Through the mill: The life of a mill-boy

Chapter 3: Illustrations

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About This Book

An autobiographical narrative follows a mill-boy from a bereaved childhood into life worked out in shops and textile mills, detailing household arrangements with relatives, early duties in a fish shop, and the rigors of factory routine. It chronicles attempts at self-improvement through informal schooling, music and art, and participation in clubs and labor actions, including wage cuts and strikes. Alongside episodes of enlistment and small entrepreneurial ventures, the account reflects on how machinery, employer practices, and social networks shape bodily toil, ambitions, and moments of solidarity and hardship in a working-class life.

Illustrations

Then the Epileptic Octogenarian Let Me Go and the Pauper Line Went in Before the Parish Clerk for the Charity Shilling	Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
When the Train Started for Liverpool, I Counted my Pennies while my Aunt Wept Bitterly	52
Pat and Tim Led Me to the Charles Street Dumping Ground—Which Was the Neighborhood Gehenna	78
I Was Given a Broom, and then I Found Myself alone with Mary	122
“Peter-one-leg-and-a-half” Led Us at Night over High Board Fences	146
The Spinners Would not Stop their Mules while I Cleaned the Wheels	170
He Plucked the Venerable Beard of a Somnolent Hebrew	196
The Gang Began to Hold “Surprise Parties” for the Girls in the Mill	246