Have you ever observed any inconvenience to the health of those very young children from being employed so many hours?--I can only state ... that they enjoy very excellent health ...
Do you not conceive, that a regulation preventing children of six, seven or eight years of age from working more than eight hours a day, would ultimately increase their strength and promote their growth?--If I had been in the habit of indulging myself in abstract matters, I might be able to answer the question; but my answer goes only to practical experience of what is the effect; the comparative state of health they would enjoy in another situation, is an abstract question which I am not competent to answer.
You have never found that the children of six, seven or eight years of age, from being worked ten hours and a half, have sallow countenances, or inclination to the rickets, or any of those effects which arise from children at an early period of life being overworked?--I do not reside on the spot myself, but I pay occasional visits, and have always been very much satisfied with the state of health of the children I have employed ...
Do you conceive that working in the factories is favourable to the morals of young people?--So far favourable to it, if I may venture to say so, that it keeps them out of mischief; and while they are industriously employed, they are less likely to contract evil habits than if they are idling their time away.
Evidence of James Pattison{men like that now run this country}
� - J.T. Ward, "The Factory System", vol. II, The Factory System and Society (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1970), pp. 68-69.
"Report of Minutes of Evidence respecting the state of health and morals of children employed in manufactories: chiefly as to cotton factories", Parliamentary Papers 1816, III, pp. 76-79
