Volume 1

The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor.

Date:: 1798-1800

Credit: The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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mil price* of their work; which, though ; making a difference of only three-pence or * The poor, who might otherwise be inclined to. a spin yarn, labour under great discouragement, arising i from the manner in which they are paid for their work ji when finished. The shopkeeper of whom they get their yarn, professes to pay them at the rate of a penny per hank ; but, when the work is returned to him,'lie deducts three-pence or four-pence (or in some cases when the trade has been slack, five-pence) from every pound of wool spun. This is considered as the woolstapler’s profit. Thus an indifferent spinner, who makes but twelve or perhaps ten hanks of a pound of yarn, gets but eight-pence or six-pence for her work. But this is not the only discouragement. The shopkeeper makes a favour of supplying her with yarn, and will not sup- ply her with any, unless .she will consent, not only to take out in shop goods the amount of what she earns ; by spinning, but will engage to purchase of him alone I such necessaries for her family as his shop will furnish. |By these means she is precluded from laying out her money at any other shop, where she thinks she could get articles of a better quality, or at a cheaper rate ; and is obliged to submit to any imposition, which a griping shopkeeper may lay upon her.-The committee of in- dustry in Essex, considering their fund as insufficient I ] °r the pUfp0Se °f relieving the poor from this oppres- 1 sion, by paying them the Bill price for their work, has 2*

The reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor.

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