Page:The Laboring Classes of England.djvu/89

 least relief. Finding no remedy in the law, he seriously entertained the idea of committing suicide; for this purpose he went up to an attic window in order to throw himself out. While contemplating the awful leap he was about to make, something seemed to whisper, "Have faith, and struggle on." He then abandoned the idea.

Having completed his term of fourteen years, viz., from seven till twenty-one, he worked till he had saved a little money, and then left that place, which had been the scene of so much suffering to him and his companions. Many of the children who left St. Pancras with him, had gone the way of all flesh, one had become an idiot, inconsequence of ill treatment; one girl was unable to walk without the aid of crutches; and the remainder were more or less crippled and mutilated in various parts of their persons. Smith was a sad spectacle to look upon, stunted in growth, his legs twisted by standing so many hours at the frames, his countenance haggard and care-worn; altogether he presented the appearance of a man of seventy years, who had seen much service, rather than a person of twenty-one years, just entering upon manhood.

Although he had been thus crippled, and had not been taught the business to which he had been bound, yet there was no law in England whereby he, in his poor condition, could obtain compensation for the injuries he had suffered, or might suffer through life, in consequence of the unfeeling avarice of his masters.

The subsequent history of Charles Smith is one continued series of trials, arising out of his crippled condition; and though it might be interesting to the general reader to know how, by patient, persevering industry, he afterwards so far overcame the difficulties of his position as to become a small tradesman in Manchester, yet these particulars would far exceed our limits.