The case of the journeymen bakers : being a lecture on the 'evils of nightwork and long hours of labour,' delivered July 6, 1848 / by William A. Guy.

  • Guy, William A. (William Augustus), 1810-1885.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The case of the journeymen bakers : being a lecture on the 'evils of nightwork and long hours of labour,' delivered July 6, 1848 / by William A. Guy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    THE CASE OF THE JOURNEYMEN BAKERS. Gentlemen, We are met together, under the kind and encouraging auspices of the noble Lord in. the Chair, to consider a subject of immense importance to every journeyman baker in the metropolis; not merely to the hundreds who are assembled here this evening, but to the thousands who are prevented, whether by want of space or want of opportunity, from joining us. If I am not misinformed, the two million inhabitants of this great city are dependent for their supply of the first necessary of life on the labours of'about twelve thousand journeymen bakers; and, surely, if the man who profits by the . labour of another, owe to him any recompense of kindly feeling after his mere money obligation is paid, these'two millions owe to tins twelve thousand a large aggregate debt of sympathy, which I doubt not they will be ready to pay; and I am greatly mistaken in the existing feelings of the consumer tow'ards the producer, if the bread eater be not ready to help the bread malcer in his struggle for a redress of the grievous evils under which he suflfers. I believe that already some hundreds of the inhabitants of the metropolis have come forward to evince their sympathy with your cause, by signing petitions to Parliament in youi’ favour; and I am happy to , liear that many of the clergy have given you their valuable assistance. If, as I have said, I am not misinformed, the journeymen bakers in London are twelve thousand; and if to this number we add the women and children who are dependent upon such of them as are married and have families, we shall probably have an aggregate of at Jive-and-twenty thousand men, women, and children, consciously or unconsciously, deeply interested in the proceedings of this even- deeply interested in the answer to the question wliich I. am about to discuss, whether that cruel system of over-work, which, as 3 our own bitter experience teaches you, is so destructive of domestic B 2