Act had repealed the provisions in Hobhouse's Act forbidding this): they countersigned surgeon's certificates for children employed in their own factory . One factory inspector had reported a case of a millowner sitting as magistrate on a case brought against his own sons, as tenants of a mill he owned. Magistrates had the power to mitigate the penalties specified in the Act. The inspectors reported that magistrates habitually did so, and to an extent which defeated the law; it was more profitable to break the law and pay the occasional fine than to comply with the Act. "After these representations .. by his own inspectors, how could the noble Lord opposite reconcile it with his conscience as an individual, and with his public duty as a Minister of the Crown, during the whole course of his administration, never to have brought forward any measure for the removal of so tremendous an evil?" The education clauses were not observed in one mill in fifty; where they were, the factory inspectors reported, "the schooling given is a mere mockery of instruction"; vice and ignorance, and their natural consequences, misery and suffering, were rife among the population of the manufacturing districts. "Would the noble Lord opposite venture to say that the education of the manufacturing classes was a matter of indifference to the country at large?" "He wanted them to decide whether they would amend, or repeal, or enforce the Act now in existence; but if they would do none of these things, if they continued idly indifferent, and obstinately shut their eyes to this great and growing evil, if they were careless of the growth of an immense population, plunged in ignorance and vice, which neither feared God, nor regarded man, then he warned them that they must be prepared for the very worst result that could befall a nation." Fox Maule tries again (1839–41) In the 1839 session, Fox Maule revived the 1838 Bill with alterations. The literacy tests were gone, and the education clauses restored. The only other significant changes in the scope of the legislation were that working extra hours to recover lost time was now only permitted for water-powered mills, and magistrates could not countersign surgeon's certificates if they were mill-owners or occupiers (or father, son, or brother of a mill-owner or occupier). Details of enforcement were altered; there was no longer any provision for inspectors to be