Note 135 — Chapter III

In his work, “The Condition of the Working Class in England”, Engels depicts these consequences in the following terms: “The collecting of persons of both sexes and all ages in a single workroom, the inevitable contact, the crowding into a small space of people to whom neither mental nor moral education has been given, is not calculated for the favorable development of the female character. The manufacturer, if he pays any attention to the matter at all, can interfere only when something scandalous actually occurs; the permanent, less conspicuous influence of persons of dissolute character, upon the more moral, and especially upon the younger ones, he cannot ascertain and consequently cannot prevent. The language used in the workshops was characterized by many witnesses in the report of 1833 as ‘indecent’, ‘bad’, ‘filthy’, etc. (Cowell, evid., pp. 35, 37, and in many other places). It is the same process upon a small scale which we have already witnessed upon a great one in the great cities. The centralization of population has the same influence upon the same persons, whether it affects them in a great city or in a small factory. The smaller the mill, the closer the packing, and the more unavoidable the contact; and the consequences are not wanting. A witness in Leicester says that he would rather let his daughter beg than have her go into a factory; that they are perfect gates of hell; that most of the prostitutes of the town had the mills to thank for their present condition (Power, evid., p. 8). Another in Manchester ‘did not hesitate to assert that three-fourths of the young factory employees of from 14 to 20 years of age were unchaste’ (Cowell, evid., p. 57). Commissioner Cowell expresses it as his opinion, that the morality of the factory operatives is somewhat below the average of the working class in general (p. 82). And Dr. Hawkins says (Rept. p. 4), ‘An estimate of sexual morality cannot readily be reduced to figures, but if I may trust my own observations and the general opinion of those with whom I have spoken, as well as the whole tenor of the testimony furnished me, the aspect of the influence of factory life upon the morality of the youthful female population is most depressing.’ ”135