pages 166-167

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations                167

kindly shower. In many places, as at Wigan, Atherton, Tyldesley, and St. Helens, women, both single and married, work at the collieries, but only above ground, or at the bank. They are prohibited by statute from descending the pit, and their names and ages are all exactly registered. Up to the waist they are dressed like men. Above the knees, instead of a coat, they have a peculiarly fashioned tunic, a compromise between gown and jacket, by which they may be distinguished from afar: a limp bonnet tied under the chin protects the head, but never conceals the ear-rings and plaited hair. Many of these women are plainly equal to their masculine colleagues in physical power, yet they earn only two-thirds of the wages given to men. The decorum of their behaviour while at work is unimpeachable; on Sundays they do their best to dress like ladies. The Lancashire quarries are also remarkable, though, little resorted to by the architect. Commercial prosperity is always most conspicuous where the buildings are principally not of stone, but of brick.
Nothing does more to sustain and encourage the industry of a working population than a steady system of transit, and a well-timed delivery, alike of the natural products of the ground and of the articles manufactured.