Show british factory life ta the lo 10 last number of good company gives a 31 ai lively cly sketch ft ef the manul ac turing district 1101 act surrounding manchester england thia great city itself contains a population of more than halt balf a million it has lim 2000 cotton mills sow none of them however are as larg largo is as the pacina mills nills at fall aliver maia ma ia seventy five per cent of tho manchester manufactories manu factories arc are engaged in ill cotton ind ris tries the reat ai oiron glass and chemical works the operatives who labor in the manchester mills aro are a fair t type pe of tho the british factory people t throughout the kingdom besides the operatives manchester always holds a large floating F population ot homal hom clesi wretches in ill search efem of employment the writer in good company says that while the american ican laborer of the tile class corresponding A in to these homeless ss vagabonds is quite q cs as improvident ident as ds they the r vare are ho he is is not ao so ignorantly aly stupid mr hulburt lias bas made a careful stud study y odthe population of the largest exclusively causi clu ea in manufacturing anual actu ring city in tho the world he lie has visited the tile operate ope operatives rati I at their homes bool looked ed into their amu amusements sellic aits society morals and bannert he lias conversed with the city officials city missionaries with w ith manufacturers and many times with the people themselves av es from all these lie has been able to form a fair estimate of ol the effect of several generations of factory life on the human race some Som years eyears ago the fl factory act ory people of manchester lived mostly in ill tenement houses oi or damp dirty cellars their condi condition flon waa was worse than that of a pig in a sty but public sentiment which moves surely in england if slowly has changed this hows rows of neat looking brick cottages have largely taken take n the place of the disgraceful quarters occupied before yet the improvement perhaps is is more apparent than real the evil sought ought to be remedied in one direction has lias broken out in another tho the law may inay f force oree landlords into outward conformity comfor mity to sanitary regulations regulation but it cannot eradicate tho the passions of avarice from the human soul the neat looking brick houses bouses have walls excessively thin and arc are nil all too often made of half baked clay and mud and compo made raw shrinking timber gaping joiners work ork foul chimneys unsound roof damp basement rooms and find insufficient drains this is a picture not wholly unfamiliar to the american the atlantic added to the fact of the unhealthy wretchedly built houses is the additional fact that the mistress L of the humble mansion kno knows WS no more of housekeeping house keeping and homemaking than a child five years old does dom slie has lins been brought u up P as a cotton weaver she can rarely realand read and write knows neither how low to cook tew tow or wash the manchester factory girl marries early the mora in ignorant Z orant she u is the carlz earlier carlier sho the marries usually at the age of seventeen or eighteen her hus husband bInd is like herself a factory operative tive he ile is more enlightened t ogra thag haq and in addition addition is is inh inclined c ined to drunken habits they have no proper homo home life the wife docs does or does not do the best bat she can but the result is the tile same in in tiny case her table is covered with unwholesome food which begin begins at once to tell upon her lier family she depends almost wholly upon the grocers shop around the corner for bread cheese herrings it which require no cooking and supplements with boiled potatoes and tea thus they live entirely on pickup pick up meals to which both husband and wife learn to add a pint of strong beer in course of time both li huband and wife learn where to find a place which has haba a clean floor music and a bright cheerful look of evenings it asin is in the drinking shop drunk enness is the universal vice of the manchester factory operatives operative mr ir hulburt says the prisons hospitals and poor houses bouses are overcrowded over crowded with working people the tile condition conditi olk of three fourths of whom is duo due directly to drunkenness in manchester cl iester there is a licensed d drinking shop I to every one hundred a and thirty five inhabitants theli the vice cc is said to be slowly debasing the english workman taking away aw ay both IS his his Eby physical energy and the skill which has as made his fame worldwide world wide how much of this state of things is due to the operatives innate depravity and how much to the tile stifling smoke and soot of manchester is a question that is beginning nin to occupy the attention of philanthropists As a a rule the british factory operative isan is an improvident creature ture high wages do not seem to improve his condition much he hp only spends themore tho the manchester working people arc are inspired by an ambition to dress as richly as their supposed betters Itus it used euto to bo said that this aspiration was peculiar to american working people now at any rate it is no longer so the british operatives dress extravagantly if the women have ono one consuming ambition it is the lofty desire to possess possum a sealskin n cloak the men mon are equally y str strong ong in in their aspirations after a black suit and a silk hat when work is plenty tho the operative a leads a happy g go lucky lifo life spending ai as he goes during times of prosperity rather curiously dru drunkenness kenness and police misdemeanors increase on the other hand band y gk when times are lyard and money is is scarce thy coraa B and lic health althof of these working copac C im improve p r v e mothers others being out of f af pf factory a t r y v work r r k ill stay at home horne and care fur fr their children and house there being no money to spend in the beer house drunkenness een sibly bly dimini dils for ali c reason ali the health of the people ia is actually better during hard i than ill in good time times it ia is sl stated altel on tho tile best authority that the death rate is much smaller during a commercial depret depression sion than in ordinary times |