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 280 pleasures or the comforts of a home. With none to take charge of the house, or to perform the simplest domestic duties, the abode of the family presented, when visited by me, an appearance more squalid and cheerless than that to be witnessed in the hovel of the poorest Dorsetshire labourer. But what else had we reason to anticipate in such a case?

In other instances investigated by me, the females were unmarried, and yet had families of their own. Many cases of gross profligacy and shocking depravity have been related of this class, and few of them long retain even the semblance of the characteristic modesty and purity of their sex, the nature of their unwomanly occupation leading them into emulating the vices as well as the habits of their male fellow-workers. More than one female has achieved a certain amount of notoriety by her pugilistic exploits, while others have displayed drinking powers which would astonish many a south-country toper. Yet there are many who have escaped the full measure of degradation meted out to their unfortunate sisters, and who, clad in more womanly guise, are to be found amongst the most regular and attentive frequenters of the various places of worship, particularly those of Dissenters, in the district. Why these women should continue to follow their unsuitable and unfit occupation is an anomaly for which it is difficult to account, except by supposing that habits and association have somewhat blunted their finer feelings. Still, it is sad to think that such a state of things should be found existing at the present day in some of our most important industrial districts.

The more intelligent and thoughtful of the miners themselves have repeatedly protested against it, but their protests are of no avail. The employers state that the remedy lies in the hands of the men, who have but to keep their wives and daughters at home, and the evil will be checked at once. Very true, but does the misconduct, folly, or what we will, of the men justify the employers in thus permitting or tolerating the misuse of female labour? The truth is, female labour is plentiful and cheaper, far cheaper, than that of the men, and unscrupulous employers will be found very slow in encouraging a change which may tend to diminish their profits. There are very many collieries, however, where no female labourers are allowed, and I have not heard that the proprietors of these have been losers thereby. If they did have to pay more for manual labour, they had that labour far better and more effectively performed than if it had been done by females, while they were exempt from the frightful amount of demoralisation entailed by the toleration of a pernicious and utterly unjustifiable system. Indeed, there is not a single point on which that system can be successfully defended, and if neither masters nor men will assist in putting it down, the task must devolve on the legislature, which, for the sake of future generations yet unborn, for the sake of the future mothers of our mining population, and for the sake of the moral, social, and physical welfare of the present generation itself, should not hesitate to prohibit a species of labour which forms one of the few remaining links by which our present civilisation is united to a barbaric past.