The moral state of the collier population is represented by the Sub-commissioners as deplorable in the extreme:--
"LANCASHIRE.--'All that I have seen myself,' says the Sub-commissioner, 'tends to the same conclusion as the preceding evidence; namely, that the moral condition of the colliers and their children in this district, is decidedly amongst the lowest of any portion of the working-classes.'--(_Ibid._ Report, s. 278, _et seq._)
"DURHAM and NORTHUMBERLAND.--The religious and moral condition of the children, and more particularly of the young persons employed in the collieries of North Durham and Northumberland, is stated by clergymen and others, witnesses, to be 'deplorable.' 'Their morals,' they say, 'are bad, their education worse, their intellect very much debased, and their carelessness, irreligion, and immorality' exceeding any thing to be found in an agricultural district."--(Leifchild, Report, Mines: Evidence, Nos. 795, 530, 500, 493, 668.)
_Calico-Printing._--This employs a vast number of children of both sexes, who have to mix and grind the colors for the adult work-people, and are commonly called _teerers_. They begin to work, according to the Report, sometimes before five years of age, often between five and six, and generally before nine. The usual hours of labor are twelve, including meal-time; but as the children generally work the same time as the adults, "it is by no means uncommon in all the districts for _children of five or six years old to be kept at work fourteen and even sixteen hours consecutively_."--(Second Report, p. 59.) In many instances, however, it will be seen that even these hours are shamefully exceeded, during a press of work.
"352. Thomas Sidbread, block-printer, after taking a child who had already been at work all day to assist him as a teerer through the night, says--'We began to work between eight and nine o'clock on the Wednesday night; but the boy had been sweeping the shop from Wednesday morning. You will scarcely believe it, but it is true--I never left the shop till six o'clock on the Saturday morning; and I had never stopped working all that time, excepting for an hour or two, and that boy with me all the time. I was knocked up, and the boy was almost insensible.'