[figure description] Note.[end figure description]

IN the compilation of the facts which go to
form this fiction, it seems desirable to say
that I believe I have neither overlooked nor
libelled those intelligent manufacturers who have
expended much Christian ingenuity, with much
remarkable success, in ameliorating the condition
of factory operatives, and in blunting the edge of
those misapprehensions and disaffections which
exist between labor and capital, between employer
and employed, between ease and toil,
between millions and mills, the world over.

Had Christian ingenuity been generally synonymous
with the conduct of manufacturing corporations,
I should have found no occasion for
the writing of this book.

I believe that a wide-spread ignorance exists
among us regarding the abuses of our factory
system, more especially, but not exclusively, as
exhibited in many of the country mills.

[figure description] Note. Page vi.[end figure description]

I desire it to be understood that every alarming
sign and every painful statement which I have
given in these pages concerning the condition
of the manufacturing districts could be matched
with far less cheerful reading, and with far more
pungent perplexities, from the pages of the Reports
of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics
of Labor, to which, with other documents of a
kindred nature, and to the personal assistance
of friends who have “testified that they have
seen,” I am deeply in debt for the ribs of my
story.

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