The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-23 00:00:00

FACTORY INSPECTORS' REPORTS.

The usual reports, just laid before Parliamcn‘,
from the Inspectors of Factories, deal with several
subjects of great in±errs•. The numb3r of opera-

tives on full time in the cotton districts is staved to
have increased by above 60 per cent. in the course
of the year 1863, but work was less abundant in the
latter part of the year, and the earnings aro lament-
ably insufficient owing to the inferior character of
so much of the material. The diminished mortality
continues. The improved health of the operatives
is attributed to the change to outdoor labour in
many instances, less of riotous living in some, and
shorter working hours for the women and children.
But the diminished supply of nutritious food has
begun to tell, and perhaps also the extra labour
which Surat cotton entails; and medical men say
that the people are thinner and show diminished
stamina, and that the constitutional vigour of great
numbers is gradually being undermined, though
this result is not manifested in increasing sickness,
bat rather in retarding recovery. The report from
the schools is satisfactory ; the attendance has con-

tinued good, and many schoolmasters have kept
children in their schools without payment rather
than turn them into the streets. The sewing-
schools have taught needlework to hundreds of
grown-up women who were quite ignorant of it.
Mr. Redgrave reports, " I saw a mother, for
instance, in a sewing-school, making a frock for
her sixth child ; this woman had never used la
needle until she came to the sewing-class."
He gives an account, also, of the improve.
merits which are being effected by the operatives
under the Public Works Act. The wages earned
at such works have been low, but would improve
as the men became accustomed to the work, and
they have proved intelligent workers and ready
to learn. There has been no backwardness in
endeavouring to obtain work in cotton factories;
but generally the operatives have been disinclined
to leave their neighbourhood, and this feeling
has naturally been fostered indirectly by the
masters and the house-owners. Mr. Redgrave
supposes the cotton imported this year will cost up.
wards of £80,000,000, but he notices the effect of
high price in producing economy. The' waste"
from the various processes of the manufacture of
cotton is now worked up again, and is the means of
giving employment to many hands. The preju-
dice against the re-manufacture of woollen waste
has subsided, and left the " shoddy" trade an
important branch of the woollen trade of York-
shire, giving the consumer cloth of a fair quality
at a very moderate price; and doubtless the
" cotton waste" trade will be recognised
as supplying an admitted want. Cotton mills are
still in course of erection ; Mr. Redgrave hears that
there will be upwards of 100 ready to be worked
when the cotton trade revives, and the opinion of
the trade is that they will be required and will be
worked. Mr. Baker also reports that the mill.
owners expect a trade "of which no one has
yet seen the like," But it is not easy ever
to se
the hands are to be found. To a certain
deficiency of labour is likely to be supplied extent the
e where
im-
provements in machinery. Mr. Redgrave
a mill in Manchester in which he noticed n mnewebyctaiordn
ing engines, and on inquiry learned that 12 are
doing the same quantity of
work that 75 did before ;
the manufacturer says he requires 14 fewer hands,
and finds a saving in waste amounting to about 10
per cent., and a great saving in power, coal, oil,
tallow, shafting, and strapping, and give cheerful
rooms and a good atmosphere to breathe. Still Mr.
Redgrave has to conclude with the expression of
his hope that if a scarcity of hands shall give rise
to a demand for an advance in the rate of wages,
the warm sympathy which has been so deeply felt
by the whole country for the distressed districts,
i
the mutual respect and good feeling which have
existed between employer and employed during the
last two eventful years, and the experience the ope-
ratives have had that the interests of themselves
and the masters are identical, will tend to divest
allotfm s whichangry eachfeeling, so that
party may
tithemqayuebsetiosenttolf wagesedupon
terms
consider as just and fair to himself.

THE BILL FOR. BUILDING THE NEW PALACE 01"
JusTtcz is to be proceeded with this session, says to-day'a
Law Times.

b~

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1864,

SIIAKSPERE'S Birth three hundred years ago is,
in thought at least, commemorated to-day, the wide
world over, by every reasonably educated English-
man. As for the celebration of it otherwise, it is a
a pity, perhaps, that it was ever dreamt of. And
this, simply, because the result of the movement set
on foot with a view to its public and practical com-
memoration has turned out to be so very much indeed
of a failure. In fact, could this anti-climax of a
result have been even dimly forseen by its on•
ginators, we may rest perfectly well assured that
the movement would never seriously have
been commenced. Better by far would it have
been, had nothing whatever been attempted, than
that so very little should come of all these spas-
modic efforts iu the way of elaborate preparation.
Tae Stratford-upon-Avon commemmoration is,
after ail, the only really rational attempt to
a fitting celebration of this Tercentenary e,nniver-
eary. And even there, in SHAKSPERE'S 'awn birth-
place, the chief incident of the day—o,s' the day—is
an unearthly three o'clock dinner (3 p.m. beina•
the dining-hour of neither 4:
FALLZEtiI nor aris-
tocrat), presided over by the Earl of CARLISLE,
and followed in the evening by a display of Mr.
DARBY'S fireworks! As for the celebration of the
day, here, in London, but little enough, un-
fortunately, need be remarked upon that
head.
And for even that little, the public
are mainly indebted, on the one hand to our
working men in the metropolis, and on the other
to our London theatrical managers. The working
Merl have taken. the morning to themselves. The
theatrical managers have taken the evening.
As something at any rate in the way of a
commencement of some practical kind, the
London Trade Societies (who have recently
aired their banners in honour of GARIBALDI)
collected together this morning on Primrose Hill :
and there, with what ceremonial they could muster,
to the sound of music, played by the binds of her
MAJESTY'S Household Brigade, and to the planting
of a suppling oak from Windsor Forest, in memory
of this day, as WILLIAM SHAKSPERE'S three hun-
dredth birthday,formally rechristened the Hill itself
—henceforth to be called no longer Primrose Hill,
but Shakspere's Fla As for the principal manage-
rial celebrations of the day, in the evening, they may

very readily be summarized. A Shaksperian Con-
cert and Recital at the Agricultural Hall, Islington !
The First Part of " Henry the Fourth" at Drury-
Lane ! " Twelfth Night" at the Haymarket, fol-
lowed by " Venus and Adonis"—not, however,
SHAKSPERE'S exquisite poem, but Mr. BURNAND'S
ridieulous Burlesque! "The Comedy of Errors" at
the Princess's, with the Brothers WEBB as the
two Dromios ! The Second Part of HENRY the
SIXTH at the Surrey ! At the St. James's, and at the
New Adelphi, performances of a miscellaneous cha-
racter in aid of the Monument Fund. The Monu-
ment here referred to, being the one still intended
to be raised eventually in Green Park by the Na-
final Shakspere Committee—or rather that Monu-
ment Embracing A Statue of Shakspere, so ling
advertised as intended, and just now so
humorously pourtrayed by one of Mr.
Punch's comic draughtsmen in the Tercen-
tentary number of that merry publication. The
Festival to-day at the Crystal Palace, again, is
one of the few prominent indications in London
or near it, of anything at all like a suitable public
celebration of this Tercentenary of the Poet's birth.
day. A beautiful SHAKSPERE Medal, it should be
mentioned, however, has been produced—under
the design of Mr. JOHN BELL and the skilled
manipulation of Mr. L. C. WYON—at the Messrs.
HUNT and ROSKELL'S establishment. As for the
Coventry Ribbon-Favour, it is just nowhere. And
the same be said, unhappily, of the once-talked of
National Holiday.
Meanwhile, the more enterprising of our pub-
lishers are pouring out from the press, with
every luxury of their craft, a really won-
derful variety of New Editions of those writings
of SHAKSPERE'S, which, as the next greatest
of our English Poets said of them, are, in
very deed, SuAKsrERE's noblest and most en-
during monument. Coupled with his name
and fame, we are here tempted to add,
are two or three circumstances so remark-
able of their kind, as mere coincidences,—
well known every one of them, but little
thought of nevertheless—that we cannot but
think it will be interesting to bear in mind,
however passiggly, on this three-hundredth
anniversary of the Great Poet's Birth. The cir-
cumstance of his Death occurring on the anniver-
sary of his Birth is of course vividly in the recollec-
tion of us all. And no less so is the fact of this same
date, the date of the 23d of April, being the day set
down in the Calendar as commemorative of the
patron saint of England, ST. GEORGE. Between
those two St. George's days—the 23d of April, 1564,
the date of SHAKSPERE'S birth at Stratford-upon-
Avon, and the 23d of April, 1616, the date of
SHAICSPERE'S death, also at Stratford-upon-Avon—
as many years elapsed as there are weeks in a year :
that is, Fifty-Two. Along the southern coast line
marked by the white cliffs of England, moreover,
there beetles forth conspicuously to view before the
gaze of every oue approaching the heights of Dover,
after crossing the British Channel, that gigantic
evidence of the fame of SHAKSPERE, the
Cliff called after him—and so called after him for
what reason ? Simply because, in one of his plays,
there occurs a passage of a very few lines, describing
an imaginary jump from the summit of it ! Another
matter yet for reflection, in SHAKSPERE'S regard, we
would suggest as not undeserving one momentary
thoaght to-day—refering here as we do to the cit-
cumstance of this great National Genius having
had his birthplace and his deathplace—appro-
priately, as it seems to us—in the very centre of
that England he loved so well—in one of the most
beautiful old country towns in the land—in the
green heart of Warwickshire.

The expenses of the law and the prolixity of
lawyers have passed into a byword. Setting
aside the fabulous cost and interminable duration
of a case which runs through the various civil
courts, there is no legal form, no petty transaction
in which it is necessary to invoke the assistance of
a lawyer which does not demand an amount of
time and money totally disproportionate to the
affair. The reform of the law has long been a
matter of consideration, but, like all reforms,
it is a very tedious and difficult process.
Such a large and powerful body is inte-
rested in keeping up the old abuses that it is a task
of much patience and delicacy to introduce any
measare curtailing the privileges of lawyers, or
reducing the inevitable expenses of the law. We
must admit that one of the most active and con-
sistent of our present law reformers is the noble
lord now sitCng on the woolsack. The public owe
him a debt of gratitude for having availed himself
of the authority of his position and the advantages
of his experience to remedy many existing defects
in our legal administration, and more especially to
encourage that brevity, clearness, and simplicity
which have heretofore been supposed to be entirely
incompatible
.with strict legality. One of his
most important measures was on Thursday evening
brought under the notice of the House of Lords by
Lord CIIELMSFORD, who called the attention of
their lordships to the working of the Land Transfer
Act, which he denounced as a failure, since very
few persons had taken advantage of it since the 1

gill
had become law. Lord WESTBURY declared
himself obliged to his noble and learned predecessor
for having given him the opportunity of explaining
the actual state of affairs, and accordingly he pro-
ceeded to give very clear and conclusive answers to
the charges brought against the bill by Lord
CHELMSFORD. It appears from the statistics which
he gives us, that although since the passing of the
Act there have been only 65 applications for regis-
tration under it, yet those applications included
nearly two millions'-worth of property, and ;Josh
amount of business in the short space of 1,-t; months
is an unusually favourable comm:incement to the
practical working of any meP,dure. The Lord Chan-
cellor reminded the Hr,,ase that all such reforms
worked their wa,--/ very slowly, and cited the
example of 'the Copyhold Enfranchisement Act,
now so popular, under which there was in the first
3"-iar of its existence only one application. In the
second year there 12 cases ; in the next, 29 ; and so
on by slow but sure degrees, until, twenty years
later, the number bad risen to 786, The Enclo-
sure Commissioners' Act, again, had at first only
10 cases in twelve months ; the second year showed
an increase of two ; the third year the number of
cases was 39; and so on, until the annual amount
is 246. Such is the slowness with which the know-
ledge of these important changes spreads among the
people. It is not surprising if we come to consider
the absurdity and difficulty attending legal docu-
ments, and the consequent abandonment of affairs
almost entirely into the hands of lawyers. It is
scarcely likely that a man who has been for many
years in the habit of turning to his solicitor for an
explanation of every, legal question will at once
take upon himself the unwonted responsibility of
acting entirely in opposition to his solicitor's
opinion and advice. He must be a strong-minded
and clear-headed man who will at once brave the
displeasure of his professional adviser and turn a
deaf ear to his doubts as to the accuracy, efficiency,
and legality of his prcceedings. The solicitors, as
a body, plainly intimated their intention of op-
posing this measure when it was first introduced,
and they have amply fulfilled the threat, as Lord
WESTBURY frankly told the House on Thursday.
NeTertheless, the advantages of the Act are so

great and apparent that it will assuredly find more
and more favour with the public as it becomes more

widely known and its utility better appreciated.
The Lord Chancellor showed to their lordships a
certificate of title under the new Act, with the map,
the accurate result of the title, the copy of the
entry on the register ; and from holding this simple
and comprehensible document in his hand, the
owner, if he wished to sell his property, could
carry it to the auctioneer, the purchaser could
examine the corresponding entry in the hook of
register, and the business is at an end. This
simple registration supersedes the wearisome inves-
tigations, the tedious delays, and all the expense
and uncertainty belonging to the transfer of land
under the old Acts. In the event of a mortgage or
a wish to raise money temporarily, the advantages
are equally great. Ia fact, matters are brought
within a man's own scope and comprehension in-
stead of being hopelessly entangled in the hands
of his professional advisers. No wonder the solicitors
set their faces against a measure which reduces
an investigation of title occupying 150 sheets of
parchment to one side of a single sheet 1 Yet such
was the case with the very document which the
Lord Chancellor held in his hand, and the Dake of
MoNTRosE cite] a case which had come under his
own observation in which a charter consisted of half
a page instead of 30 pagzs! Under the existing
system of legal charges, such a measure is certain
to encounter most formidable opposition, since as
solicitors have themselves said with great force to
the Chancellor, " the law as it now stands, rewards
them for prolixity and fines them for brevity."
And the interest thus brought to bear is by no
means insignificant. Lord WESTBURY declared a
patent fact when he said that this was a lawyer-
ridden conntry, for every peer among his auditors
had a solicitor sitting on his shoulders like SeND-
BAD'S old man of the sea, whom he could not shake
off ? The noble and learned lord went on to say
with some humour, but much truth, that most of
them were quite in the dark as to the wearing of the
unwieldy masses of parchment to which from time
to time they appended their names. « All other
mysteries have been unfolded, but this thing which j
comes home to you all is a sealed book." With a
view to the removal of the obstacles which militate
against the success of this measure, and also in the
interests of the public, the Lord Chancellor proposes
to introduce a measure for the alteration of the law
with regard to the remuneration of solicitors. Such
a bill, if fairly framed and successfully carried out,
will indeed be a public boon, and there is probably
no one who has ever had any dealings with the
grave and learned confraternity who will not gladly
hail an innovation which makes verbosity and ob-
scurity inseparable attendants on the already suf-
ficiently perplexing and discomfiting dealing of the
law.

The growing feeling of the country with respect
to the insufficiency of its Parliamentary represen-
tation bodes no good to the tottering fortunes of
the present Administration. Her MAJESTY'S Ev'ee
visors are indeed in such an unfortunate 1-,osition
that it is difficult to see what can ex`..ricate them
from their perplexities. It is true, that it would
be scarcely possible to exceed, the unpopularity of
their foreign policy—a policy which, by its in-
genious combination of loud remonstrances with
very timorous actions, its " meddling and mud-
dling," has continued to combine in a very remark-
able degree the drawbacks and inconveniences of
peace and war. It has given us the necessity of
maintaining costly and extensive war armaments,
at the same time that it can neither uphold our
honour nor protect our commerce. It has made us
take a prominent part in every foreign question,
while it has neither befriended the weak nor con•
ciliated the strong—neither satisfied our allies nor
daunted our opponents. Our reputation has
collapsed, our professions aro ridiculed, and self-
interest is invariably declared to be the ruling
motive of a power which is contiou illy making
uncalled for concessions, and abandoning every
advantage which a bolder and a wiser age had
gained. Under these circumstances the foreign
policy of the Government will certainly not be its
strong point at the hustings when that inevitable
day of trial comes, which even Lord PALMERSTON'S
tact and ingenuity cannot stave off much longer.
But unfortunately for the prospects of the Whig
Cabinet, supposing that a sudden settlement of all
the vexed questions at present distracting Europe
were possible, they would not be much better off.
If Russia granted Poland an independent constitu-
tion tomorrow, if the Northern States of America
recognised the independence of the South, and both
parties gave Earl RUSSELL'S eloquence as the
reason of their conduct; nay, even supposing the
Schleswig-Holstein problem to be finally solved
during the lifetime of the present House of Com-
mons, the troubles of the Government would
not be altogether over. There would bn one
obstacle in the road to success, one ghost that re-
fused to be laid, and its name would be Reform.
The very question which carried them into power
has turned into one of their most seriues perplexi-
ties. Nu one can suppose, the most sanguine
ERimsTaogiiin,te3,
Cthabatineitt is the in-
tention of Lord
Liberal cannot possiblypALu
to grant
any comprehensive measure of Reform. Yet the
awkward questions will inevitably be asked on the
hustings, to which it is very improbable that "Rest
and be thankful" will be accepted as a sufficient or
satisfactory answer, Ministers will be reminded
of those high-flown professions which flowed
so
glibly from thrjr lips at the time of the uncondi
•
tional rejPetion of the DERBY Reform Bill. How
julperative was it then to extend the franchise, to
remodel the electoral districts, to shorten the dura-
tion of Parliaments—for why should such con-
sistent and patriotic members fear to meet their
constituents ? and as for election expenses, the
ballot would put a very decided limit to them.
Unfortunately the same story will not do twice
over, and a long and continuous tenure of office
leaves little excuse for unfulfilled pledges. It can-
not, therefore, be very gratifying to the Government
or their supporters to witness the assembling of
popular delegates from many of the large towns
of the kingdom which recently took place at Man-
chester to confer on the great question of National
Reform. Mr. ERNEST JONES was there, pith his
proposal of manhood suffrage, and a good many
adherents, who declared that the mass of the
people would never be thoroughly aroused
by a less comprehensive measure. Others were
there, however, more prudent and more far-seeing,
who reminded the Couference that the people of
this country had always been averse to sudden and
violent changes, and that consequently the way to
ensure success was to proceed with caution, and

to obtain the aid of all classes by demanding mede-

rate and practical measures, It is on this principle
that we trust the reformers throughout the country
will act, not plunging into wild extremes, which
startle the prudent, and wilich, after all, have

only theory to recommend them. No Government

can much longer delay a reform of the Parliamen-
tary representation and an extension of the

suffrage. A constituency of 1,200,000 is perfectly
inath>quate to represent the people of this

country. But in securing this important reform

we hope that a measure even more important iu
its direct influence upon our PArliarnentAry system