OBJECTIVE.
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steam-pipes, and obvious motives of economy dictate that as little as possible of it shall be lost by open •windows. ... In most of the spinning-rooms there are one or more privies, usually of very rude construction, and almost always opening directly into the room, with very inadequate, apertures to the outside air. The soil falls down a large untrapped pipe, which is flushed often or seldom, according to the varying attention given it.”
This is a picture that would be entirely correct of many factories to-day in this Commonwealth, though I am glad to believe that a marked improvement in these regards has characterized nearly all larger factories, and some of the smaller.
Wherever the manifestly injurious influences I have mentioned are present, there cannot fail to be both physical and mental impairment, ill suited to sustain or to resist the further encroachments of the demand made by certain of the processes of factory labor for alert co-operation of mind and body.
Exhibiting, as it does, so great a variety and grave a degree of devitalizing power