A Report on Cruelty to Children in a Cotton Factory

A Report on Cruelty to Children in a Cotton Factory

After walking around the Cotton Mill factory, surprisingly to me, I

have found various types of child cruelty, which I think should be

stopped in order to secure the future safety of children working in

cotton mill factories. This following report shows the information in

which I have found during my visit.

Cruelty

Beating

I have found that children have been beaten for various types of

unfair reasons. I saw one particular case in which a small boy at the

age of nine, placed a bobbin in the wrong place, and almost straight

away, got beaten with a long cane, which was held by the overseer,

standing close to him, watching his every move. The boy, called

George, said to me, "I have only been working here for three days, and

already I have been beaten quite a few times, because I do not know

where everything goes, and no-one is kind enough to tell me." I think

that this type of cruelty is not asked for, because the boy is clearly

young and inexperienced, and so therefore deserves a chance to be

helped, and not beaten for any particular reason. George also told me

that there are also many of these incidents going on in the factory,

and children can be beaten for almost anything, from breaking things,

to not cleaning up after someone. His older brother Tom, who is now

thirteen, told me, "When I had just joined the factory, I used to get

beaten all the time for falling asleep, which I couldn't help because

at that time, I was only young. I just hope that some thing could be

done so that other children would not suffer like I did." I think that

beating children is an awful thing to do, and surely there must be

some other kind of punishment, if it was necessary?

Dangerous Working Conditions

Another main thing that I noticed was the dangerous conditions the

children faced whilst working in the factory.