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all, have a somewhat similar effect on the morals and population of a country. America has had neither of these evils to contend with, yet she has not been wholly exempt from the effects of celibacy. When the spirit of enterprise and the love of liberty colonised America with Europeans, the natural timidity of the female sex would operate as a hinderance to their embarking in equal number with the men ; even at this day, when the hardships the first settlers experienced are removed, the number of female emigrants is not very great: consequently, in the early periods of the American states, celibacy was not an optional but a necessary act what proportion this number bore to the unmarried in Europe, I have not the means of ascertaining, nor is it very important; for we have a striking instance in China, that it is not to celibacy that we are to look for the leading, the permanent check to population, for China suffers a mere nothing from this cause, yet her population does not increase.

The motives to celibacy, though they often arise from a love of gain, or of dissipation, yet in some the motive is of the most honorable nature; it may be to administer comfort to an aged parent, or to prosecute some useful study,

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or to accomplish some beneficial purpose; in either of these cases, celibacy is a virtue. There are others who remain single from the want of those passions which lead to marriage; others, from the fear of propagating diseases which themselves are subject to; and others from various motives. But on the whole, we may conclude, in the language of Anacharsis,---that very weighty reasons may authorise a Spartan not to marry, but in his old age he must not expect to be treated with the same respect as the other citizens. Vol. 2. p. 487.

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UNWHOLESOME OCCUPATIONS.

UNWHOLESOME occupations are frequently mentioned by Mr. M., but no definition is given, no precise meaning affixed to the term. Without entering into a discussion of the subject, I may venture to say, that very few occupations are necessarily unwholesome; but as they are now conducted, all such as confine the persons employed in them to their houses, are of this description, and such as are sedentary, are the most so; at the head of this list may be placed shoemakers, tailors, basket-makers, &c. But the occupation to which the eyes of the public are directed with the most watchful jealousy, is the manufacturing of cotton or woollen cloth: in the buildings in which these manufactories are conducted, disease, in a thousand forms, is

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supposed to be engendered, and to lurk in every apartment.

The question is confined to a narrow point: is the employment prejudicial to health, or is it not? To answer this question requires personal knowledge; I shall therefore be excused in saying, that during three years I have attended with considerable care to the diseases of the poor of the town of Stockport, and in that period have not seen fewer than five thousand sick persons, who then were or had been employed in manufacturing cotton, and I have endeavoured to investigate the nature and origin of their complaints.

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As children are admitted to work at the age of eight or ten years, it might be expected that the injurious influence of their occupation would at that tender age be most apparent; on this account I have attended much to them, and I do not scruple to declare, that children so employed are as healthful as those of the poor brought up in great towns usually are, and more so than such as are apprenticed to tailors, shoemakers, or basket-makers; it is true, their countenances are pale and delicate, so are all children kept within doors; their clothes, covered with cotton, give them a forlorn appearance, but

their health is not injured by their work. What has been said of children applies with equal force to adults.

But there is one circumstance respecting cotton factories, which the public, even from the above statement, is not prepared to expect. It is well known that a warm climate is favorable to health, and especially to the health of those whose constitutions are delicate and inclined to consumption; for such, physicians of the soundest judgment, recommend, when a foreign climate cannot be visited, the producing of an artificial atmosphere of due heat, and to improve its salubrity by mixing with it an additional quantity of carbonic acid gas. What is thus attained with considerable expense and continued care, is the very air, the very circumstance of some of the rooms of a cotton factory, the best of which is the winding room; the air of which is rendered warm for the accommodation of those employed in it, and receives carbonic acid gas from the fermenting flour in which the yarn is boiled previously to the process of winding: thus health appears where disease was looked for.

Messrs. Bury, Rooth, Middleton & Mayer, of this place, between three and four years since, engaged a number of children from the work

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