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324 The Century of the Child
among several members of the family. As
long as special work required great personal
bodily strength or developed manual dexterity,
it fell as a rule to the men, not to women or
children. But the natural protection of wo-
men and children disappeared with the intro-
duction of machinery. In many cases working
a machine required neither strength nor dex-
terity. In other cases, like cotton spinning or
mining, delicate fingers were more valued be-
cause they were more adaptable, tender bodies
more desirable because they were smaller.
In England the work of women and children
first reached its highest point. The poor-
houses sent crowds of children to the wool
weaving industry in Lancashire, children
who worked in shifts at the same machine and
slept in the same dirty beds. The population
in the industrial districts pined away, as the
result; diseases unknown before came into ex-
istence; ignorance and roughness increased.
Women and children from four to five years
old worked fourteen to eighteen hours. The
report of the investigations made on this sub-
ject caused Elizabeth Barrett to write her
poem, " The Cry of the Children " that made
the employers of children so indignant, but
which helped to produce the Ten Hour bill.
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