will probably cultivate not only useful garden stuff, but also a great area of fields for potatoes, peas, and beans, is a most admirable arrangement in a sanitary point of view; and the author, though counteracting economical laws by relegating to hand-labour what perhaps might be more advantageously assigned to machinery-as, for instance, the ploughing up of a potato-field-feels quite satisfied in introducing extensive spadehusbandry in order to provide healthy and invigorating handlabour for the future agriculturists.

The cultivation of fruit and flowers in the orchards and gardens as well as in the hothouses, and the attendance to the poultry yard, will afford that kind of occupation which will agreeably diversify their more arduous work in the field and in the garden.

*

And when the state of the weather is such that field and garden labour must be abandoned for a time, the husbandman of the future will find useful occupation indoors in the industrial shed of the farm homestead, either at a loom for weaving, a knitting frame, a turner's lathe, a joiner's bench, or other industrial pursuits which the State may think fit to combine with agriculture. This system of agriculture, which combines the cultivation of large fields by machinery with spade-husbandry and industrial occupation, is a most ingenious arrangement, of which every social reformer might be espe cially proud, and justly so; for this mixed system does not supplant men by machines to the destruction of the former; it is eminently beneficial in a sanitary point of view, and will

* Everywhere the beds in the cottages of the small landholders and fishermen of Etretat, in France, are sumptuous in point of elasticity, warmth, softness, and cleanliness. The first thing the cottager's wife does (in case a lodger decides to stay in her house) is to pull off the bed clothes, and poke and press the ticks. The good woman is proud to show you that her palliasse is rendered elastic by the best copper springs, and that on the top of it is piled a feather bed, to which heaven knows how many gulls and geese, wild and tame, contributed. Besides, there are a couple of woollen mattresses. The wool came from her own pet merinos, which her children led out daily to browse along the paths and roads, and she washed and carded it herself. The homespun ticking, and the coarse but snow-white sheets, are her own creation. The flax that made them she planted, gathered, steeped, scutched, spun, and helped to weave. The glory of la petite propriété is that it enables people to unite agriculture with skilled industry.

greatly increase the amount of food by uniting the advantages of both small and large farms. The author expects great results, not only from the garden operation and cultivation of fruit, but also from the produce of the poultry yard, and from the results of stable feeding for the rearing and fattening of cattle. The small farms of France and Belgium are in this respect the wonder of the world. The produce of their poultry yards is enormous. In the year 1866 there were imported into England, principally from France, 438,838,000 hens' eggs, and there were sent over to England from France and Belgium weekly 6,000,000 eggs. To this enormous produce of the French and Belgian poultry yards must still be added the amount they furnish to the people of those countries themselves; for it is well known that the omolette is a national dish in those countries, that it is in fact almost the principal article of food, and that the consumption of eggs for its preparation must at least surpass ten times the 438,000,000 exported to this country.

By the stocking of the poultry yard with a good number of hens, ducks, geese, and turkeys, the resources of the food of the people will be greatly increased; eggs will enter more largely into consumption, and roast duck, goose, and turkey will then be seen more frequently on the table of all people, and not confine their appearance to the only one festive occurrence of Christmas or New Year.

The occupation of field and garden work, the rearing of cattle and poultry, and the occasional industrial labour, will, however, not entirely occupy the time of the husbandman, and he will find many moments of leisure to indulge in useful reading, in meteorological observations, in botanical and geological studies and peregrinations, or follow any other scientific pursuit, for which the requisite instruments, books, and appliances will be furnished by the State.

The author will conclude the subject of agricultural labour by the following beautiful lines from John Ruskin's work, "The Laws of Work":

"Now the fulfilment of all human liberty is in the peaceful inheritance of the earth, with its 'herb yielding seed, and fruit tree yielding fruit' after his kind; the pasture, or arable, land, and the blossoming, or wooded and fruited, land uniting the

final elements of life and peace, for body and soul.

Therefore, we have the two great Hebrew forms of benediction, 'His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk,' and again, Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know how to refuse the evil and choose the good.' And as the work of war and sin has always been the devastation of this blossoming earth, whether by spoil or idleness, so the work of peace and virtue is also that of the first day of Paradise, to 'dress it and to keep it.' And that will always be the song of perfectly accomplished Liberty, in her industry, and rest, and shelter from troubled thoughts in the calm of the fields, and gaining, by migration, the long summer's day from the shortening twilight:—

"Where the bee sucks, there lurk I,

In a cowslip's bell I lie :

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat's back I do fly

After summer merrily:

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now

Under the blossomn that hangs on the bough."

CHAPTER XXX.-FACTORY LABOUR.

THIS kind of labour may be divided into three classes; the

first including all manufactures in which labour is almost exclusively performed by machinery; the second comprising those manufacturing processes which are guided by scientific arrangements; such as the manufacture of chemicals and dyestuffs; and the third consisting of the occupation of people in those factories in which the subdivision of labour is still confined to human hands, as, for instance, in the manufacture of steel pens.

The agency of human labour required in the first class is almost entirely confined to the attendance, regulation, and cleaning of machinery, and is, in most cases, of a light and easy character, so that it is, for this reason, largely assigned to women and children; as may be seen from the report of the factory inspectors for 1872, which states that in all the factories

inspected there were employed 94,000 children under thirteen years of age, 720,000 women, and 1,200,000 males.

The marvellous perfection of machinery has also, in most cases, reduced the labour of the attendants; and when there is not enough labour required for the superintendence of one machine, several of them are placed under the care of one factory operative. A striking example of this kind is the little assistance required by the power-loom in its marvellous operations. Being minuted with a watch, it has been seen to weave seventy-two square inches of cloth in a minute, without any human being attending to it. This comparative self-action of the power-loom, and the proportionate decrease of the amount of attendance to one of these machines, forced the manufacturer to place one weaver over four looms,* in order to fully occupy him during a day's work.

In the pin-manufacture another marvellous progress has been made by the application of machinery to a kind of work that not a very long time ago was accomplished by a minute division of labour, each division requiring the employment of many persons. Now the work is done by a machine which will turn out 300 perfect pins in a minute; and one man, with the assistance of one or two boys, can attend to ten or twelve of these machines. The introduction of these machines naturally led to a great reduction of labour. The number of people formerly required in this branch of sub-divided labour, and now employed in the attendance of the pin-making machines, is forty to one.

In needle-making, automaton machines perform similar wonders. The Mining and Scientific Press says:---" There is a needle factory in New Haven, where the whole process is done by a single machine, without the manual labour of any

* In the cotton manufacture the number of power-looms has increased from 399,992 in 1861 to 463,118 in 1875, whilst the number of weavers to attend these looms has decreased from 166,209 in 1861 to 163,632 in 1875, which gives one man to four looms.

The factory inspectors' report for 1875 also states that owing to the high perfection and marvellous performance of machinery in the cotton manufacture, the number of male operatives has considerably decreased within the years 1861 and 1875, whilst the number of children employed from eight to thirteen years of age has within the same period trebled, and that of females doubled.

person. A coil of steel wire is put in. The machine cuts it off at the required lengths. It cuts the steel pieces consecutively, punches the eye-holes, counter-sinks the eyes, and grinds the points, and, in fact, does everything until the needles drop out completely formed. Another machine picks them up and arranges their heads and points together, and a third piece of mechanism puts them into paper. One of these machines occupies no more space than an ordinary table, and each of them turns out from 30,000 to 40,000 needles a day."

In the American Waltham Watch Manufactory, automatic machinery is very extensively employed. The work-rooms of this establishment present a scene of the most marvellous achievements of man's inventive genius. A large number of elegant and delicate machines are seen in operation, performing their functions with astonishing perfection. Some of them have two, three, and four automatic motions, and one-the screw-making automaton, the most complex of all-performs eight self-acting operations. By simply feeding this machine with the steel wire of the right size, all the requirements of a perfect screw are furnished by successive operations in an incredibly short space of time. These screws are so small that it requires about 150,000 to make a pound. They are mere dots on paper, but under the microscope they are found to be both perfect and uniform. The absolute perfection of this machine can only be realized when we are told that a single one will make 8,000 screws in a day, and that a boy can attend to four of these machines. In the same factory the various processes of sawing, cutting, drilling, and polishing the precious stones, as well as making tools for the same, are no longer in the hands of skilled artisans, but machinery driven by steam is made to do the work of experts.

In the nail manufacture the same revolution in the process of labour has been completed by the introduction of an elaborate automaton machine, in consequence of which the number of people employed dwindled down from 60,000 to 20,000.

Screws are also made to such an extent by machinery that the firm of Nettlefold and Chamberlain alone produce by thirty per cent, more than the total made before the introduction of machinery for screw-making.

The working on the old stocking-frame was more laborious