COGNATE INDUSTRIES.-We have now passed in review the course of English factory legislation from its crude. beginning in 1802 to the precise provisions and widespreading applications of the present day. But besides the laws dealing thus with factories and workshops, as therein defined, several of a cognate kind are found on the statute book, some more, some less closely related to them, some affiliated, and some not; some merely tracing their origin to the same source, in the democratic and sympathetic tendency of modern thought acting as a corrective to the purely economic conception of the purpose of industry; some taking very various shapes; some confessedly imitating in their provisions the above.

CHIMNEY SWEEPS.-The earliest of these; belonging to the last category but one; are the curious series of enact

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ments relating to the somewhat obscure calling of chimneysweeping. From about the middle of last century the public conscience seems to have been considerably stirred on this subject, and in 1760 a letter appeared in the Public Advertiser drawing attention to the hardships endured by child sweepers, and suggesting, in particular, that they should not be allowed to go about their business without proper covering. In 1773, a committee of philanthropic persons was formed in London to endeavour by voluntary action to procure some alleviation of their position ; and eleven years later, Mr. Jonas Hanway, then a member of the House of Commons, published a pamphlet about them, under the rather ponderous title "A Sentimental History of Chimney Sweepers in London and Westminster, shewing the Necessity of putting them under Regulation to prevent the grossest Inhumanity to the Climbing Boys." Voluntary action being found, as in so many similar cases, of little value, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1788 (28 Geo. III., c. 48) forbidding master sweeps to keep more than six apprentices, or take them under eight years of age :—which was all the relief (says Lord Shaftesbury's biographer) "that could be wrung from Parliament for nearly fifty years." Attempts made subsequently to obtain further legislation failed; and in 1807 the whole subject was referred to a Select Committee of the House of Commons for investigation, which took abundant evidence, after the familiar manner of such bodies. The report of this Committee (remarks the above authority) "is a record of sickening horrors." "It reveals how children of a suitable size were stolen for the purpose, sold by their parents, inveigled from workhouses, or apprenticed by Poor Law Guardians, and 1 Life of Lord Shaftesbury; vol. i., p. 295.

forced up narrow chimneys by cruel blows, by pricking the soles of the feet, or by applying wisps of lighted straw. These atrocities, and many more which were brought to light, excited much indignation. They formed the subject of a well-known article by Sydney Smith in the Edinburgh Review, and another attempt was made to extend the utility of the Act of 1788. But the Bill was thrown out by the House of Lords; and it was not till 1834 that any efficient protection was afforded at length to the little victims. By an Act passed in that year (4 and 5 Will. IV., c. 35) it was made a misdemeanour to send a child up a chimney on fire;1 and in two subsequent ones (3 and 4 Vic., c. 84, and 27 and 28 Vic., c. 37) a reasonable amount of security was at length procured for them, the process being much aided by the invention of a machine that practically supplanted human labour in sweeping. Nevertheless, further legislation was undertaken in 1862, and there is at the present time (1893) a Bill before Parliament dealing once again with the subject.

MINES and QUARRIES. -The position of mines and quarries in this connection is a peculiar one. The relation of the extractive to the manufacturing industries has been always. one of the moot points in protective labour legislation, which displays accordingly some uncertainty in dealing with these places. Mining is a process of industry conducted on a system similar to the Factory System: that is to say it is performed by a body of congregated labourers 1 Life of Lord Shaftesbury, vol. I, p. 296.

2 M. de Laveleye points out how "the manuracturing industries receive from the extractive and agriculture their raw material, and give them the final form demanded by consumption."—Elements of Political Economy (Chapman and Hall, 1884.)

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assembled for the purpose, within a place of definite bounds. But mines are not included under the Factory Acts, "because they appertain to the soil, which is not one of the materials of wealth, but one of its sources, the source in fact from which all the materials spring; "1 they are provided for by special enactments. This is not, however, the case with quarries. They are included, (41 Vic., c. 16; sec. 93, and Sch. iv., Part ii.), and are classed as factories or workshops according to the usual method of creating that distinction, namely as to whether manual power only, or other motive power as well is made use of about them. A similar classification is reserved for "Pit Banks;" that is "any place above ground adjacent to a shaft of a mine in which place the employment of women is not regulated by any of the Mines Acts." These are either Non-Textile Factories or Workshops. Points of resemblance and distinction in cognate processes of production are here very close indeed; and the exceeding difficulty of a precise classification of industries is well exemplified by the example.

The special legislation affecting labour in Mines has been already mentioned. The first Mines Act was passed in 1842; and in 1850 and 1855 respectively two supplemen tary ones, 13 and 14 Vic., c. 100, and 18 and 19 Vic., c. 108. These applied exclusively to coal mines. In 1860, and again in 1872, new and far more comprehensive legis lation was initiated, embracing in the first instance iron— and in the last all metalliferous mines. Under it, elaborate codes of regulations are provided, inferior only to the regulations of Factory Acts in respect to the younger age at which a child is permitted to work underground, and

1 Introduction to a History of the Factory System; p. 31.

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the less stringent quality of the educational requirements while doing so,' but displaying much care and forethought in other ways.

ALKALI WORKS.—The manufacture of chemicals is another instance of a cognate process of industry which stands in a peculiar relation to the Factory Acts. Dr. Ure (Philosophy of Manufactures, p. 2) distinguishes between a chemical and mechanical manufacture in these terms :—“ A mechanical manufacture, being commonly occupied with one substance

1 The following citations from a recent Report of a Committee of Enquiry to the Vice-President of the Council on Education will place this matter, which may seem to need explanation, in a clear light :— 6. In factories and workshops the number of hours constituting halftime employment is strictly defined by statute; it is also defined as regards the employment of children between twelve and thirteen above ground in connection with coal mines: but elsewhere there is no definition of half-time employment, and no restriction as to the number of hours of employment beyond what is employed in half-time attendance at school.

9. In coal-mines the hours of the employment of children between twelve and thirteen above ground are regulated by statute so as practically to limit them to half-time, whereas below ground the hours of employment are not subject to similar regulations, and if the children have reached the standard for total exemption they are subject to no restriction except the limits of ten hours a day and fifty-four hours a week. The practical result of this is stated to be that in districts where the standard of total exemption is low, employment underground commences at twelve and above ground at thirteen (Labour Commission, Group A., 3, 100-3, 110.) In the case of metalliferous mines the contrast is still more marked, as the employment of children above ground is in this case regulated by the Factory Acts.

10. While in the Factory Acts the provision of half-time education is an essential condition of all half-time employment, the Mines Regulation Acts contain no provisions as to the education of those children whose employment is allowed.