Perhaps I know most about their life, for I went to work in a cotton-mill when I was eight years old, and I only left it six months ago.

I have seen men and women saved in that mill, so that their whole life afterwards was a kind of ecstasy: I have seen others lost there, so that they became true children of the devil, and made those about them as vile and wretched as themselves.

I have seen men grow rich there, and I have seen men die there; so if there is anything I know in this world it is how factory workers spend their time--at least, I think I know.
But judge for yourselves--shout to me if I'm wrong.

Isn't it somehow like this ?' And he fell into a description of the mill-hand's working day.

It was done with knowledge, sometimes with humour, and through it all ran a curious undercurrent of half-ironical passion.