Strange as it may seem to the uninitiated, the working-men and women here contrive to repair to their lodgings, make the necessary preliminary ablutions, devour their beef and pudding, and hurry back to their looms and jacks in the brief space of half an hour.
In this way the working-day in Lowell is eked out to an average throughout the year of twelve and a half hours.

This is a serious evil, demanding the earnest consideration of the humane and philanthropic.
Both classes--the employer and the employed--would in the end be greatly benefited by the general adoption of the "ten-hour system," although the one might suffer a slight diminution in daily wages and the other in yearly profits.

Yet it is difficult to see how this most desirable change is to be effected.

The stronger and healthier portion of the operatives might themselves object to it as strenuously as the distant stockholder who looks only to his semi-annual dividends.

Health is too often a matter of secondary consideration.