three shillingsworth of beer a day at threepence the quart. The beer chiefly drunk in Cradley is a variety known as Burton Returns, that is to say beer which has been returned to the brewers as undrinkable by customers more fastidious than the chain-makers. A boy is attached to each factory, whose exclusive service is to run out and fetch pints for the men.
The heat of the furnaces is terrible and the work most exhausting. Men have to wring their clothes when they go home. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that they should drink such quantities; and as to their preference for alcoholic beverages, a man said to me: “What strength is there behind six or seven quarts of water?” Some men, he admitted, seemed to manage on “seconds”, or milk which has been “hanging about the dairy for some days.”
It was somewhat of a surprise to hear that the men could afford to spend three shillings a day on drink when at work, because it is generally understood that chainmaking is of all industries, perhaps, the worst paid, as it is certainly the most exhausting. The master, however, stated that some of his men could make as much as 10s. in one day. And this investigation proved to be the case. A skilled worker can make 10 s. in one day - less the usual charges - but the work is so exhausting that, having worked the number of links needful to earn that sum, he would be so fatigued that he would have “to play” for the next two or three days. Indeed, a man who told me that he could never earn more than 20s. in a week, on which he had to keep his wife and six children, added that often when he had completed a week's labour he was so knocked up that he was forced to mess about for three or four days.
The work is unhealthy and dangerous. One sees few old men in Cradley. Lung disease carries the men off at an early age. “The work affects you all over,” said a worker to me. “When you've done a good turn, you feel like buried. You gets so cold that you shivers so you can't hold your food. The furnaces burn the insides right out of you, and a man what's got no inside is soon settled off.”
The man had burns all over his body. “It's easier,” he explained, “to catch a flea than a piece of red hot iron, and the bits of red hot iron are always flying about. Sometimes a bit gets into your boot and puts you 'on the box' for a week.” But the risk of catching cold is most dreaded, for a cold may kill a man. This worker told me of a friend of his who had walked over to Clent Hill one day, got wet, and was dead the next evening. the doctor had said “his inside had gone from starvation.” This was a “middle-handed” chainmaker (a man of middling skill), but he was too weak to work.
Work in Cradley is done for the most part in factories, or at least in sheds where several work together. One does not see many solitary workers here as in Bromsgrove, and perhaps on this account the wretchedness of the chainmakers is not so immediately apparent.
One may come across sheds with five or six women, each working at her anvil; thet are all talking above the din of their hammers and the clanking of their chains, or they may be singing a discordant chorus; and at first, the sight of this sociability makes one overlook the misery which, however, is only too visible, be it in the foul rags and preposterous boots that the women wear, or in their haggard faces and the faces of the frightened infants hanging to their mothers' breasts, as these ply the hanmmer, or sprawling in the mire on the floor, amidst the showers of fiery sparks.
Here and there in Cradley, it is true, one may come across such scenes as sadden in Bromsgrove, some
woman plying her task in a cell-like shed, silent, absorbed, alone. One such a sight I particularly
remember.
In a shed fitted with forge and anvil, there was a woman at work. From a pole which ran across the room there dangled a tiny swing chair for the baby, so that whilst working her hammers, the mother could rock the child. She was working very hard at spike-making and she told us that the previous week, her husband and herself had conveted into spikes a ton of iron. These they had then packed and conveyed to the warehouse. For this ton of spikes they had received 20s., the remuneration of a weeks' work by the two of them, and out of these 20s. there had to be deducted 3s. and 8d. for “breeze” fuel. The rent of the house and shop was 3s. 8d.. and damage to the extent of 1s. had been done to the tools. There was consequently left for the housekeeping about 11s.
The woman had five children and she told me that she had been laughed at by her neighbours because, in spite of her blacksmith work, she had brought each child safely into the world. The work is such that, in Cradley, Lucina is not to these female Vulcans a kindly goddess. One woman, also a blacksmith, had been seven times abandoned by her in her hour of need. It may be remarked that so pressing are the wants of the women, that they will work up to within an hour or two of their confinement.
A woman whom I met at the Manchester Arms was good enough to give me some particulars of the birth of “our little Johnny”. It appears that this young gentleman was born on November 9th of last year. “I worked up till five that day,” said his mother, “and then I give over because I had my cleaning to do. Our little Johnny was born at a quarter past seven.” This woman made chain-harrows, and could earn 5s. a week at it, for twelve hours a day; as to which work Mr. James Smith, the Secretary of the Chainmaker's Union said: “It's not women's work at all.”
Indeed, no part of this work is work for women, and his manhood is ashamed who sees these poor female beings swinging their heavy hammers or working the treadles of the Oliver. Oliver is here so heavy - sometimes the weight of the hammer exceeds 36 lb. that the rebellious treadle jerks its frail mistress upwards, and a fresh ungainly effort must be hers before she can force it to its work and bring it down. As to Oliver, the name given here also to the heavy hammer which can be worked by a treadle alone, the philologist, remembering the dismantled castle of Dudley, hard by, the Roundhead triumphs of the neighbouring Edge Hill, and many another spot in this land, will trace its origin to Cromwell, the heavy hammer-man; Oliver Martel, who crushed kings and castles, princes and prejudice; Oliver the Democreat, whose name, by exquisite irony of things, is now attached to an implement used by slaves most degraded, by starved mothers fighting in sweat and anguish and rags for the sop of the weazened bairns, who in the shower of fiery sparks grovel in the mire of these shameful sweatshops.
The impediment of children, to mothers to whom motherhood is here a curse, is nowhere more clearly defined. The wretched woman, forging link by link the heavy chain, of which she must make 1 cwt. before her weekly rent is paid, is at each moment harrassed by her sons and daughters. There is one child at the breast, who hampers the swing of the arm; there is another seated on the forge, who must be watched lest the too comfortable blaze in which it warms its little naked feet prove dangerous; whilst the swarm that clink to her tattered skirt break the instinctive movement of her weary feet.
She cannot absent herself, for as a woman told me, whose child was burned to death in her shed: “the Crowner came down something awful on me for leaving the forge for two minutes to see to summat in the saucepan.”.
The employing of a nurse to attend to the children seems impossible, according to numerous statements made to me. One woman told me that a nurse cost each week 2s. “to do the mother”, and 3d. for her pocket “to encourage her, like.” She added that this expense was not to be borne. She exemplifies her statement by giving me an account of her earnings of the previous three days and the expenditure incurred. She had forged 728 heavy links in the three days, and for this had received 2s. 2d.. She had paid 7½d. for firing and 1s. for the nurse. Her net earnings for the 36 hours were 6½d.. Her eyes reminded me of Leah, and she said: “We'm working worse nor slaves - and getting nothing to eat into the bargain.”
Another woman who was with her told me a halfpennyworth of oatmeal often served as a meal for her whole family. This woman's husband was in a lunatic asylum. “Heat, worry, and drink knocked my old'un,” she said. He had left her with five children and to feed these (Mr. James Smith assured me of the truth of this statement) she used often to work from three in the morning till eleven at night, and begin again at three again in the morning next day.
The work of chain-making consists in heating the iron rods (a process which involves a number of pulls on the bellows for each link), bending the red-hot piece, cutting in on the hardy, twisting the link, inserting it into the last link of the chin, and welding or closing it with repeated blows of the hand hammer and the Oliver worked by a treadle. To earn 3s., a woman must “work in” forty-six rods of iron, each none feet long, and out of these 3s. she must pay for her gleeds or fuel. This woman had to make 1 cwt. of iron chain to earn 4s..
The women work on the smaller cables and consequently use smaller rods of iron. For these less heat is necessary than for the iron worked by the men, who make the huge cables. Consequently, for the women's forges the bellows which they work themselevs suffices. For the men “blast”, supplied by mechanical power is necessary. This power is supplied either by steam or by hand labour. In either case, it is paid for by the men and these complain bitterly about the rapacity of the masters in extorting the “blast” sums, the aggregate of which exceeds its cost. I know of one master in Cradley who employs men at sixty forges. Each forge brings him 3s. a week for blast. The total is £9. His “blast” is supplied by a steam engine, the fuel of which cost him 30s. a week. He has also to pay 24s. a week to his engineer. His outlay each week is accordingly £2. 14s., as against £9 which he receives from his men.
On the other hand, this steam engine drives the guillotine shears (which cut the thick iron bar into the requisite lengths for the tlinks), the brightening box, in which the chains are polished, and the testing machine, where the strength of the cables is, or more often is not, tested.³
In the smaller factories manual labour is employed to work the machines by which the forges are supplied
with blast, and here also the master extorts an unjustifiable profit. I remember seeing a woman thus
supplying “blast” to four forges. She was a pitiful being, chlorotic, with hair almost white, and a
stamp of imbecility - too easily comprehended - on her ravaged and anaemic face. Her work lasts twelve hours
a day, and during the whole of this time she had to turn the handle of a wheel which activated the
bellows of four forges. Each worker paid 3s. a week to the master for blast, whilst the anaemic
Albino received for her squirrel slavery, “when things were good”, the wage of 6s. a week.
Elsewhere I saw single bellows worked - at 3d. a day to the worker, and 6d. to the employer - by very old men and women or by little girls and boys. A particular and pitiful sight was that of a sweet little lass - such as Sir John Millais would have liked to paint - dancing on a pair of bellows for 33. a day to supply “blast” to the chainmaker at the forge, and to put 3d. a day into the pocket of her employer. As she danced, her golden hair flew out, and the firey sparks which showered upon her head reminded me of fireflies seen at night near Florence, dancing over a field of ripe wheat. Indeed this misuse of children is the most reprehensible thing that offends in the Cradley district.
There are here factories where meagre little girls and boys (to whom the youngest Jinks could give points) are put to tasks during their apprenticeship, against which a man would revolt. I have before me an object and a vision. The object is an indenture of apprenticeship; the vision is a thing seen at Cradley in the very factory to which the indenture refers. The indenture has been before my lords in commission assembled and traces of Norman fingers may be recognised in the grime which besmirches this wicked document.
It refers to a girl of fourteen, who is apprentised by “these presents” to the art and trade of chainmaking
at a wage of 2s. 6d. week. The girl undertakes during her apprenticeship neither to haunt taverns nor playhouses,
not to squander what remains of her wages, after paying for “sufficient meat, drink, medecine, clothing,
lodging, and all other necessaries”, in “playing at cards or dice tables, or any other unlawful games.”
The vision is of such a girl at work in this very factory. She was fourteen by the Factory Act: by paternity she was ten, I never saw such little arms, and her hands were made to cradle dolls. She was making links for chain harrows, and as she worked the heavy Oliver she sang a song. And I also saw her owner approach with a clenched fist and heard him say: “I'll give you some golden hair was hanging down her back! Why don't you get on with your work!”
Next to her was a female wisp who was forging dog chains for which, with swivel and ring complete, she received
¾d. (three farthings) a piece. It was the chain which sells currently for eighteenpence. She worked ten
hours a day and could “manage six chains in the day”. And from the conversation which I had with her, I do not
think that she was at all the girl who would haunt playhouses and taverns, or squander her earnings at
dice-tables, cards, or any such unlawful games.
The fogger flourishes in Cradley, no less than in Bromsgrove, with this difference that in Cradley it is most often a woman who assumes the functions of a sweater. Mr. James Smith introduced me to an elderly lady, who keeps a shed in the neighbourhood of the foul Anvil Yard, and employs seven girls. She “has never forged a link of chain in her life and gets a good living” out of the wretched women whom I saw at the forges on her premises.
Her system is a simple one. For every hundredweight of chain produced, she receives 5s. 4d. For every hundredweight she pays 2s. 10d.. The Union would admit 4s. for the Union allows 25 per cent to the fogger. Anything over 25 per cent is considered sweating. Two of the girls working in the shed were suckling babes and could work but slowly. Those who could work at their best being unencumbered, could make a hundredweight of chain in two and a half days. Their owner walked serene and grey-haired among them, checking conversation, and being, at times, abusive. She was but one of a numerous class of human leeches fast to a gangrened sore.
Of Anvil Yard, with its open sewers and filth and shame, one would rather not write, nor of the haggard tatterdermalions who there groaned and jumped. In fact, I hardly saw them. The name “Anvil Yard” had set me thinking of some lines of Goethe, in which he deplores the condition of the people - “zwishen den Amboss und Hammer” - between the anvil and the hammer.
And as these lines went through my head, whilst before my spiritual eyes there passed a pale procession of the White Slaves of England, I could see nothing but sorrow and hunger and grime, rags, foul food, open sores and movements incessant, instinctive yet laborious - an anvil and a hammer ever descending - all vague, and in a mist as yet untinged with red, a spectable so hideous that I gladly shut it out, wondering for my part, what in these things is right.
NOTE. I have to express to Mr. James Smith, the able secretary of the Chainmaker's Union, my sincere thanks for his assistance during my visit to Cradley Heath.
¹ On returning to Ambleside, where I was then living, I sent this poor woman a basket of eggs. In acknowledgement, a lady resident in Cradley Heath wrote: “Mrs. D--- has asked me if I would write a few a few lines for her to you, and having done so, I thought I would add a little from myself, as I am sure you will pardon me for writing to you, though you are an entire stranger to me. I have known Mrs. D--- for nearly ten years, and have found her to be a thoroughly honest and would be a respectable woman, as she comes from a respectable family. But what with bad trade she was nearly brought to starvation some time ago. But I felt as if I could not do enough for her. I am very fond of her, as she is a truthful woman, and I try as often as I can to help her. My father, and some more of the citizens of this dilapidated town, got up a Relief Comittee, and we started a Bread and Tea Fund for the winter months. You would have stared had you seen her children eating the eggs which you sent; as we say in Scotland, it would do 'sair een guid' to have seen them at their tea.” Mrs D---'s message ran “I beg to thank you for box of eggs, which came to hand quite safely, and which myself and husband and children thoroughly enjoyed. It was quite a treat for us to have such a thing in our house. The young lady who is writing this khows how hard I have to work to make an honest living. There is eight of us in the family, and only my second son, a boy of thirteen years of age, getting 4s a week for blowing in a chainmaker's shop, and myself, who makes chain; and after working hard from 7 a.m. till 9 p.m., from Monday till dinner time on Saturday, and receive 6s.”
² At the time when, in the beginning of the winter of last year, the price of bread rose, I felt very anxious for Mrs D--- and her seven dependants, and wrote to ask her how this rise affected her. She answered that prices for chain having slightly improved, she was fortunately able to provide the same amount of bread, i.e., two-thirds of a sufficiency.
³ Quantities of cables are exported from Cradley with bogus certificates of strength. These cables give way under the strain which they are certified to resist; ships and lives are lost and the English chainmaking industry becomes discredited abroad. Custom falls off as a natural consequence, and the men have to suffer for the dishonesty of the masters. I have received several letters on this subject. One gentleman writes from London:- “I am a buyer for one of the large South African Export Houses, and although I was not previously ignorant of many of the facts you state, they came to me with fresh interest, as I have strong reasons for suspecting that a certain firm from whom I have been buying tested chain have been sending me false certificates. I want to get to the bottom of this matter, and it occurred to me that if you would be so kind as to put me in communication with Mr. James Smith he might be able to give me some infomration. I presume he would be glad to do this in the interests of the class he represents, who ultimately suffer by such practices. Further, if he cared to give me a list of the Cradley and Old Hill firms who are known to be sweaters, I should be pleased to avoid them as far as I could, consistent with the interests of my colonial correspondents.” I was sorry, in view of the existing libel laws, not to be able to oblige this correspondent and others who wrote to the same effect.
APPENDIX: The Chain Makers and Nail Makers
The condition of the chain and nail makers is so well known, and the documents establishing this condition are so authoritative and no numerous that it seems almost unnecessary to deal with these trades ant further. I would accordingly have allowed my chapters on chain and nail makers to stand alone, an exposure of a lamentable state of things, had I not received a letter, printed in this sppendix, from a prominent citizen in the Cradley Heath district, which indicates that some substantiation of my statements is required.
Now in glancing over the pages of the “REPORT as to the Conditions of NAIL MAKERS and SMALL CHAIN MAKERS in South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire by the LABOUR CORRESPONDENT of the BOARD OF TRADE,” and of the “REPORT of the SELECT COMMITTEE of the HOUSE OF LORDS on the SWEATING SYSTEM,” I find not only substantiation but amplification. I append a few extracts from the Blue Book referred to.
130. With regard to the wages and hours which prevail in these trades, the evidence, though somewhat conflicting on points of detail, leads to certain very definite conclusions. The facts brought out by the witnesses show that a hard week's work, averaging twelve hours a day for five days out of the week, provides no more than a bare subsistence for the men or women engaged in it. The Rev. H. Rylett, a minister in Dudley, acquainted with the district, stated that the women get from 4s. 6d. to 6s. 6d. a week. A man can make about 3 cwt. of chain in a week, for which receives 5s. per cwt., so that he would earn about 15s. One of the work-women said that she could usually earcn 5s. a week, or something like that, out of which she had to pay 1s. for firing. Another stated that, working from seven in the morning till seven at night, she could make about a cwt. of chain in a week, for which she was paid from 4s. to 6s. 6d., the price varying. “We do not live very well,” she said, “our most living is bacon; we get a bit of butter sometimes.” A girl of the age of eighteen stated that she worked twelve hours a day, and that her net earnings would be about 7s. 1d. Sometimes she had bacon for her dinner; never fresh meat. She gave the weight of the hammer which she used at from 7 to 8 lbs., but this was subsequently proved to be a mistake. The average weight does not exceed 3 lbs. It may here be mentioned that the price of a dog chain which is made by these women for three-farthings is, in London, from 1s. to 1s. 3d. The value of the materials would be about 2d. A still more extraordinary case is that mentions by Mr. Juggins, who stated that cart chains, costing,as far as value of labout and material were concerned, 1½d. and 7d. respectively, had sold in Southport for from 4s. 6d. to 5s., in Liverpool for 5s., and in London for 7s. A male chain maker stated that he earned 14s. or 15s. a weeks, working from seven till seven, except on Monday, when he finished at six and on Saturdays at three. A nail-maker said that out of his week's work only 8s. 6d. remained for himself, after deducting firing and other charges; “and I have worked for that amount of money,” he added, “till I did not know where to put myself.” The following case appears fairly representative. The husband and wife work together, and there are three children, two at school and none at work. The man does the ‘heading,’ the woman the ‘pointing’ of the nails. Their united work brings in from 18s. to £1 a week; out of that about 2s. 3d. for ‘breeze,’ about 5s. for carriage, 2s. 6d. for rent of house and shop, schooling of the children, 6d., 6d. to 9d. for deductions on account of under weight, and the man has to devote from a day to half a day repairing his tools. Eighteeen shillings or £1 does not represent their average weekly earnings over a year, as some weeks they do not get any work at all. Their general hours of work were from seven in the morning till nine at night, with half and hour for breakfast, and hour for dinner, and hald and hour for tea for the man. The witness herself had no time, “on account of there being noone in the house to do the work besides myself.” The hands employed in factories are better paid, the cases which we have cited being take from the persons who work in their own homes. Mr. george Green, a member of a firm of nail and chain makers, carrying on business near Dudley, stated that the average wages per week, taken from the books of his firm, running over four weeks, were, “for women, 8s. 2d.; young women, 9s. 4d.; youths, 12s. 7d.; less 12½ per cent., which would be about the cost of their breeze and the rent of their workshop.” Referring to men's wages, Mr. Green said he said by the ‘list,’ and that they were getting “on an average 26s. 11d. net” but in 1888 he thought they would only have been earning “about 22s.” These were the wages paid for special quality of work and for superior labour. In the case of the men, thirteen in number employed on the premises, these amounts represented individual earnings, but as out-workers employ help, the 26s. 11d., in the majority of cases, must be considered as representing the wages of more than one person. With regard to the half-inch, or common chain, the men would get only 24s. 6d. per week. Out of that sum, Mr. Green said, “you will have to deduct 25 per cent.,” leaving the net earnings 18s. 4½d. Upon the whole, we see no reason to doubt the accuracy of the representations made to us by the workers themseleves.
As to ‘Oliver’:
134. The work of cutting cold iron by means of the ‘oliver’ falls with great severity on the women who are employed at it, and it appears to us that it ought to be discontinued so far as they are concerned. The oliver is a heavy sledge-hammer, worked with a treadle by mmeans of a spring, and when used for cutting cold iron it is totally unsuited for women. Mr. Kerr said: “ I have found among women, especially those that have been working at heavy work, that they are very liable to misplacements of the womb, and to rupture; and also among married women I find that they are very liable to miscarriages, as they frequently go on working when they are in the family way.” He believed that women ought not to be allowed to use it at all, and we fully agree with him. It is the out-workers who suffer, not the women in the regular factories. In every respect it is the former class which requires protection; but as the factory inspectors and other witnesses have shown, they are not willing to be interfered with, fearing a diminuation of their opportunity or power to earn the miserable livelihood which, at the best, is the their command.
‘Oliver’ -- and an oliver weighing 36 pounds at that -- is still in use in Cradley Heath, although this Committee printed the following recommendation in 1890:-
200. Evidence has been brought before us proving that the use of the ‘oliver,’ or heavy sledge-hammer, used for cutting cold iron, is unfit work for women or girls, with the exception of the ‘light oliver,’ adapted for making hobnails; and we recommend that women and girls should be prohibited by law from working the ‘oliver’ when the hammer exceeds a certain specified weight.
My readers will remember my conversation with a woman who had miscarried at every confinement.
The oliver is often so heavy and so much beyond the powers of the frail female being who is yoked to it, that but for the assistance of her children, or of a willing friend, she would be unable to work at all. I saw many women, with three or four little brats each “helping mother,” by throwing their weight on to the treadle when the hammer had to be brought down.
The Report deals at length with the malpractices of the fogger, who is fatter and more foggerish than ever to-day, and laments the manner in which the Truck Act and the Factory Acts are set at nought and the Factory Inspectors are deceived and evaded, and to its pages the reader who is desirous of more information is referred. I will conclude with a quotation from paragraph 134, which is more pitiful than anything I can remember to have read.
The mortality among children is great; more than hald the total deaths. But this must doubtless be ascribed in part to the early marriages and unhealthy parentage. It is “a common thing” for girls and boys to marry at fifteen or sixteen, and then the parents are living all the time close to starvation. The sorrowful state of their lives is sharply depicted in the statement of one of the witnesses, just quoted: “She (the mother) does not get proper attention, but very often gets injury for life from the way she lies in; her children are only a nuisance in the house, and if a child dies, it is 'Thank God it has gone back again'; if the child survives, it is insufficiently fed, and dies, in a vast number of instances, before it reaches one year.”
Aye, indeed, well may the mother thank God.
