The intellect dozes off in dull indolence, but the coarser part of our nature reaches a luxuriant development.  To condemn a human being to such work is to cultivate the animal quality in him.  He grows indifferent, he scorns the impulses and customs which distinguish his kind.  He neglects the conveniences and finer pleasures of life, lives in filthy poverty with scanty nourishment, and squanders the rest of his earnings in debauchery.”—­Dr. J. Kay.

{179a} Manchester Guardian, October 30th.

{179b} “Stubborn Facts,” p. 9 et seq.

{181a} Drinkwater Evidence; p. 80.

{181b} “Stubborn Facts,” pp. 13-17.

{184} Sun, a London daily; end of November, 1844.

{186} I have neither time nor space to deal in detail with the replies of the manufacturers to the charges made against them for twelve years past.  These men will not learn because their supposed interest blinds them.  As, moreover, many of their objections have been met in the foregoing, the following is all that it is necessary for me to add: 

You come to Manchester, you wish to make yourself acquainted with the state of affairs in England.  You naturally have good introductions to respectable people.  You drop a remark or two as to the condition of the workers.  You are made acquainted with a couple of the first Liberal manufacturers, Robert Hyde Greg, perhaps, Edmund Ashworth, Thomas Ashton, or others.  They are told of your wishes.  The manufacturer understands you, knows what he has to do.  He accompanies you to his factory in the country; Mr. Greg to Quarrybank in Cheshire, Mr. Ashworth to Turton near Bolton, Mr. Ashton to Hyde.  He leads you through a superb, admirably arranged building, perhaps supplied with ventilators, he calls your attention to the lofty, airy rooms, the fine machinery, here and there a healthy-looking operative.  He gives you an excellent lunch, and proposes to you to visit the operatives’ homes; he conducts you to the cottages, which look new, clean and neat, and goes with you into this one and that one, naturally only to overlookers, mechanics, etc., so that you may see “families who live wholly from the factory.”  Among other families you might find that only wife and children work, and the husband darns stockings.  The presence of the employer keeps you from asking indiscreet questions; you find every one well-paid, comfortable, comparatively healthy by reason of the country air; you begin to be converted from your exaggerated ideas of misery and starvation.  But, that the cottage system makes slaves of the operatives, that there may be a truck shop in the neighbourhood, that the people hate the manufacturer, this they do not point out to you, because he is present.  He has built a school, church, reading-room, etc.  That he uses the school to train children to subordination, that he tolerates in the reading-room such prints only