Question: At what age did you first go to work in a factory?

Answer: Eight.

Question: Will you state the hours of labour?

Answer: From six in the morning to eight at night.

Question: Will you state the effect that those long hours had upon the state of your health?

Answer: I was very much fatigued at night when I left my work; so much so, that I sometimes could have slept as I walked, if I had not stumbled and started awake again; and so sick that I could not eat, and what I did eat I vomited.

Question: What work did you do?

Answer: I was a piecener.

Question: Will you state to this committee whether piecening is a very laborious employment for children?

Answer: It is very laborious employment; pieceners are continually running to and fro, and on their feet the whole day. It is commonly very difficult to keep up with the work.

Question: State the condition of the children towards the latter part of the day.

Answer: Towards the close of the day, when they come to be more fatigued, they cannot keep up very well and they are beaten to spur them on.

Question: What were you beaten with?

Answer: A strap.

Question: Anything else?

Answer: Yes, a stick sometimes: and there is a kind of roller, which runs on the top of the machine.

Question: What is the effect of the piecening upon the hands?

Answer: It makes them bleed' the skin is completely rubbed off, and in that case they bleed perhaps in a dozen parts.

Question: Do you take your food to the mill?

Answer: Yes. It was frequently covered by flues from the wool; and in that case they had to be blown off with the mouth, and picked off with the fingers, before it could be eaten.

Question: Did you attend the Sunday School?

Answer: Not very frequently. I very often slept till it was too late for school-time, or for divine worship; and the rest of the day I spent on walking out and taking the fresh air.

Question: How many grown-up females had you in the mill?

Answer: Perhaps there might be thirty-four or so that worked in the mill.

Question: How many of those had illegitimate children?

Answer: A great many of them; eighteen or nineteen of them, I think.

Question: Did they generally marry the men by whom they had children?

Answer: No.

Question: Is it your opinion that those who have the charge of mills very often avail themselves of the opportunity they have to debauch the young women?

Answer: No, not generally; most of the improper conduct takes place among the younger people that work in the mill.