Capital Volume I
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Capital-Volume-I
III. Employment of women. – Since 1842 women are no more employed underground, but are
occupied on the surface in loading the coal, &c., in drawing the tubs to the canals and railway waggons, in sorting, &c. Their numbers have considerably increased during the last three or four years. (n. 1727.) They are mostly the wives, daughters, and widows of the working miners, and their ages range from 12 to 50 or 60 years. (ns. 645, 1779.) “ What is the feeling among the working miners as to the employment of women?” “I think they generally condemn it.” (n. 648.) “What objection do you see to it?” “I think it is degrading to the sex.” (n. 649.) “There is a peculiarity of dress?” “Yes ... it is rather a man’s dress, and I believe in some cases, it drowns all sense of decency.” “Do the women smoke?” “Some do.” “And I suppose it is very dirty work?” “Very dirty.” “They get black and grimy?” “As black as those who are down the mines ... I believe that a woman having children (and there are plenty on the banks that have) cannot do her duty to her children.” (ns. 650-654, 701.) “Do you think that those widows could get employment anywhere else, which would bring them in as much wages as that (from 8s. to 10s. a week)?” “I cannot speak to that.” (n. 709.) “You would still be prepared, would you,” (flint-hearted fellow!) “to prevent their obtaining a livelihood by these means?” “I would.” (n. 710.) “What is the general feeling in the district ... as to the employment of women?” “The feeling is that it is degrading; and we wish as miners to have more respect to the fair sex than to see them placed on the pit bank... Some part of the work is very hard; some of these girls have raised as much as 10 tons of stuff a day.” (ns. 1715,1717.) “Do you think that the women employed about the collieries are less moral than the women employed in the factories?” “. ..the percentage of bad ones may be a little more ... than with the girls in the factories.” (n. 1237.) “But you are not quite satisfied with the state of morality in the factories?” “No.” (n. 1733.) “Would you prohibit the employment of women in factories also?” “No, I would not.” (n. 1734.) “Why not?” “I think it a more honourable occupation for them in the mills.” (n. 1735.) “Still it is injurious to their morality, you think?” “Not so much as working on the pit bank; but it is more on the social position I take it; I do not take it on its moral ground alone. The 325 Chapter 15 degradation, in its social bearing on the girls, is deplorable in the extreme. When these 400 or 500 girls become colliers’ wives, the men suffer greatly from this degradation, and it causes them to leave their homes and drink.” (n. 1736.) “You would be obliged to stop the employment of women in the ironworks as well, would you not, if you stopped it in the collieries?” “I cannot speak for any other trade.” (n. 1737.) “Can you see any difference in the circumstances of women employed in ironworks, and the circumstances of women employed above ground in collieries?” “I have not ascertained anything as to that.” (n. 1740.) “Can you see anything that makes a distinction between one class and the other?” “I have not ascertained that, but I know from house to house visitation, that it is a deplorable state of things in our district....” (n. 1741.) “Would you interfere in every case with the employment of women where that employment was degrading?” “It would become injurious, I think, in this way: the best feelings of Englishmen have been gained from the instruction of a mother. ...” (n. 1750.) “That equally applies to agricultural employments, does it not?” “Yes, but that is only for two seasons, and we have work all the four seasons.” (n. 1751.) “They often work day and night, wet through to the skin, their constitution undermined and their health ruined.” “You have not inquired into that subject perhaps?” “I have certainly taken note of it as I have gone along, and certainly I have seen nothing parallel to the effects of the employment of women on the pit bank.... It is the work of a man... a strong man.” (ns. 1753, 1793, 1794.) “Your feeling upon the whole subject is that the better class of colliers who desire to raise themselves and humanise themselves, instead of deriving help from the women, are pulled down by them?” “Yes.” (n. 1808.) After some further crooked questions from these bourgeois, the secret of their “sympathy” for widows, poor families, &c., comes out at last. “The coal proprietor appoints certain gentlemen to take the oversight of the workings, and it is their policy, in order to receive approbation, to place things on the most economical basis they can, and these girls are employed at from 1s. up to 1s. 6d. a day, where a man at the rate of 2s. 6d. a day would have to be employed.” (n. 1816.) Download 6.24 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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