The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-11 00:00:00

meats that had either existed before the cessation of
I
their factory work or appeared to be independent of
their altered circumstances; four had experienced
some loss of health, but not during their attendance
at the school, one or two having indeed enjoyed
better health since they attended the classes—five
said that they werein better health than when they
were at mill work-12 stated that they were as
well as when so employed—and in the case of the
six others more or less deterioration of health had
occurred. Minute inquiries into the amount of in-
come received by these girls, and the mode of its
appropriation, led to the conclusion that health was
being maintained on so much food as could be
bought with 2s. 11,d;per week, but that where, from
any cause, the amount of income available for food
fell materially below that point loss of health was
very generally
t
ebe of e
occulrrsis moment thancharacterng.Thea
sffieieofthneefy ofood
q
of fresh
uantity,butmsetialt wlitass assistingeeme
seemed probable
theable depriva-
tiontehhastervedloss
of health. To meet this last evil it recommended
that the sewing girls should get their dinner at the
schools twice a week, by which means a meal, such
as potato-hash, containing fresh vegetables and
about two ounces of meat, might be supplied at the
same cost to the girls themselves as their innutri-
tious and monotonous dinner of bread and tea. The
ventilation of the room naturally attracted a good
deal of attention as exercising an important influence
upon the health of the scholars. The average at-
tendance of girls in the schools examined at Preston
was such that in those buildings each scholar had at
least 120 cubic feet of air, and the means of heating
and ventilation were such that the air could be
maintained sufficiently pure and warm. At times,
however, an unusual influx of scholars reduced the
breathing space to 70 or 80 cubic feet, or more fre-
quently the love of the girls for hot rooms led them
to close the windows and ventilators, and then the
atmosphere became oppressive and unwholesome.
So great an aversion have the girls accustomed to
the warm close rooms of the factories to anything
like a draught or a free current of air that even
where the breathing space available for each girl
does not exceed 60 cubic feet they take every oppor-
tunity of closing the windows or other apertures
intended for the admission of external air. Under
such circumstances it is not surprising that the at-
mosphere of many of these rooms is to a visitor
intolerably hot and close, and that, if the girls
themselves do not suffer, the injurious Effc cts of a
protracted attendance are frequently experienced
by the superintendents. Dr. Buchanan closes his
report with a recommendation that " 120 cubicfeet
at least should be secured to each girl in the sew-
ing school, when necessary by a limitation of the
number of scholars in a room. In all cases due ven-
tilation of the rooms should be resolutely insisted
on, and with such ventilation the temperature that
would be the best to adopt for a mean is probably
65 deg. Fahrenheit.

AMERICAN TRAVELLING.

-.•-
(From a Correspondent of the Times.)

Anon
e theuins sosinat nightinetcaheiyeme unavoidable; rwofptef
official
ables, books, Yankee notions. The voice was not sufficient
to solicit custom; the basket was thrust in your ribs for
your patronage. The hawkers of New York papers bawled
the titles of their ware in our ears till midnight. Presently
came the turn for the Philadelphia, then for the Baltimore
early press. The evening trash was followed by the morn-
ing rubbish, with first, second, and third editions, and the
" sensation" headings dinned at full length into our ears.
guard squalling for tickets. He came past like a turnkey
making the round of his gaol birds. He dug his sharp-
nailed thumb between the shoulders and chest of the unlucky
sleepers. He spoke to us, handled us as no London police-
man would deal with a thief. Eight or ten times at least in
it
esnothingtf foroaffaurk
enet
ati
cucatkgtiwheowhtnaatsi
wanton
11rt ; eoakennltt
tolhe 1
lapwmawvl
teeeidainnL
sr.
ceueaend: Tmeedo
tehieesnreqt
ag-
gravatingnnuh theeoaa
ttl
thew ;s
hsutor l
mtNyhwt
hoveeierftaulnon::utohantgakaihnhnheaugdi
.Mauled, pounded, and with all my poor blood boiling
dci
matterani carmen,
aod
insolent
ti
and
starei
nee course,
indignities,
hal eaa:ctfkllnast
hehytea reacheddcootffiaaeeghe
a:
utpnlsthctaeleh,
nana:bbenrwoyeddotihehrfaate
lhitrboaheaeon:teffgoatpvar:
eeoslal:eahtdaane nuerdtsrse swindler,ea
after your
ri
hasng ticket
the
the ht
righti ec kheata. tao right
treat
keeper, and the laziness and untidiness of the waiters at the
hotel. I have since been moving about, without ceasing,
by day no less than by night, by steamboats no less than on
railways. I found nowhere a change for the better. Every-
where the same crowds and mobs, the same filth, the same
utter disregard for other people's comfort, the same reek-
less irresponsible extortion, the same cool quiet insolence,
the same want of all order, punctuality, civility. I spoke to
well. to •do Americans, who agreed with me that travelling
in their country exposes them to all the harsh unmannerly
treatment I complained of, who confirmed my opinion that
matters on that score have become infinitely worse than
they used to be in my old experience of Yankeeland a quar-
ter of a century since, when they were in all conscience
already as bad as they ought to be. My friends shrug their.
shoulders, and think the evil admits of no cure. Secession
you may have in America, and martial law, and the sus-
pension of the habeas corpus; but democracy must. needs.
hold its tyrannical away on the high road ; and a division
of railway carriages into classes, a separation of first and
twesechsiaethsahslasadyrettdorohvognuedieediseoos sharpu
odious
smotbhfauenyatthoh twanging
voice
second cabin passengers in steamboats, are no more to be
thought of than the removal of the nasty quid from the
jaws of an independent citizen, or the abolition of the pri-
vilege every man has of turning the carpet even of a lady's
drawing-room into
"don't," and
How should, then, a poor
wight travel in this country ? The answer of my estimable
friends
exacnudrsitohnes in h
they
illustrate
jour-
neys of dire necessity, and hastening to Europe whenever
they can afford leisure and money for genial locomotion.
Travelling in America i 3 like
politics—a dirty work, from
t e States precept
ta by
practice by limiting their
which clean-minded men shrink, leaving it to those who
have no better way to get on in the world; and who know
how to turn it to the best account.

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 13.
I left New York for Washington a few days ago. The
thermometer was at 95 deg, in the shade. I chose the even-
ing mail in the vain hope of shunning the killing heat of
the day. From my hotel to the ferry, and from this again
to the Jersey shore, I and my baggage were, of course, at
the mercy of hackney coachmen, carmen, and porters. Like
everything else, extortion is free in America ; it is sullen,
insolent, overbearing besides; it bows to no tariff, stoops to
no fixed charges; it takes its own time, chooses its own way,
deaf to your remonstrances, unmoved by your hurry ; bully
or blackguard it does not, for it has a quiet consciousness
of its power, and does not condescend to Niggle or argue.
It bumps your "plunder" on the ground, shatters your
trunks wilfully, as if visiting on each luckless box that so-
cial sin that made some men owners, and some others mere
carriers of trunk.

THE SON, LONDON, PRIDAY , EVENING, SEPTEMBER 11, 1863

leave much mark in the great national account.
That account goes on with the steadiness and uni-
formity of mechanism, and happy it is for us that
its purport is prosperity. On another point, too,
connected with this subject the sr‘ine conditions of
the question may be remarked. It has been asserted
that among the middle class of the population, or at
any rate among a particular section of that class,
marriages have become of late less frequent than
they wore and than they ought to be. But this de-
cline, if it has anywhere occurred, is lost in the
gross totals of the reckoning. Whatever may be
done by war or famine, we may be pretty certain
that a mere predilection for bachelorship has never
yet affected the marriage rate struck by the Regis-
trar-General. We sincerely trust it never may
do so, for the symptom would be a bad one for the
country, but at present the whole assertion must
remain without proof. We cannot test it. We can
only say that if it is founded on fact the result
is inappreciable in the statistics of the population,
and that it requires causes far more powerful than
social selfishness to influence the marriage rate of a
great nation.