While the effect of such early and severe labor is, to cause a peculiar and extraordinary degree of muscular development in collier children, it also stunts their growth, and produces a proportionate diminution of stature, as is shown by the following comparison.--(Physical and Moral Condition of Children, p. 55.)
10 Farmers' boys, between 12 and 14 years, measured, each, 56.4 inches in height. 10 Colliers' boys, 53.4 " " ---- Difference, 3. " "
10 Farmers' girls, between 14 and 17 years, measured, each, 60.5 inches in height. 10 Colliers' girls, 55.6 " " ---- Difference, 4.9 " "
51 Farmers' children, 10 years old, measured, each, 51. " " 60 Colliers' children, 48. " " ---- Difference, 3. " "
49 Farmers' children, 15-1/2 years old, measured, each, 59. " " 50 Colliers' children, 53. " " ---- Difference, 6. " "[34]
Labor in coal mines is also stated, by a great number of most respectable witnesses, to produce a crippled gait, and a curvature of the spinal column, as well as a variety of disorders--among which may be enumerated, affections of the heart, rupture, asthma, rheumatism, and loss of appetite;--and this not merely in a few cases, but as an habitual, and almost inevitable result of their occupation.
"Of the effect of employment in the coal mines of the East of Scotland in producing an early and irreparable deterioration of the physical condition, the Sub-commissioner thus reports:--'In a state of society, such as has been described, the condition of the children may be easily imagined, and its baneful influence on the health cannot well be exaggerated; and I am informed by very competent authorities, that six months' labor in the mines is sufficient to effect a very visible change in the physical condition of the children: and indeed it is scarcely possible to conceive of circumstances more calculated to sow the seeds of future disease, and, to borrow the language of the instructions, to prevent the organs from being developed, to enfeeble and disorder their functions, and to subject the whole system to injury, which cannot be repaired at any subsequent stage of life.'---(Frank's Report, s. 68: App. Pt. I, p. 396.) In the West of Scotland, Dr. Thomson, Ayr, says:--'A collier at fifty generally has the appearance of a man ten years older than he is.'"--(Evidence, No. 34; App. Pt. I, p. 371, l. 58.)