Manchester DBQ

A place more destitute than Manchester is not easy to conceive. In size and population it is the second city of the kingdom. Imagine this multitude crowded together in narrow streets, the houses all built of brick and blackened with smoke: frequent buildings among them as large as convents, without their antiquity, without their beauty, without their holiness, where you hear from within, the everlasting din of machinery; and where, when the bell rings, it is to call the wretches to their work instead of their prayers.

Shouting “No Corn Laws,”* the vast Manchester crowd was the lowest order of artisans and mechanics, among whom a dangerous spirit of discontent with the Government prevailed. Groans and hisses greeted the carriage, full of influential personages, in which the Prime Minister sat. High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces a loom had been erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking weaver, evidently set there as a representative man, to protest against the triumphs of machinery and the gain and glory which wealthy Liverpool and Manchester men were likely to derive from it.


*The Corn Laws were tariffs on imported grain.

Everything in the outward appearance of the city attests to the individual powers of man; nothing to the directing power of society. Nowhere do you see happy ease taking his leisurely walk in the streets of the city or going to seek simple enjoyment in the surrounding country. A multitude passes along without stopping; it looks abstracted, its aspect somber and uncouth.

From this foul drain the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilize the whole world. From this filthy sewer pure gold flows. Here humanity attains its most complete development and its most brutish; here civilization works its miracles, and civilized man is turned back into a savage.

Unless you have visited the manufacturing towns and seen the workers of Manchester, you cannot appreciate the physical suffering and moral degradation of this class of the population. Most workers lack clothing, bed, furniture, fuel, wholesome food—even potatoes! They spend from twelve to fourteen hours each day shut up in low-ceilinged rooms where with every breath of foul air they absorb fibers of cotton, wool or flax, or particles of copper, lead or iron. They live suspended between an insufficiency of food and an excess of strong drink; they are all wizened, sickly and emaciated, their bodies thin and frail, their limbs feeble, their complexions pale, their eyes dead. If you visit a factory, it is easy to see that the comfort and welfare of the workers have never entered the builder’s head.


O God! Can progress be bought only at the cost of men’s lives?

The condition of the factory laborers has been vastly improved within the last quarter of a century. The Hours of Labor in Factories Act, passed in 1844, worked a thorough reform. The excessive hours of labor have been legally reduced to ten hours per day. Wages—thanks mainly to accelerated machinery and improved working conditions—have largely increased. A new cotton mill of the first class is a model of spaciousness and convenience. The lavish provision of public parks, baths, and free libraries promotes the health, happiness and culture of the industrial orders. Far seldomer than before do we hear the murmur of popular discontent. Sickness and mortality have been reduced to an extent that is almost incredible.