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TWO:The vast development of the coal trade, which contributed so materially to our national prosperity, occasioned the employment of a large number of persons at high rates of wages. Upwards of 118,000 people were working in coal mines. In the county of Durham there were more persons thus employed under ground than in cultivating the surface. It was a kind of work at which women and children could earn money, and in some of the collieries their labour was made available to a very large extent. It may be supposed that this practice entailed upon the boys and girls so employed the most serious evils, physical and moral. When this state of things began to attract public attention, an extensive inquiry was instituted by the Children's Employment Commission, which prepared three reports, presented to Parliament in 1842. The Commissioners collected a large mass of evidence at the collieries which brought to light facts of the most astounding nature as to the cruelty and demoralisation connected with the employment of women and children in coal mines. It seemed almost incredible that such practices could have existed in a civilised country, and showed the extent to which the thirst for gain will carry men, under circumstances where they can count upon impunity, and evade the censure of public opinion. Lord Ashley took up the subject with his usual earnestness in all questions affecting the welfare of the working classes, and in the Session of 1842 he brought in a Bill founded upon the reports of the Commission. The statement of facts with which he introduced the measure excited the astonishment and indignation of the House, and greatly shocked the moral sense of the country. The nature of the employment in which the children were engaged was calculated to brutalise them in every sense. They were obliged to crawl along the low passages with barely room for their persons in that posture, each dragging a load of coals in a cart by means of a chain which was fastened to a girdle borne round the waist, the chain passing between the legs. This they dragged through a passage often not as good as a common sewer, in an atmosphere almost stifling. At this sort of work girls were employed as well as boys, and they commonly worked quite naked down to the waist, their only dress being a pair of loose trousers, and in this condition they were obliged to serve adult colliers who worked without any clothing at all. The grossest immorality was the natural consequence. In Scotland a subcommission found one little girl, six years of age, carrying an eight-stone weight, fourteen times a day, a journey equal in distance to the height of St. Paul's Cathedral. The Commissioner adds, "And it not unfrequently happens that the tugs break, and the load falls upon those females who are following, who are, of course, struck off the ladders. However incredible it may be, yet I have taken the evidence of fathers who have ruptured themselves by straining to lift coals on to their children's backs." The Bill of Lord Ashley was passed almost unanimously by the Commons. In the Lords it was subjected to considerable opposition, and some amendments were introduced. The amendments were adopted by the Commons, and on the 10th of August, 1842, the Act was passed "to prohibit the employment of women and girls in mines and collieries, to regulate the employment of boys, and to make other provisions relating to persons working therein." The Act prohibited the employment of any boys under ground in a colliery who were under the age of ten years.The success with Cricklade encouraged William Pitt to bring forward a motion for a general reform of Parliament. This he did on the 7th of May, and was seconded by Wilkes's old ally, Alderman Sawbridge. Pitt did not venture to talk of a Bill, but only to propose a Committee to consider the subject. This was granted; but it was soon apparent that nothing would be done. The Ministers were at variance on the subject��some went one length, and some another; many of them were as determined against all Parliamentary reform as any Tories. Rockingham, the Prime Minister, especially, held much borough influence. He was utterly opposed, in secret, to all such reforms. Pitt himself would hear nothing of repealing the Septennial Act; but he was for sweeping away rotten boroughs and transferring their votes to the counties; he went for equalising the whole representation, for destroying the influence of the Treasury and the hereditary right assumed by the aristocracy, and, by disfranchising the rotten boroughs, for sweeping the House of the creatures of the India House. He was zealously supported by Fox, Sheridan, Sir George Savile; and the Duke of Richmond, in the Lords, warmly commended the movement; but the motion had the fate that might have been expected��it was negatived, though only by twenty votes.