sioned by passing from so warm a room filled with steam, to the open air at all seasons, especially in winter evenings; hands much chapped and sore, which it is painful to behold, and considerable swellings of the feet and legs. It is no uncommon thing to hear of eight or ten of them remaining at home sick. Their appearance as they walk along the street, is that of persons far advanced in a decline.
The dry spinners suffer from the dust and small particles of flax, which get on to their lungs and cause asthma, &c. Many of the young women employed in wet and dry flax spinning, die early in life. Should they, however, live till thirty-five or forty years of age, they appear to have all the symptoms of old age.
Since I commenced this article, the "Morning Post" of April 3, 1846, has been handed to me, in which I find the following case of hardship experienced by six young women employed in the flax mills of Dundee, in Scotland, to which I would draw the reader's attention.
It appears that Messrs. Baxter of Dundee, (who are said to be wealthy and powerful persons, influential merchants, flax spinners, bankers and ship owners,) employ 2,500 persons, of whom 1,300 were employed in the factory in which the case to which we refer occurred.
The poor girls are six in number, the eldest nineteen, and the youngest thirteen years of age. Four of the six are orphans, entirely unprotected. They had worked for Messrs. Baxter a long time, and during the whole period of their service had never been guilty of any offence whatever. It appears that their respective wages were $1,32 a week, and that, as some of the operatives employed in the same mill with themselves had lately applied for, and obtained a rise of six cents, (i. e. one cent a day,) in their wages, viz; from $1,32 to $1,38, they applied for a similar advance, and were refused. The rules
