At certain seasons of the year they actually die off like flies.  They fall subject, not to children’s diseases exactly—­nothing really natural seems to come into the course of these little existences—­they fall a prey to the maladies that are the outcomes of their conditions.  They are always half-clad in the winter time; their clothes differ nothing at all from their summer clothes; they have no overcoats or coats; many of them go barefoot all winter long.  They come out from the hot mills into cold, raw winds and fall an easy prey to pneumonia, scourge of the mill-town.  Their general health is bad all the year round; their skins and complexions have taken the tone of the sandy soil of the Southern country in which they are bred and in which their martyrdom is accomplished.  I never saw a rosy cheek nor a clear skin:  these are the parchment editions of childhood on which Tragedy is written indelibly.  You can there read the eternal condemnation of those who have employed them for the sake of gain.

It is a melancholy satisfaction to believe that mill labour will kill off little spinners and spoolers.  Unfortunately, this is not entirely true.  There are constitutions that survive all the horrors of existence.  I have worked both in Massachusetts and the South beside women who entered the mill service at eight years of age.  One of these was still in her girlhood when I knew her.  She was very strong, very good and still had some illusions left.  I do not know what it goes to prove, when I say that at twenty, in spite of twelve years of labour, she still dreamed, still hoped, still longed and prayed for something that was not a mill.  If this means content in servitude, if this means that the poor white trash are born slaves, or if, on the contrary, it means that there is something inherent in a woman that will carry her past suicide and past idiocy and degradation, all of which is around her, I think it argues well for the working women.

The other woman was forty.  She had no illusions left—­please remember she had worked since eight; she had reached, if you like, the idiot stage.  She had nothing to offer during all the time I knew her but a few sentences directly in connection with her toil.

It is useless to advance the plea that spooling is not difficult.  No child (we will cancel under twelve!) should work at all.  No human creature should work thirteen hours a day.  No baby of six, seven or eight should be seen in the mills.

It is also useless to say that these children tell you that they “like the mill.”  They are beaten by their parents if they do not tell you this, and, granted that they do not like their servitude, when was it thought expedient that a child should direct its existence?  If they do not pass the early years of their lives in study, when should they learn?  At what period of their lives should the children of the Southern mill-hand be educated?  Long before they reach their teens their habits are