of the misery that impended, in the midst of which he afterwards looked back to St. Pancras as to an elysium.
Prior to the show day of the pauper children to the cotton manufacturer, the most illusive and artfully contrived stories were spread, to fill the minds of these poor infants with the most absurd and ridiculous errors, as to the real nature of the servitude to which they were to be consigned. From the statement of the victims to this bondage, it seems to have been a constant rule with those who had the disposal of parish children, before sending them off to the cotton mills, to fill their minds with the same delusion. Their hopes being thus excited, it was next stated to these innocent victims, that no one could be compelled to go, nor any but volunteers accepted.
When it was supposed that these excitements had operated to induce a ready acquiescence in the proposed migration, all the children, male and female, who were, or appeared to be, seven years old, were assembled in the committee room for the purpose of being examined, touching their health, capacity and willingness to go and serve as apprentices in the way and manner required, for the term of fourteen years.
The boys were to be instructed in cotton spinning and stocking weaving; the girls in cotton spinning and lace making. There was no specification whatever, as to the time their masters were to be allowed to work these poor children, although at this period, great cruelties were known to be exercised by the owners of cotton mills upon their apprentices.
Thus did the church-wardens and overseers of the poor of St. Pancras parish in the month of August, 1799, make over to Messrs. Lambert's, cotton spinners, hosiers and lace men, of St. Mary's parish, Nottingham, our young orphan boy, together with seventy-nine other boys and
