The Ten Hour Movement.

as to the policy of attempting to regulate merely social or business questions by the aid or power of law. A great deal may be said on both sides, much of it probably to little or no purpose. But the regulation of the time during which labor may be carried on in large manufacturing establishments has worked so well, and been productive of so vast an amount of unmixed good to at this time a full generation of factory operatives; the benefits and blessings derived from it by old and young, by both employer and employé daring more than a third of a century, establish the beneficial effects of the policy beyond doubt or eavil. For many years in England after the introduction of labor-saving machinery and the consequent aggregation of large numbers of persons of all ages and of both sexes in manufacturing establishments, it became necessary for the successful prosecution of the business that some certain regulations he adopted to that end. Much of the machinery and many of the processes are of that character that can be operated with much greater success and far more advantageously by children and young persons than by adults. Indeed, if children were entirely banished from such establishments, it is a question whether many articles now made both for use and ornament would not have to be abandoned altogether, to the manifest disadvantage of the whole community. As time went on, and as manufacturing by machinery instead of mere manual labor became a success, it was altogether in human nature to endeavor to make as much out of it during a given time as possible; and as farming the soil and what is generally known as the mechanical trades were the chief employments of the people, and as each individual was his own "boss," it necessarily followed that every one was free to work as his necessities or his inclinations impelled him, or to lay off and rest when physical or other causes induced him to do so. Not so in the new system of combined labor in factories. The single individual must give way to the aggregate. Rules had to be made. The machinery must he started at a certain agreed-upon time, and must all stop together. There had to be order and uniformity, or the thing would not work. In this, the new system, precedent was followed. The old custom on the farm and in the shop was adhered to, to begin as soon in the morning and work as late at night as they could see. Of course, in the beginning, when the institutions were small and not yet fully organized or developed, there would be breaks from one cause or another, and the ill effects of the system would not be felt. It was only as it progressed, and the numbers engaged therein increased, and the necessity of all being employed at one time for the general good, that it became monotonous. Then was felt the depressing influence on the human mind and body of this then recognized custom. It has been described as worse than the British treadmill discipline, established for the punishment of crime, or the system of slavery as then existing in our own Southern States, the only difference being that the one was free to leave it and learn something new to enable him to live, - better if he could, or worse if he had to; the other had not that option. In England, where the system was first established, it made much slower progress than in the United States at a later period. But it was there that the depressing influence of the daily routine on the minds and bodies of those subject to it began to make itself heard in complaints both loud and deep. Unfortunately, at that time the masses of the people in England were without political power or influence. But a few humane and intelligent gentlemen of education, outside of their ranks, took up their cause, purely from motives of humanity. Notably among these was the late Richard Oastler, Esq., afterwards known among his humble adherents, from his zeal in their cause, as "the Old King." Some time after this their complaints reached the Houses of Parliament, when the late Lord Ashley took up the matter, and pressed it with such vigor and earnestness that it resulted in the passage of a law making eleven hours a day's work in all factories, and establishing Good Friday an additional legal holiday. A few years after this was followed by an amended law, reducing the time to be worked to ten hours a day, which remained in successful operation from that time to this. About the years 1846-47 the subject began to be earnestly discussed¹ in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia and Manayunk moved in the matter, and correspondence was had with Delaware County for organization there to obtain, if possible, the passage of a law establishing ten hours as a legal day's work in this State. The first general meeting of operatives appertaining to that end was held at the Seven Stars Hotel, now Village Green, in a hall generously loaned for that purpose by the late John Garrett.

At this meeting an organization was effected, and a committee of two from each mill in the county appointed as a central body. The committee met at the house of Mark Clegg, on the road leading from the Red Bridge to the Union Methodist Episcopal Church, opposite Crook's (now Bancroft's) lower mill, in Nether Providence, where they continued to meet weekly until the completion of their labors, which resulted in the passage of a law by the Legislature making ten hours a legal day's labor in all cotton, woolen, flax, paper, and glass manufactories in this commonwealth. Such is a brief epitome of this important work; its influence for good is, and has been, felt, not only in our own State, but measurably in every State where manufacturing exists, or is likely to