It is very hard to believe that Victorian children, had to work in filthy factories in crowded towns. Children were used as cheap labour and really desperately poor families sent their own children out to work. Poor children worked for greedy, cruel masters for less money than normal men. They worked long, tiring hours in disgusting, dirty conditions. Children working in factories often had to crawl under moving machines. Some children were injured and many lost limbs or were beheaded doing this. These factories were freezing cold in winter and roasting warm in summer. No one cared about these children until the factory act was passed and this meant children less than nine years were not allowed to work in factories. One of the worst places where children were used for cheap labour was the coalmine. These children crawled through narrow, ragged tunnels. Every day, petrified children were lowered into the coalmines with a rope on a pulley to do work which was dangerous for such young children. All children worked for 12hours a day. These children if they survived would grow up twisted and bent, crippled for life by the punishing work they did at a young stage of their life. Poor, small, young boys worked as chimneys sweeps. This was a dangerous job as the young boys climbed up through the chimney. This often meant that the soot would go into their mouth. The rich Victorian houses had long big chimneys. Chimney sweeps were often young orphan boys or children that had been sold by their parents for one pound to cruel masters. If they got cut their elbows and knees were toughened with salt.