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.