Returning from Ansersk, one night, was a pilgrim woman with her son, a sickly man of about five and twenty years. He crouched in the bottom of the boat for shelter from the chilling wind, but was seized with violent ague-shivering. His nerve, shattered by long illness, failed and he wept pitiably, and between his spasms moaned for the shore. With trembling tenderness the mother tried to shield the sufferer from the keen night air, and with tearfilled, anxious eyes looked longingly on the still distant land. The characteristic kindliness of the Russian peasant was shown in the touching sympathy and genuine compassion of the other pilgrims, who, with their own clothing, warmly wrapped the shuddering man, and gathering to the oars, forced the sluggish boat to double its former pace.

The pleasure of driving through the pine woods was much marred by the number and ferocity of the large mosquitos that infest them, and seem to understand that in the short summer they must "make hay while the sun shines." At every break in the journey, chapels are at hand, which every pilgrim enters to pray. A foreigner who associates with these simple folk cannot fail to be impressed with their unassuming but cordial kindliness, for they seem to miss no opportunity of friendly attention and of making a stranger feel their companionship.

About a mile from the monastery is another favourite shrine; the hermitage of the monk, Filip, who attracted to Solovetsk the fickle favour of his former friend, Ivan, the Terrible. For a time the monarch lavished on the monastery rich gifts and grants of land, but later he summoned the reluctant Filip to the Primate's throne at Moscow. For years the one-time hermit restrained the turbulent Prince, but at last he suffered a martyr's death by his fierce master's order.

On the strand in front of the deep, dark arch of the Holy Gate, are two other shrines which receive much homage. These commemorate the landing of Peter the Great, for Solovetsk was twice visited by that meteoric Emperor. Go where you will in Russia you find the deep footprints of this most masterful man; this prodigy of energy and forceful enterprise, who drove the Swedes from the forests that skirt the shores of the cold White Sea, and pushed the Persians back along the arid slopes that bound the Caspian. The monks are very proud to have him on their roll of pilgrims, and in the archway of the entrance there hang two rude monkmade models of the ships he sailed.

Towards evening the droskys return with the pilgrims from the more distant shrines, and from the neighbouring ones the groups of God-worshippers wend their way, on foot, sedately back to the parent cloister. All are gathered at the refectory for supper, and in the long and restful evenings, when the last jingle of the bells that call to prayers had ceased, the pilgrims linger in the courtyards, with the trustful gulls, or stroll at leisure round the walls, or by the tideless shore. In the placid waters of the bay, the monastic buildings are mirrored with every outline of every dome and pinnacle, and every shade of colour, all warmed by the glow of the northern evening. Long-haired, black-cassocked monks walk gravely to and fro, with air of pious contemplation, as monks have walked before these walls for full five hundred years. As the hour grows late, no darkness falls, but by degrees the groups grow less, and the pilgrims seek the guest-house and repose, and the voices of the garrulous gulls are hushed. At last all sign of life has gone, and the great monastery, beneath its gilded spires, sleeps through the daylight night.

To a foreigner, fresh from the bustling streets of Western Europe, a sojourn in this remote retreat of monastic asceticism, is rich in instruction, and deep in interest. Here is a phase of a great nation's life. A phase the rest of Europe knew in mediæval times. The spirit of the middle ages pervades the cloister, and the atmosphere of rest and quiet meditation is at strange variance with the present temper of the Western world. But there is a singular charm in the tranquil environment of the convent life, and it appeals strongly to the Russian temperament; luring many a peasant who comes on pilgrimage to remain a voluntary exile, devoting his life and work to the famous sanctuary.

An Archimandrite of Solovetsk thus apostrophised his beloved hermitage. "Emerge out of your mists, oh wondrous habitation of the sea-girt land, Aurora Borealis of the North, flashing heavenwards the prayers, not of the White Sea shore alone, but of the most distant regions of unbounded Russia."

VII.-History and Philosophy of the Factory System.

BY

R. WHATELY COOKE-TAYLOR, F.S.S., F.R.HIST.S., H.M. Superintending Inspector of Factories for Scotland and Ireland.

[Read before the Society, 21st February, 1900.]

An old story tells how Sir Robert Peel astonished and puzzled the House of Commons during a discussion on Currency by proposing to its members this apparently elementary problem for solution-What is a pound? In a similar spirit I am inclined to commence my observations here to-night by inviting definitions from among my audience of the word factory. Many of you, I can well understand, will be prepared with one at once. A factory, they will say, is obviously a large building, or other place, where commodities are produced for sale in great quantity; and that is undoubtedly the popular meaning. Others might be more cautious; warned it may be by a futile endeavour to comprehend the law on the subject, or even a disagreeable experience of its operation. A few would I daresay remain who, having considered the subject fully, had come to the conclusion that it was very far from being as simple a thing as it seemed.

I am grieved to inform you that I who come before you in the guise of an instructor must be numbered with the last class. I have been officially conversant with factories for well over a quarter of a century, have studied their characteristics closely during that time, and written much about them, and yet I cannot for the life of me say, at this present hour and place, with any proper approach to certainty, what the technical, philosophical, or even legislative conception of a factory exactly is. Something of their history I can tell you, and a good deal about the regulation by the State of labour within them; and it may be hoped that in this survey some needed light will be thrown on the above mystery. Something too of the derivate meaning of the term. We will commence with that.

The term factory as formerly understood meant universally a trading establishment, usually in a distant country, with which were associated in idea the settlements and surroundings appertaining. It is primarily defined in this sense even yet in most dictionaries and works on industrial technology. After a while it came to be associated with the word mill. Dr. Aiken, in a History of Manchester, published in 1793, used these two words as equivalents, while Mr. Baines in The History of the Cotton Manufacture refers, as late as 1835, to its employment in its present sense as still a modern innovation. Ure's Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures does not possess any article on Factory; in Dod's Dictionary of Manufacturers, etc., published in 1876, no allusion to an altered meaning is made, and even in the last edition (1880) of M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, it is merely described as an abbreviation of "manufactory." There is no help to be had here. How the curious connection, with the term mill came about, we shall see hereafter; what is important at present is to get rid absolutely of any association with the idea of trade.

Assuming the absence of this then, and accepting for the moment as satisfactory the ordinary conception of a factory as a place for producing commodities on a large scale, it will presently become evident that a very high antiquity must be claimed for such like. It is not merely that they are as old as history, but far older, unmistakable traces of them being found in that vast, silent time ere history was. Sir Charles Lyell was I think the first writer of distinction to draw attention to the existence of such places during the Neolithic age, by a description in his well known work on "The Antiquity of Man" of one near Bern, in Switzerland; and since then many have been discovered elsewhere, in France, Belgium, Germany, America, and largely in the British. Isles, among other places. A still more recent discovery in Poland seems to point to the existence of a factory of Paleolithic implements, though this needs confirmation. My audience will possibly excuse me if I do not attempt to describe the factory system of this period, one which may range any time between ten thousand and a few hundred thousand years ago. That investigation belongs rather to another branch of this Society, to whose attention I have now much pleasure in commending it. Subsequent to, or perhaps in some instances contemporary still with, it we have abundant proofs of a system of organised factory labour under the great archaic civilisation of the East and of Northern

Africa. In ancient Egypt, for example, pictures indelibly graven on the monuments and retaining almost their original freshness furnish full particulars of, the scene. Gangs of workman are employed under a taskmaster or overseer, different sections of the labourers being engaged in different branches of the work, and all co-operating towards a common end. In the manufacture of bricks, for instance, in which you will remember the captive Hebrews took so conspicuous a part, this is presented with great clearness; and also in that of pottery, leather, and some others. It is a source of lasting regret that no similarly clear presentation of the great textile industries has been found, and especially of that of linen, for some thousands of years the staple manufacture of the country. Yet that the factory system was operative in this direction too must seem clear if only from the circumstances of that great production. How else could the vast quantities of linen yarn which we know to have been used, not only by the native population, but for export, have been produced? Nor are we without some indications of it, though faint ones. In the tombs at Beni Hassan, women, apparently captives, for their legs are tied, are shown spinning in company, and elsewhere both men and women weaving; while in one instance, both these processes, with several appertaining are figured taking place together. Moreover certain modern writers, particularly well qualified to judge, have not scrupled, both to affirm this fact, and even, in some cases, to actually describe and locate the process. Mr. James in The History of the Worsted Manufacture writes as to weaving:-"The Egyptians resembled ourselves in this, that they possessed large weaving establishments, and supplied with their products foreign lands," whilst Mr. Warden, a Scotchman and author of The Linen Trade Ancient and Modern, is not only of the same opinion, but pictures the places of work as "of a kindred nature to the hand loom weaving shops not yet extinct in this country." Lastly, M. Maspéro, most learned of recent Egyptologists, in describing the imaginary aspect of that country during the reign of Rameses II. (i.e., about 1400 B.C.), offers the following direct and detailed testimony as to spinning. "Apu," he writes, "is celebrated for its spinning mills;" adding in a note, "The spinning mills of Apu still exist; their chief manufacture is a material with little blue and white checks, of which the fellah women make their outer garments." In Babylonia and Assyria, where the cotton and woollen, rather than the linen manufacture