Page:How contagion and infection are spread, through the sweating system in the tailoring trade.djvu/24

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The places actually visited are where 1,329 men, women, and girls work, the time was the slackest in the year for the tailoring trade, and the work being hurried we could not visit all the places in the same street which were engaged in this class of work. There were certain factories employing from 80 to 100 hands not visited. We estimate that there are about 3,000 people engaged in the trade in Manchester, and that only about 1,000 work in shops provided by their employers. We have given an account in the margin of each district visited. In this we cannot depict the disgust we experienced in some of the places. In one street in the Red Bank district the expression used by ourselves was that it was "horrible." Clothes were being made for both retail and wholesale houses. In the places we visited there was not, as far as we saw, any cases of contagion, but we heard of such in several neighbourhoods. The general condition of the workers is deplorable; on all sides is seen the result of constant dreary work, with small pay. In one house, an emaciated man and woman and consumptive lad were at work late at night. In the intensity of feeling, one of the committee exclaimed, as he was leaving, "Oh! for the genius of a Hood, who could sing the song of a thousand suits, and move the hearts of the wearers to think of the responsibility of patronising firms that resort to such a practice." The system is not only deterrent to the healthiness and progress of those engaged in it, but also to the general position of the operative in shops. The work done at these houses is paid less for than in the workshop; hence there are few employers who do not resort to it. There are not above six firms in Manchester who have all their work done in proper workshops. Thus the condition of the operative tailor is far worse than that of other workmen. When less price is paid for work done at home, the man is obliged to bring in the assistance of his wife and family—hence it is not to be wondered at that homes become neglected, and epidemic diseases attack such homes as described in our report. The committee, in describing their mission, begin by stating that knowledge is power, and the fact became patent that as workmen they were not able to earn a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, according to the generally recognised notions of experienced tradesmen. The knowledge that they were losing the power of providing decently for themselves and families made it incumbent on their society to ascertain the extent to which the system of sending work to the homes of the operatives had extended, and also to gain a knowledge of the aspect of the question so far as it affected the public generally; and with the feeling that in the question of out-