The doors are closed ten minutes after work begins, and thereafter no one is admitted until the breakfast hour; whoever is absent during this time forfeits 3d. per loom. 2.  Every power-loom weaver detected absenting himself at another time, while the machinery is in motion, forfeits for each hour and each loom, 3d.  Every person who leaves the room during working-hours, without obtaining permission from the overlooker, forfeits 3d. 3.  Weavers who fail to supply themselves with scissors forfeit, per day, 1d. 4.  All broken shuttles, brushes, oil-cans, wheels, window panes, etc., must be paid for by the weaver. 5.  No weaver to stop work without giving a week’s notice.  The manufacturer may dismiss any employee without notice for bad work or improper behaviour. 6.  Every operative detected speaking to another, singing or whistling, will be fined 6d.; for leaving his place during working-hours, 6d. {179b} Another copy of factory regulations lies before me, according to which every operative who comes three minutes too late, forfeits the wages for a quarter of an hour, and every one who comes twenty minutes too late, for a quarter of a day.  Every one who remains absent until breakfast forfeits a shilling on Monday, and sixpence every other day of the week, etc, etc.  This last is the regulation of the Phoenix Works in Jersey Street, Manchester.  It may be said that such rules are necessary in a great, complicated factory, in order to insure the harmonious working of the different parts; it may be asserted that such a severe discipline is as necessary here as in an army.  This may be so, but what sort of a social order is it which cannot be maintained without such shameful tyranny?  Either the end sanctifies the means, or the inference of the badness of the end from the badness of the means is justified.  Every one who has served as a soldier knows what it is to be subjected even for a short time to military discipline.  But these operatives are condemned from their ninth year to their death to live under the sword, physically and mentally.  They are worse slaves than the negroes in America, for they are more sharply watched, and yet it is demanded of them that they shall live like human beings, shall think and feel like men!  Verily, this they can do only under glowing hatred towards their oppressors, and towards that order of things which place them in such a position, which degrades them to machines.  But it is far more shameful yet, that according to the universal testimony of the operatives, numbers of manufacturers collect the fines imposed upon the operatives with the most heartless severity, and for the purpose of piling up extra profits out of the farthings thus extorted from the impoverished proletarians.  Leach asserts, too, that the operatives often find the factory clock moved forward a quarter of an hour and the doors shut, while the clerk moves about with the fines-book inside, noting the many names of the