Infant Slavery In England

“Slaves cannot breath in England,” says Cowper – but we all know he was of unsound mind.  Truly, there are slaves in England, who have scarcely time to breathe.  Children of the ages at which even little helots in this country are rooting in the dust and making dirt pies, are systematically worked in the English pin factories, potteries, lace factories, and various other manufactories, from dawn till dark.  Thousands of little creatures from three to six years of age, are made to slave for the food that barely sustains them, the rags that scantly cover them, in all the great manufacturing towns.  We derive this information from the statements of commissioners employed by the British government to inquire into the abuse, and it is fair to presume that their testimony is veracious.  These investigations have furnished some striking instances of the style in which infancy is sometimes turned to account in merry, prosperous England.  For example, they found an infant, under two years of age, slaving regularly in the lace weaving business from six in the morning until six in the evening, while the mother with her two older children, of the respective ages of six and eight, labored sixteen hours a day.  These miserable creatures were not compelled thus to toil.  Oh! no.  They were free – free to starve.  The wolf was at the door – that was all; and to keep him partially at bay, they wove the thread of their said lives into the dainty wool with shuttles that never rested.  The commissioners found multitudes of children, engaged in employments to which the ten-hour law did not apply, who worked from six in the morning until ten at night.  They had no time to play – scarcely to eat their meals, which however were not so ample as to detain them long.

And yet “slaves cannot breathe in England.”  If such slaves were here, they would undoubtedly breathe more “free and deeper.”

– Published in The Dubuque Herald, Dubuque, Iowa, Friday Morning, February 7, 1862, p. 2, and also in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, April 9, 1862, p. 2