Malcolm, James Peller: First Impressions Or Sketches from Art and Nature, Animate and Inanimate (London, 1807)

ig6 BRISTOJU
Let the reader imagine a cellar, of coniiderable
dimensions, lighted and ventilated by /«consider-
able apertures, on one side only, containing a
huge furnace flaming with intense heat, main-
tained by men; and then let him conjecture what
the feelings of those men mull: be, when they are
assured they are for ever condemned to those and
similar regions of despair and misery.
The following fact will serve to evince how
the youth of this class of persons are, voluntarily,
trained to bardships we shrink from with horror.
One of the glass-houses in the environs of Bristol
has the vast grate for the tremendous fire neces-
sary to melt the materials without the cone, yet
connected with it : boys have been known to
crawl on the burning ashes, falling from the
ignited coals on the grate, beyond the fire, and
there seat themselves till they chose to return, or
were dislodged by the workmen.
Such is the state of society at present, that a
majority of the community xvould starve were not
people of this description to be found. I may lament
that men should be compelled to undergo hardships
almost too dreadful sor contemplation ; but I do
not by any means wish to be understood as blam-
ing the citizens of Bristol for employing the inha-
bitants in the production of those articles which
support the labourer, the artizan, the retailer,
and