ernment; and give to the working man a voice in making the laws by which he is governed. These and other reforms are needed. They are the chief cause of the evils complained of. Remove the cause, and the effects will cease.
The effects of factory labor on females are in part illustrated by the following anecdote, related to me by a respectable linen and woolen draper of Ashton-under-lyne, with whom I had the pleasure of dining.
"A poor woman came into my shop," said he, "one Saturday night in September last, (1841) for the purpose of purchasing some small article. She had a child about twelve months old in her arms, which she set upon the counter, with its back against a pile of goods, in order that she might have her hands at liberty to examine the article she wanted. The child was not noticed by the shopmen till it became troublesome; and being Saturday night, and a great many women in the shop, I asked whose child it was, but none of the women present would take to it. A thought instantly struck me that some one had been playing the trick of child-dropping with me; however, as we were busy, I ordered the child to be brought into my parlor, and laid upon the sofa, upon which you are now sitting, where it soon fell fast asleep. About an hour afterwards, a woman came into the shop in great haste, and inquired if she had left a child there. She was brought into the parlor to see if the one lying asleep on the sofa was hers. As soon as she saw it, she cried out, ' Yes; bless thee, it is thee! ' She was then asked, how she came to leave it, and by what means she had discovered her loss. To which she answered, f That while attending to the purchase she had been making, she had quite forgotten her child. That she had been through the market, and in many other shops, and had bought all the things she wanted, but never once found
