The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-30 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, MARCH 30, 1867.

to send ont late in the evening to look for him as he did
not come home, " and had found him dropped asleep in a
cowshed."

The moral mischief which results from the in-
termixture of tho sexes, in gangs of this kind,
under no proper control, and subject to cha-
racters already corrupted, may be imagined.
The Rev. W. B. H ASTINOEI, rector of Ludford,
says that "on asking the best and most respects-
" ble mothers what they thought of the mixed
" system, no language could express their detests-
" tion." In the gangs foul language is habitually
used and applauded, and foul practices take place
publicly and without remonstrance. A large farmer
said to the Commissioners :—" The gang system
" is very bad indeed ; there is always something
" wrong going on. It is a bad thing for girls to
"go to work in this way." All the evidence is of
the same tendency. In the case of girls, the first
effect of working in gangs with boys is the loss of
that modesty which is the safeguard of virtue,
soon followed by an absence of all pretence to I
decency, and abandonment to the grossest moral
and physical impurity. In some places the boys
and girls bathe together. A policeman says, "Of
" the girls, their boldness and shamelessness I
" never saw equalled during some years of police
" life and detective d.ity in the worst parts of
" London." The report abounds with evidence
in support of these general indications, but it is
of a character which we may not print.
It will be sheer hypocrisy if we continue to send
out missionsto convertthe heathenwhile permitting
this horrible system, which combines some of the
11 worst evils formerly found in West Indian and Ame-
rican slavery, to exist any longer unchecked. The
system is of recent origin, and is the direct result
of two causes; first, of the pulling down of cottages
in what are termed close parishes, to avoid poor-
rates, and thereby driving the agricultural popu-
lation off the land into distant villages and towns;
and secondly, of the formation, by the enclosure
of wild land or otherwise, of large farms without
providing an adequate number of cottages to
contain the workpeople required to supply the
demand of labour for the farms. We may
expect that the pulling down of houses
will cease now that the alteration in
the law of rating, effected by the Union
Chargeability Act, has removed the inducement
under which labourers have so often been driven
to a distance from the land which they cultivated.
Many of the landowners are already showing them-
selves alive to the duty of providing cottage ac-
commodation on each farm, and the work will go
on. But this gang system should at once be put
under restrictions of a nature to destroy its worst '
effects. The Commissioners recommend that
every gang-master shall be compelled to take out
a license; that no boys under eight, and no girls
under twelve years of age be employed in gangs;
that the hours of labour be limited; and that
females should work in separate gangs, if they
must work in public gangs at all. It is further
recommended that the provisions of the Factory
Act should be applied to the case of children
employed by the public gang-master, and there is
reason to believe that such a measure would
be well received by the parents, who need
the help of a legal enactment. The Com-
missioners state that " There ia much in
" the evidence that shows that the parents of
" the children would in many instances be glad to
" be aided by the requirements of a legal oblige-
" tion to resist the pressure and the temptations
"to which they are often subject. They are
" liable to be urged at times by the parish officers,
" at times by employers, under threats of being
" themselves discharged, to allow their children
" to be taken to work at an age when it would
" manifestly be to their greater advantage that
" the school attendance should not be broken in
" upon, or entirely discontinued ; and it is plain
" that many naturally well-disposed parents would
" welcome a regulation which would oblige them
"to make some further sacrifice by which the
" education and general well-being of their children
" would be forwarded." But, in any case, there
is no reason why the same legislative protection
should not be thrown around the child employed
in one of these public agricultural gangs, as has
been accorded with the best effects to the children
engaged in the trades and manufactures of a great
part of the United Kingdom. If these regulations
should be found incompatible with a continuance
of the gang system, that might even be another
ground for satisfaction.

to give the public resentment satisfastion,and to cheek the
agitation with which we were threatened.
The Times has little doubt of the EniperorNapoleon'swish
to purchase, and of the readiness of the King of Holland
to sell Luxemburg, and says it is difficult to resist the im-
pression that the transfer had been prepared long before-
hand, at least between Prussia and France, and that this
is the fulfilment either of the whole or of part of the agree-
ment to which Bismarck and Napoleon were strongly be-
lieved to have come at their Biarritz interview. Compen-
sation was to be given to France, but not at the expense
of Prussia, and scarcely of Germany. Belgium, however,
which border, on France only on its western and southern
side, will now be shut in by her on a considerable tract of
its eastern frontier, and will find fresh cause for uneasiness
in this unexpected and startling transaction.
The Daily News offers a variety of objections to an in-
tention attributed to Mr. Disraeli of increasing the number
of members of the House of Commons by giving Scotland
a larger representation. Scotland must be satisfied, but it
is better to sacrifice some close boroughs to the attainment
of that object than to sacrifice the House of Commons to
the establishment of so dangerous a precedent.

Um (sum

WINDSOR CASTLE, MARcii 29.

The Qneen, accompanied by Princess Louise,
Prince Leopold, and Princess Beatrice, and the suite in
attendance, arrived at Windsor Castle at half-past 6
o'clock last evening from Buckingh.K.
Her Majesty drove in the Great Park this morning, at-
tended by Lady Churchill.
Prince and Princess Christian walked in the grounds of
the Castle.

Princess Beatrice, attended by the Hon. Emily Cath-
cart, rode in the Home-park.
The Right Hon. Cathonse Hardy left the Castle yester-
day.

A committee of the Lords of her Majesty's Most Ho-
nourable Privy Council sat yesterday at the Privy
Council-office, Whitehall, on matters relating to the cattle
plague. The lords present were the Lord President and
Lord Robert Montagu. Mr. Harrison and Dr. A. Wil-
liams attended the committee.

A deputation from Torquay, introduced by Sir Law-
rence Palk, Bart., M.P., and Mr. Kekewich, M.P., and
consisting of Mr. W. Kitson, Mr. J. Tapley Harvey, Mr.
George Heartier, Mr. John Harvey, and Mr. W. Harvey,
had an interview with the Right Hon. Gathorne Hardy at
the office of the Poor-law Board, Whitehall, yesterday.
Despatches were received yesterday at the Colonial.
office from the Governors of Gibraltar and Malta.

A deputation consisting of Mr. Philip Rathbone
(Chairman of the Commercial Law Committee of the Liver-
pool Chamber of Commerce), accompanied by Mr. Graves,
M.P., Mr. laird, M.P., and Mr. Baines, had an interview
yesterday with the Duke of Richmond and the Right Hon,
Stephen Cave, at the office of the Board of Trade, on the
subject of the Admindty Jurisdiction Bill.
The Hon. J. M. Henniker-Major, M.P., bad an interview
with the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterdey.