James Pearce's Essay

Although the owner 's gave some information on their perspective about the changing role of women, the worker 's perspective is more credible because it also identifies the social issues of working conditions and wages, education, and wealth and living standards. First, in Britain, Parliament debated the problem of children working in mines by using excerpts from a testimony in 1842. James Pearce, a young 12-year-old boy, was part of one of the excerpts in the testimony. He said, "About a year and a half ago I took to the girdle and chain; I don 't like it; it hurts me; it rubs my skin off; I often feel pain. I get 15d. a-day" (Pearce 1842). This quote is about the young boy who worked with a girdle and chain, a device used to drag coal through the mines. Also, the quote shows how hardworking the boy is and how he is enduring the pain to earn his wages, the 15d. a-day. The worker 's perspective in this piece of evidence is more credible because not only is it a primary source, but it is detailed and clearly shows the worker 's condition and wages like said in the

Next, another excerpt talked about education by a nearly 10-year-old boy named, Wm. Drury was said in the testimony in 1842. As another boy who worked in the mines, he said "I can 't read nor write; I haven 't been much to school, only on Sundays..." (Drury 1842). This quote states that Wm. Drury did not know how to either read or write and that he only goes to school once a week. He is surely not the only child who hasn 't been educated and this can be said to other children as well. This evidence of the worker 's perspective is also more believable than an owner 's perspective because it is a primary source of how much this boy learned from school or his