The Ten Hour Movement.

Such was the state of feeling among the community at the time of which I write, 1848. Immediately anterior to the passage of the act many good men were divided in their opinions as to the policy of such a law. A number contended that no power existed in a free government to determine how long a man should or should not work. There was some plausibility in the point, for it had not then been ascertained that the government possessed a police power in just such cases. But by public meetings, by private discussion, and particularly by the aid of the press, the popular mind was enlightened, and the proposed law began to be favorably looked on by the people. While it had its persistent enemies, it had the most generous and warm friends. Among the operatives themselves many opposed it. The writer was present at a shop-meeting at one of our large establishments as a spectator merely, when one of the proprietors remarked that he did not think that a majority of their hands wanted shorter time. Some of the operatives ventured to differ with him. "Well, now," he says, "suppose we try?" A division was called, and while there appeared to be a majority for the shorter time, that majority was but very small. This was not the case everywhere. The representative in the Legislature from Delaware County in that year was Hon. Sketchley Morton, and he advocated shorter time with earnestness and zeal, and did all he could to make it a success. The same could not be said of our then senator. The committee sent petitions signed by nearly twelve hundred operatives to the senator and representative for the district. The one to the House was duly presented by the representative, but the one to the Senate was never more heard from. The committee wrote letters asking the reasons, but their fate was the same as that of the petition. The name of Hon. Samuel Marx, of Lehigh County, being suggested to the committee, they wrote to him; he consented, and did present the petition to the Senate, of which body he was then a member. Of course this required the circulation anew of petitions for signatures.

The friends and advocates of the cause had many other difficulties to contend against, prominent among which was to obtain a room wherein to hold their meetings for counsel and discussion. No public hall existed in the county, so far as remembered, except Garrett Hall, above alluded to, and the court-house at Chester. Sometimes a school-house could be obtained, and as the mills were long distances apart, the duties of the committee were difficult and fatiguing. Saturday evening was the only night available for the purpose, and then a distance of from two to five miles had to be walked after stopping time (stopping time then being four and four and a half o'clock P.M. on Saturdays), and when much cleaning was required it would be five o'clock before leaving the mills. Thus the operatives had only two or three hours for discussion, without infringing on the time absolutely required for natural rest. Of course, this is only intended as historical reminiscences of those times as compared with the present experiences, and not as an argument pro or con. Differences of opinion existed then as now as to the wisdom of the measure asked for. It was then comparatively an untried experiment. But the law, in its most essential features, has been fully justified by more than a third of a century's experience. Still, like all things human, it has its imperfections. The committee, at its first sessions, was not a unit as to the age at which a child should be allowed to commence work in a mill. Full discussions were had, and it was generally agreed, in the interests of all parties, that ten years was a suitable limit, below which the law ought to intervene, but the number of hours per day that the mill should be run at all was the objective point to which attention was mainly directed. It was contended that no power had a right to say how long or how little an adult person should be allowed to work, but that minors only were subject to the law's restrictions. That portion of the act regulating the ages between ten and thirteen years has been practically a dead letter during all the time since its passage, until a few months ago, - 1882-83. Some five or more years since attention was called to infractions of the spirit of the law, - some mills running until nine o'clock at night. This evil kept growing, until Mr. McGahee, an operative in one of the mills at Darby, in this county, called public attention to the manifest violations of the law in a letter addressed to a prominent newspaper, as also by posting copies of the act in public places in his neighborhood. This caused very general adherence to the law as it stands, while it also showed its weak points, its advantages and imperfections. Probably the time way come, and it is to be hoped in the interests of humanity that it may come soon, when all concerned, both employers and employed, may come together on common ground and agree upon some age, taking all the circumstances into consideration, the business itself, the interests of employers and employed, the claims of widowed mothers, the duties of humanity and of the State at large, and so amend the law as to be just and satisfactory to all interested, and its beneficent features kept intact. But this is a digression. Our purpose is not to recommend, but to give a history of the movement itself.

The law as passed by the Legislature in the session of 1847-48 provided that it should go into effect on and after the 4th day of July, 1848. That time came, the law became operative, and in Philadelphia, Manayunk, and other places was observed and worked harmoniously. Such was not the case in Delaware County. Strange to say that very shortly after the passage of the law it began to be foreseen that there was a probability that so far as this locality was concerned the act would be nullified. Many of its most active and zealous friends withdrew and sought other