OBJECTIVE.

49

speed of machinery, and the constant demand for increased production.

‘ ‘ The depressing agents upon the physical strength of the operatives are not those which exhaust from the wear and tear of muscular- fibre simply, but from loss of nervous energy by perpetual excitement, and from long continuance in overcrowded, ill-ventilated rooms.” *

Thousands of children, more than half of them girls, are to-day employed in the various industries of this State, undermining, in a great proportion of cases, that physical vig#r which alone will serve as a sound basis for the moral, mental, and material prosper­ity of a nation.

I have said that the second causative error affecting our growing girls in their employ­ments is —

The disregard (even in defiance of the statute) which our managers of industries exhibit for the cardinal principles of contin­ued prosperity and individual happiness, in the regular and prolonged employ of the

Report Sanitary Condition of Leeds, 1842.