Page:The Laboring Classes of England.djvu/101

 meals is occupied in cleaning machinery, but is entirely at the disposal of the work people.

Those work people who live at a distance, and who are obliged to bring their food with them, have a warm, convenient room provided for them to sit in, and their victuals are made warm and comfortable, as if they had been at home; this arrangement is attended with very little cost, while it enables every one to have warm, clean and comfortable meals.

The dining room is a large one, on the ground floor, kept for this, and no other purpose. It is provided with good strong tables and forms, and kept very clean and orderly. Adjoining this room is a smaller one, used for the sole purpose of warming the provisions of the work people; it is well fitted up with a steam apparatus, troughs, shelves, &c. The children and others, who live at a distance, being their breakfast, dinner and tea when they come to work, in tin cans (which are all numbered), and place them on the particular shelf allotted to the room in which they work. A man (and sometimes also a woman) looks after this room, and gets every tin made warm by means of the steam apparatus, and all placed on their respective tables in proper time. It gave me great pleasure to inspect the arrangements of these well regulated rooms.

In one of my visits, Mr. Balme, the schoolmaster, kindly accompanied me to the dining room; we took our station at the lower end of the room, directly opposite the entrance, and awaited the coming of the children. This, I was told, is part of the schoolmaster's duty, and his presence preserves silence and order during meal hours. Exactly at the half hour the engine stopped, and the children, to the number of about 400, began to come in to breakfast. All the tin cans containing their tea or coffee had been placed on the table ready, and all had