morality, which, according to the opinion universally expressed, prevails to a most awful extent in Nottingham.
Women brought up under such a system know little of the domestic duties of every day life, and which are so essentially necessary to be known by those who may be called upon to fill the important stations of wives and mothers. Hence we find them after marriage still engaged at their own houses in some process of lace manufacture, while the duties of the family are intrusted to others.
Having; no time to attend to their families, nor even to discharge the first and most sacred duty of mothers, that of nursing their offspring, they freely administer opium in some form, such as Godfrey's and Anodyne cordial, and laudanum, to their infants. These drugs are given to infants at the breast, not because the child is ill, but to compose it to rest, in order to prevent their cries interfering with the protracted labor by which they strive to obtain a miserable subsistence. The infants become pale, tremulous, and emaciated, the joints and head enlarge, they become listless, and death at length steps in to their relief.
Great numbers of children are thus carried off yearly; should they, however, get over "the seasoning," as it is called, they begin to come round about three or four years old, i. e., as soon as the laudanum is discontinued.
In the present state of trade, it would be impossible for men to do without their wives laboring; they must work. however many children they may have; from the same cause, the children must go out to work as soon as they are able to use the needle. With respect to wages, I will not venture to make any statement; I fear it would not be credited. This may be imagined from two things: first, the condition of the people; second, from the fact that a piece of lace which for-
