The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-30 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1864.

It is a very difficult thing to compel people to
perform their domestic duties by act of Parlia-
ment ; and so little are we in this country accus-
tomed to official interference with individual rights
that any scheme professing so Quixotic and at the
same time so meddlesome a purpose, is little likely
to obtain favour on the first hearing. There are,
however, exceptions to the general rule of non-
intervention, which are very wisely practised at
home as well as abroad in these days, There are
cases in which the tyranny of the employer over
the employed must be restrained, in which the
anxiety of some to gain additional wages must not
be allowed to influence the whole trade by making
long hours the custom. It is necessary, too, to
guard against the avarice or ignorance of parents
who may subject children of tender years to labour
so exhaustingly and unremittingly as to leave in-
delible traces on the little unformed frame.
Masters are glad to employ women and children,
because their labour is cheap and plentiful. The
men are naturally glad to have their own scanty
earnings increased, and the women think it well
to provide something additional for their families.
At first sight there seems no reason to object pro-
vided the work is of a suitable character, but a closer
investigation of the results of such practice leads to a
very different conclusion. The medical officers of
the Privy Ccuacil have just issued two reports,
which treat of questions of great importance with
regard to the physical as well as moral welfare of
the people. The registration system, which is use-
ful in so many ways, does great practical ser-
vice, in showing the influence which different trades
have over the health of those who work at them.
The extremely high death-rate among factory chil-
dren led some years since to that benevolent inter-
vention on their behalf which has produced such
good results, and there is now another aspect of the
same question to which Mr. Smuts's Report calls
attention, which remains to be brought before the
public, The rate of mortality among children
whose mothers are employed in mills or in the fields
is fearfully high. Neglect and want of their natural
food does the workof destruction slowly but surely.
The infant frets and wails, and then the mother or
the deputy gives it GOD} REY'S cordial or some other
drug to quiet it. Before long it pines away, and
troubles no one with its crying, and so many poor
little ()nee aro year by year thus hurried into their
graves that little is thought of it. The ordinary
course of the decline is so common that it assumes
the appearance of an established infantile disease.
Very open the mothers are quite ignorant of the
mischief toey are doing. It is for their
are wcrleing, children they and they do not cons
sider or reflect that they are sacrificing the life of
one in order to obtain more food or clothes for the
rest, In
some instances'; no doubt, the mothers are
designedly careless ana culpably indifferent, but as
a general rule they eyou!,/ indignantly disclaim nay
such intention. It is a very striking fact that, not-
withstanding the distress and extreme poverty
lately felt inlancashire, the rate of mortality among
infants has been considerably lower than it was in
prosperous times, owing to the mothers being
obliged to stay at home from the stoppage of the
mills. This is a startling fact and wo should
hope it
.will teach its own moral to the