Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/463

Rh incident to the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property than the-unrestricted use of time which all may and must share alike unless prevented by unlawful interference?

We may now observe a tendency in many arts, through the progress of science and invention, to pass out of the great factory so as to become again household industries under better conditions, more favorable to production, and less arduous in their conduct than these same branches of industry formerly were before science and invention had come to their aid and had removed them from the house to the factory. The application of water-power to the conduct of the work in the factory rendered it necessary to place the factory in the narrow valleys alongside the river below the fall, and that tended to the concentration of great bodies of men and women in the textile factory. When these branches of industry were first established and were operated by water-power on a large scale, such had been the arduous conditions of life among the farmers of New England that the well-bred daughters of these farmers found it expedient to go from the farm to the factory, where they worked in low-studded, ill-ventilated, badly lighted, and badly heated rooms fourteen hours a day for a measure of earnings only one half that which their successors secure to their own enjoyment, working ten hours a day in a modern, high-studded, well-ventilated factory.

There has been a natural progress in saving time which is due to the application of art and science to production. Science and invention have shortened the hours of work in spite of the meddlesome interference of statutes, and will continue to do so, paying little regard to statute law except so far as restrictions upon the use of time may put off the day rather than hasten it when the hours of work may be shortened yet more.

The application of steam and illuminating gas again tended to concentrate great forces of men and women in the workshop and in the factory and in the upper stories of city warehouses. The power of steam can not be sent far distances. Illuminating gas can only be carried in large pipes at light pressure on short lines. This phase is passing. Profound changes are working. By means of a wire, power, light, and the direction of the work can be carried long distances. The power of the waterfall in the narrow gorge where there is no room for a factory can be carried on the wire to the far-away uplands, where under the best conditions of life the workshops may be established. Fuel-gas distilled from coal by the seaside or near the bank of the river may be carried in small pipes at high pressure far away from the source where it is generated.

We are just entering upon the period of rapid transit underneath the ground, by means of which men and women may be