THE BRICK-FIELDS OF ENGLAND.

In the soft days of the opening year, when the perfume of the first primrose, the fresh green of the young violet leaves, and the milder breath of the air, fill our hearts with joyous anticipations of the coming spring, and when we see our village school-children bursting merrily out of school, their cheerful little minds freshly invigorated by that flow of animal spirits which those first sunny days never fail to instil in us all, do we ever turn our thoughts in tender pity to those thousands of children to whom Spring is a meaningless name, and to whom the changing seasons convey but few ideas, save perhaps those of greater suffering from the bitter cold of winter and the intense heat of summer.

Spring and autumn! Two seasons so rich in their own distinct and glowing beauty, each bearing long poetic tales in their very names; but poems, how different! One of youth and hope, and aspiration of brilliant futurity-the other, slower and more solemn in its metre, bearing its burden of deeds nobly done, and honours won, or of disappointed hopes and wasted labour; both toned down, and mellowed by the anticipation of coming winter, the emblematic death of all things.

But to thousands of children, autumn and spring have alike no meaning, arouse no anticipations, call up no hopes, awake no memories; all alike the months pass by, saving again, perhaps, that these are less associated in their minds with extremes of temperature, and the suffering consequent thereupon, than the two other

seasons.

Many of us, I believe, do turn our thoughts towards the children shut up in great cities, whose case is sad enough, and would be worse, were it not that custom and habit work well, in this weary world, and that the negative evil of the absence of fresh air and rural pleasures may not be felt so acutely as those must deem it, to whom country air is life, and the confinement of a town, poison.

But there is another army of sufferers little known and less thought of, and till recently totally uncared for, who claim our sympathy, and demand protection; and till the protection of the law is obtained for them, help they can have none. Through our

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lives we have heard of the tyranny of the Egyptians, who made the enslaved Israelites labour in their brick-fields, embittering their lives with hard bondage. Were it not a story so old, a tale so long gone by, a memory so entirely of the past, we should have grieved more keenly for these unhappy slaves, whose task-masters, in the always graphic and simple language of the Bible, "made the children of Israel to serve with rigour." But though we read it as the history of an abuse done away with, we learn that it was gross enough to call for the special interposition of Providence to rescue His people, "who sighed by reason of their bondage, and their cry came up to God, and God heard their groanings, and God remembered His covenant."

God is not farther from His people in these days; and, though He worked by wonders then, not less sure and certain is the process now by which He protects the creatures of His hands; and help will come to those who need it sorely. How few in England have any knowledge whatever of the state of bondage, worse in one way than Egyptian darkness, in which from twenty to thirty thousand English children are now slaving! And under the very eyes of many who, for want of legal authority, are powerless to prevent the evils which horrify them. The scene is the old, old scene the Brick-fields of Staffordshire, of Middlesex, and of other English counties. The actors-children of from four years old, upwards; not boys only, but girls also. To realize this to the full let us for a moment compare these infant workers with children of the same age in a higher scale of society. One of four years old is scarcely trusted to walk about without a guiding hand to steady the little limbs; the mind is only beginning to develope, and a very short lesson in the elements of education is as much as the tender brain can bear. Till twelve years old at least, he is a very child, and even in labouring classes in the rural districts of England the parent must be poor indeed, who would take his child from school before ten or eleven years old to put him to work; even then the little gains hardly repay the extra wear and tear of clothes and boots. But here, in these sad districts, no sooner can a child walk than he is sent to the clay fields, often themselves a tiring distance from his home, and set to labour; and in Mr. Baker's report, when, as Inspector of Factories, he visited the brick-fields of Staffordshire, he mentions, which particularly struck him-a boy of five years old working among two or three and twenty females, being "broken in," as they call it, to the labour.

And thus a boy, but little advanced beyond the age at which many schools first admit children to begin the rudiments of learning, is found employing his feeble strength in labour of a kind

from which his happier brother in an agricultural county would shrink at more than twice his age. The work expected of these small slaves, and performed by them, would hardly be believed, were it not found by accurate calculation that a girl or boy of ten years old is required to carry a weight of over 30 lbs. of clay at each journey of forty yards, generally divided into about 20 lbs. carried on the head, while another lump of clay of 10 lbs. or more is borne in the arms. With this weight two hundred and fifty journeys a day are made, amounting to a walk of four miles and a half, the return journey making another four miles and a half, to which must be added the work of "rearing," "gorming," and "hacking" the bricks, averaging three miles daily. To these twelve miles must further be added the average of two miles for going to and coming from the work, giving a total distance traversed by the young clay carriers of fourteen miles a day. The clay carriers work, and walk this weary distance, not one exceptional day only, but every day, week after week, beginning at 6 A.M. till 6 P.M., "plodding," as one of the master brickmakers himself says, "with clay-loaded heads and arms, to and fro over hot drying stones, barefooted and ragged."

There are many circumstances, of course, which conduce to this hard labour. One, alas! the readiness of the parents-often originally clay carriers themselves-to send their children to this work, caring nothing for their real good or moral teaching. The same master brickmaker, whose words were quoted above, says he has known parents in receipt of two, three, and four pounds a week, send their children out to work at the clay works for as many shillings, hung in rags, while they themselves rioted at home in luxuries and drink.

It is curious to watch how, through all this darkness of slavery, and ignorance, and oppression, a strong mind will struggle to the light, and even under these almost impracticable circumstances, will force education and knowledge to come to its assistance till it raises itself above the level of its fellow sufferers, and comes forward, like Moses of old, to speak aloud in behalf of those who cannot plead for themselves. In proof of this I shall be allowed to quote a few words from a paper, read at the Social Science Congress, at Newcastle, in September last, by Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, Leicestershire, who himself, at nine years of age, was employed in the clay field, and carried 40 lbs. of clay or bricks on his head for thirteen hours daily. He says:-"The manner in which I contrived to obtain some education was as follows. For several years I had, in addition to my daily labour, to be up all night at the brick kilns during two nights each week. For this extra work I received

one shilling a week, which shilling was my own. Of this money I paid sixpence for attending a night school in the evening, when not required at the kilns; the remaining sixpence went in the purchase of books. But it is not every child who possesses the desire or determination to do this; yet, without so doing, there is literally no means of instruction open to the children."

Far from wondering that but few should avail themselves of this chance of education, is it not marvellous that any one should have done so ?-should have had spirit, after fagging through thirteen hours of weary labour, too often accompanied by kicks and blows from the men above them, still voluntarily to seek another kind of work; different altogether, it is true, but still requiring wakefulness and that intelligence which, one should think, must have been totally exhausted in the physical prostration consequent on that weary trudging to and fro during those prolonged days, and even nights of hot, hard labour.

Speaking of night-work, the same writer says:-" On one occasion I had to perform a very heavy amount of labour. After my customary day's work, I had to carry twelve hundred nine-inch bricks from the maker to the floors on which they are placed to harden. The total distance thus walked by me that night was not less than fourteen miles, seven miles of which I traversed with 11 lbs. weight of clay in my arms, besides lifting the unmade clay, and carrying it some distance to the maker. The total quantity of clay thus carried by me was 5 tons. For all this labour I received sixpence!" And, let it be remembered, this night-work was not instead of, but in addition to, the daily labour of the boy.

come.

Now, there are two or three points more on which I would touch; and one, but lightly; though it is not the least evil, but a greater one indeed than the frightful overworking I have dwelt upon, for it affects both body and soul; and risks losing for these poor creatures, besides all comfort in this life, all hope of happiness in the world to And that is the fearful state of ignorance and immorality in which these poor human souls exist. In one district, and it is very likely the case with most, seventy-five per cent. of the workers are females, employed in most unwomanly work, and dressed in rags, not clothes. Young girls of from nine years old, up to seventeen and eighteen, mixing careless and uncared-for in the society of the lowest men; what hope can there be for them, with no principle to guide them, no fear of wounding the delicacy of others to restrain them, every temptation and facility to do wrong, and few enough incentives to right feeling, to guard their unsheltered path?

After this weary youth of carrying clay and moving bricks,