out her loss till she got home, and was asked by her husband where she had left the child. To which, she said, Why, the child is up stairs asleep in bed, to be sure. But, being convinced to the contrary, and that she had taken it out with her, she began to think where she had left it. There was then no alternative but going round to every shop at which she had called; and, at last, she came to the right one.' She had left the child in the same manner as people sometimes forget their umbrellas, or a paper parcel. So you may judge," said the draper to me, "what is the effect of the system of factory labor upon these poor people and their offspring!"
I was not surprised to hear this account, well knowing, as I did, that the mothers only see their infants at morning, noon and night, except they are brought to the factory to be suckled in some other part of the day; and that for the most part, the children are in the care of strangers.
LETTER XV.
VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE IN ENGLISH FACTORIES.
In the year 1769, Mr. Richard Arkwright obtained his first patent for spinning cotton yarn, and commenced manufacturing by machinery. This was the beginning of the Factory System. Innumerable examples are furnished by history to show that at this time the inhabitants of the North and Midland counties of England, were a healthy, hardy, strong, robust people.
It was to these counties that the government looked for supplies for the Army and Navy, more particularly
