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

LYCEUM.

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Ilialtop.—Aad THIS DUI: CS MOTTO. Mr. Yachter, Mews.
Jordan, Emery, Mae, Wlthlkontb, Mtapatrick, Mlaxa
Hearade, Irtworthy, Grattan, and Carlotta leclormi

BTUND,

TITI9I Emma% MARRIED DAtiaTYRS AND YOUNG !WS-
DA NIAI ISKA LOA: OR, THL SLNSATIONGOAT. Megan.
Th"rrie, James, 11014ou, and Tamer ; Mesdames Swsabereagh,
Jiggles, Nortoe, Westhersby, ac.—yd A SUIT OY IWAILLY3.

HOLBORN.
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Foote and Lennon.—And FLYING SCUD. Meters. Neville, Del-
more, bleat), V.Ugh% ate. ; Mesdames F. lomphs, C. Mandan.
Berle Foote. !Addeo, Lennox, Raymond, to.

BZITAN NU.
Twrs ETIVITNO, FAUST. Mrs. Lane and Mesdames Edwin,
Jambe, and Booth. - After which THE TICK ET OF LEAVE.
Messrs Esynolits, Cranford, Drummond, Blawood, and Elton ;
and Wes S.

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LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 30.

THE sixth Report of the Children's Employ-
ment Commission is devoted to an inquiry
into an organized system of labour, common
in some of the Eastern Counties, known as
agricultural gangs, and exhibits, as the re-
sult of that system, a state of social demo-
ralization such as cannot be allowed longer
to continue, now that its iniquities have been
exposed, without becoming a disgrace to the
whole country. These gangs, which are formed
for the execution of field work, are composed for
the most part of women and young persons, and
children of both sexes from six years of age.
The master is a contractor for the execution of.
work, making a profit by the labour of these
whom he employs. The strength of the gang
varies from ten to forty members, but twenty is
the ordinary number. The system is found in
Nottinghamshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge-
shire, and Huntingdonshire, but is moat prevalent
inLincolnshire. In the latter county occupiers
of three hundred acres are to be found who
have no labourers in their regular employ, except
those who work with the horses of the farm.
Labourers are got as they are wanted : they
come and go, and all the light work is done
by these travelling gangs. Mr. LoNos and Mr.
WRITS, the assistant commissioners who conducted
the local inquiry, found as many as 6,399 women
and children employed in this manner. These ano-
malous organizations are formed on the sole respon-
sibility, and for the profit, of the gang masters,
who are described as men whom the farmers are
not willing to have in their regular employ ; men
who belong to the class of "catch-work labourers"
—in must cases of indolent and drinking habits
—in some cases of notorious depravity, and
as a rule utterly unfit to have the care of
young people. The women who belong to the
gang are those who have forfeited their chance
of better employment or whose habits are coarse
and irregular. Withtheso are aasociatedyouthswho
have been brought up in the system from their
tenderest years, who have therefore lost all oppor-
tunity of early instruction, and been hardened by
early association with vice. The hours of work
vary from ten to fourteen a day, but sometimes
the gang has to travel a distance of from five to
six miles to the scene of labour, when the hours
of actual work are necessarily reduced. One case
is given of a little girl, six years of age, who
walked eight miles to her work, and had to be
carried the beat part of the way home by her
sisters. For her day's work, including the dis-
tance travelled, the child received fourpence.
Mr. WEITZ gives a summary of cases of a like
kind :

A ringmaster employing young children, and having
had some as young as 7 or 6 years, used to take his gang
to one or two farms six miles off, and two or three times
some of the children came • distance of seven or eight
miles. To another place "he had had • boy 7or 8 years
and a girl of 9 come six miles." A ringmaster in another
place "had one or two children of 8 years old walk five
miles out and five back." Elsewhere, • woman, whose
children began young, some before 7 years old, says,
" Some of mine have gone four, five, six, and seven miles
off ;" and adds that the little ones, clown to those at 4d.
a day, have to go, " Not but what the little ones have all
the same steps to set as the great, and all the same yards
and miles to go." A boy 5 years old used to be carried
home from his work by the others. And elsewhere, " Yon
see the big ones come dragging the little ones home, and
sometimes taking them on their backs when they are over-
tired." A mother says of her boy that he had been six
miles and further to work, and had come home so tired
that he could scarcely stand ; and that they had also had