In the matter of general injury to health, under “B,” it is stated that many factories are far better ventilated and lighted than the homes of the operatives.  Ignorant employees cannot be impressed with the need of care on these points, and the air in their homes is foul and productive of disease.  A cotton-mill is often better ventilated than a court-room or a lecture-room.  A well-built factory allows not less than six hundred cubic feet of air space to a person, thirty to sixty cubic feet a minute being required.  Ranke, in his “Elements of Physiology,” makes it thirty-five a minute.

The homes of operatives have steadily improved in character; and wherever there is an intelligent class of operatives, regulations are obeyed, and sanitary conditions are fair and often perfect, while the tendency is toward more and more care in every respect.  Operatives’ homes are often better guarded against sanitary evils than those of farmers or the ordinary laborer.

Under “C” it is shown conclusively that the factory has diminished intemperance,—­Reybaud’s “History of the Factory Movement” giving full statistics on this point, as well as in regard to the growth of banks and benefit societies.  The standard of living is higher here, but there are countless evidences of thrift and a general rise in condition.

In the matter of prostitution, under “D,” it is shown that but eight per cent of this class come from the factory, twenty-nine per cent being from domestic service.  In Lynn, Mass., a town chosen for illustration because of the large percentage of factory operatives, it was found that but seven per cent of those arrested were from this class; and this is true of all points where the foreign-born element is not largely in the majority.

Last comes the question of intellectual degeneracy, under “E.”  On this point it is hardly fair to make comparison of the present worker with the Lowell girl of the first period of factory labor, since she came from an educated class, and was distinctively American.  Taking workers as a whole, a vast advance shows itself.  Regularity and fixed rule have often been the first education in this direction; and the life, even with all its drawbacks, has the right to be regarded as an educational force, and the first step in this direction for a large proportion of the workers in it.  There are points where the arraignment of Alfred, in his “History of the Factory Movement,” is still true.[16] He speaks of it as a “system which jested with civilization, laughed at humanity, and made a mockery of every law of physical and moral health and of the principles of natural and social order.”  The “Report of the New York Bureau of Labor for 1885” shows that the charge might still be righteously brought; and Mr. Bishop gives the same testimony in his reports for New Jersey.  Evil is still part of the system, and well-nigh inseparable from the methods of production and the conditions of competition; but that there are evils is recognized at all points, and thus their continuance will not and cannot be perpetuated.