Note 146 — Chapter XIII · Woman in Industry.

In December 1871, factory inspector A. Redgrave delivered a lecture at Bradford in which he said among other things: “My attention has recently been called to the changed appearance in the wool mills. Formerly they were full of women and children; now the machines seem to do all the work. Upon my inquiry a manufacturer gave me the following information: ‘under the old system I employed 63 persons; after the introduction of improved machinery I reduced my hands to 33; and recently, as a result of further great improvements, I was able to reduce them from 33 to 13’.” Within a few years then the number of workers was reduced by almost 80 per cent while the same amount of goods were produced.—Further interesting information on this subject may be found in Capital by Karl Marx.