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SEX IN INDUSTRY.
plement of the motions of the machine which the operative tends. Even in many of the higher grades of labor in which numbers of young workwomen are engaged, as type-setting, telegraphing, money-changing, etc., the individual becomes almost or wholly subservient to, and absorbed by, the occupation or process to which she is devoted.
Mr. Robinson of Dukinfield, in his report to Messrs. Bridges and Holmes,* says, —
“ The injurious element in factory labor is the incessant and increased action of machinery, preventing the body having those brief periods of repose which, if left to itself, it instinctively would have. I attribute the difference in healthy vigor between colliers and mechanics on the one hand, and factory- workers on the other, to the constant demand upon muscular and mental activity made by constant action of the swift machinery.
‘ ‘ Though the thing done is so monotonous and uninteresting, any negligence is fatal to the work, and the attention must be unremitting ; and this call for unremitting attention is increased by the increased
* Op. cit. p.