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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1835 edition. Excerpt:... 277 BOOK THE THIRD. CHAPTER I. MORAL ECONOMY OF THE FACTORY SYSTEM. Condition of our Factory Operatives, as to Personal Comforts, compared to that of other Labouring Classes; or the Quantity and Quality of their Work considered, relatively to the means of Enjoyment which it can procure.--History of the Discontents, Prejudices, and Legislation on this subject. The ancient feeling of contempt entertained by the country gentlemen towards the burghers, which vented itself during the lawless period of the middle ages, in every form of contumely and outrage, seems still to rankle in the breasts of many members of our aristocracy, is still fostered by the panegyrists of their order, and displayed itself, not equivocally, in the late parliamentary crusade against the factories. One of their most eloquent advocates and partisans speaks of the great development of our mechanical industry in the following scornful terms: --" It is a wen, a fungous excrescence from the body politic; the growth might have been checked, if the consequences had been apprehended in time; but now it has acquired so great a bulk, its nerves have branched so widely, and the vessels of the tumour are so inosculated into some of the principal veins and arteries of the natural system, that to remove it by absorption is impossible, and excision will be fatal *." Could a metaphor have proved anything, a more appropriate one might have been found, in the process of vegetable and animal generation, to illustrate the great truth, that Providence has assigned to man the glorious function of vastly improving the productions of nature by judicious culture, and of working them up into objects of comfort and elegance with the least possible expenditure of human labour--an undeniable...