Page:The Laboring Classes of England.djvu/79

 room, fitted up in the workhouse style, with long, narrow deal tables, and wood benches for seats on each side. The room seemed tolerably clean; but there was a rank, oily smell, which Smith did not much admire. They were ordered to sit down at these tables, the boys and girls apart. The other apprentices had not left work when these children arrived. The supper set before them consisted of milk-porridge, (i. e. oat-meal boiled in milk and water) and rye bread, very black and soft. Smith says it stuck to their teeth like bird-lime. As the young strangers gazed mournfully at each other, the governor and governess, as the master and mistress of the apprentices were styled, kept walking round them and making very coarse remarks. The governor was a huge, raw-boned man, who had served in the army, and had been a drill sergeant. Unexpectedly, he produced a large horsewhip, which he clanged in such a manner that it made the house re-echo. In a moment the children, who had been laughing and joking about the bread, &c., were reduced to the most solemn silence and submission. Even young Smith, who had been one of the ringleaders in these proceedings, was bereft of all his gaiety by the tremendous clang of the whip, and sat as demure as a truant scholar, just previous to his flogging; yet the master of the house had not uttered a single threat, nor, indeed, had he occasion, his stern and forbidding aspect, and his terrible horsewhip inspired quite as much terror as was requisite. Knowing that the apprentices from the mill were coming, this formidable being retired, to the great relief of the young strangers; but so deep an impression had he created, that they sat erect, scarcely daring to look on one side or the other.

While they were in this subdued state, their attention was suddenly attracted by the loud shouting of many voices; almost instantly the stone room filled with a mul-