Appendix 6 McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, 3 April 1841.

'The White Slaves of Great Britain: Lectures on the Factory System' 

WHAT HAS THE FACTORY SYSTEM DESTROYED ? 

Regarding the condition of the country previous to the introduction of the Factory System, we have not to depend upon obscure records or questionable history. 

The experience of living men supplies us with all the requisite information. 

We find the hand-loom weaver, scattered over a great extent of country, which is still marked by those old fashioned, but commodious houses of former times, with the broadseated hearth-stones, and the ever opened porch for the passing traveller. 

To these ancient cottages of the hand-loom weaver, were attached a limited number of acres for grazing or tillage. 

You will still find in the upper stories of these ruins of the good old times, the mouldering loom of the industrious weaver, and honest farmer. 

There he sat at his rattling loom, assisted by all of his family who could work ; there the grown up child worked with the parent, and the mother left her other duties to taste recreation beside her husband. 

There you would find all the household manufacturers busily engaged together ; there, too, the song and the laugh rose cheerily, and rung in chorus with the restless shuttle. 

Had you entered that dwelling you would have found the weaver at his light hearted easy task, the wife smiling amidst plenty. 

They were free, hospitable, and intelligent ; no stranger was denied a meal in their home, no wandering beggar a welcome crust at their door.

The children know no greater task than a schoolboy's lesson, and were acquainted with no more tiresome occupation than a schoolboy's game. 

When the spring approached, and decked the fields with its cast splendid covering; when the summer ripened, and the autumn its blushing fruits in abundance at the feet of the farmer; then you heard the loom no more: the house was deserted, the sickle and the scythe found a healthy employment for the weavers family. 

They laughed amidst the joys of haymaking : the Sang to the merry harvest home.

Young and old, husband and wife were rioting amidst the annual profusion of nature, and gathering health and riches from the acres of their forefathers. 

The children too were there, the little flock were there to roll amidst the scented hay, to pluck flowers from the waving corn, or to paddle in the clear stream that rushed through the lovely valley.

There is no illusion of the fancy, this is no dream of the imagination ; this is the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; this was the hand-loom weavers condition in the olden times of our father.

Rich and Poor', Pearson Collection (99), Manchester Central Library 

I pray give attention and listen to me, 
I'll point out some facts with which you'll agree, There's two classes of people the rich and the poor Betwixt them there is a great difference I'm sure, While they live in splendour you all are aware, How the poor man is living they know not or care 
But if you'll attend I've the object in view, 
To show you the difference there is twixt the two. So don't be offended at what I shall say, For good and bad times I have seen in my day. 
The rich live in castles with grandeur all round, While the poor they are buried a mile underground 
The rich they have gold and it mouldering in bags While the poor of old England are dressed up in rags 
Their daughters can ride out with saddle and whip, 
With a flounce down like the sail of a ship, 
The rich they can go out a shooting at noon, But the poor can shoot nothing except at the moon. The rich they for pleasure to balls they do go, Because they can't hear any thing that is low, 
They dine on roast mutton roast turkey and duck, While the poor they're glad of a sheep's head and pluck, 
There are rich noble pensioners hatching gold eggs 
And lots poor soldiers with old wooden legs, 
If the rich they get drunk they can do as they chose 
But poor often gets knocked about by the blues. 
The rich often go to mess at the club, 
Their guts they will stuff with the finest of grub, 
Then cut away home at the first peep of day, 
And off to the change where they prattle away, 
They then speculate on the market and stock, Rich and Poor 
The hardworking men to the poor house must flock, 
The rich they can live on the fat of the land 
But the poor they must work while they're able to stand. 
There's Mrs Linney the publican's dame, 
She can't take her tea without the best of good cream Her daughter Mary is going to get wed, With a bustle as big as a jack-ass's head, 
If you go in and call for a drop of good malt, 
Her gown is the colour of pepper and salt, 
If you kick up a row she will tell you at large, 
She'll send for the Police and give you in charge. 
The rich upon all kinds of dainties can dine,
 On pies and plum puddings geese turkey and wine, 
While the poor hungry people how sad for to tell, For a day and a half often lives on the smell, The rich care for nothing but eat right a head, While the poor are as tight as three in a bed, 
The rich of fine feathers can sleep at their ease, 
While the. poor are annoyed with the bugs and the flees. The nobles can go it as daily does seem To the d 1 and back for a trifle by steam, The rich like the Queen has a drawing room gay, 
But where shall they be on the great judgement day? 

Review

"...only the obdurate will reject outright the central claim of this important book or the utility of its heuristic devices." Albion

"...a powerful, path-breaking book....one of those rare books which urges that we should look at our past in a new way....Joyce's immensely stimulating book prompts a thousand enquiries." Times Higher Education Supplement

"The most substantial and sustained attempt yet to go beyond the orthodoxy of class....its achievement should be welcomed and celebrated." Journal of Historical Geography

"Visions of the People is provocative and sweeping...a book of the first importance." Journal of British Studies

"It will be a key point of reference for years to come." Social History

"Joyce describes a richly textured and deeply ambivalent working-class culture. The most significant aspect of the book is the interesting and innovative reading of diverse and varied sources... this is a book which deserves careful consideration." Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"A thoughtful, closely reasoned, revisionist analysis of class as a viable definition of worker experience in Victorian and Edwardian England." Choice


"What other historians have done speculatively or on a rather limited front Joyce does on a grand scale, exploring the artifacts of northern plebian culture through detailed documentation and a wide variety of contexts: 

work, trade unions, speech, dialect, ballad, theater, and popular perceptions of history and the the British constitution....

Joyce's work demonstrates overwhelmingly both that working people shared in a wider national culture and that many aspects of that wider culture were made by working people themselves and not artificially imposed from above....Patrick Joyce deserves our gratitude for forcing readers to take seriously evidence that is too often dismissed as merely marginal and picaresque.' Jose Harris, Journal of Modern History