The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-08 00:00:00

in fulfilling their heritage of toil, are imbibing the
seeds of disease and sinking into premature graves
or dragging on wretched lives, The reports of the
medical officers of the Privy Council furnish a
world of subjects which earnestly call for attention
and demand consideration. Many who call it ex.
aggerated fancy and mistaken kindnesa to make
such a fuss about operatives and such like concerns
may find out for themselves the due importance of
the subject. It is from the evidence of those well
qualified to form an opinion that tae best notion
can be gained, and all qualified to be judges are
unanimous in their condemnation of much that
gees on under the name of necessary employ.
meat ; and the deleterious systems prevailing in
places where the struggle for daily bread is also
rendered a race for an early grave or a competi-
tion for the wards of a hospital or the interior of a
workhouse. The milliners suffer greatly from the
want of ventilation in the rooms where they pursue
their employments, and this militates considerably
against their health. It seems strange that, so
few attempts should be made to legislate upon this
matter. The only real cure and effectual remedy
will be to make it an offence against the law of
the land to employ young persons more than a
certain ❑umber of hours per diem, and to institute
inquiries as to the state of the sanitary condition
of the places appropriated to work. It cannot be
impossible to do this, and no secondary causes
should be allowed to stand in the way, for impera-
tive necessity calls loudly for interference. When
life is in the balance it is high time that the absurd
conventionalities of custom be done away with,
and that prejudice and private interests should
be made to give way to the claims of justice and
the dictates of humanity. The fashionable milliners
who periodically amass immense fortunes can well
contrive some other mode of conducting their
business, and they seem to find out a remedy if
they are obliged to do so. The journeymen tailors
also suffer greatly from the neglect of sani.
tory arrangements in their occupations, and their
case calls loudly for amelioration of some kind or
other. It is of no use for indignant parties to con.
tradict these statements, and, indeed, there are
proofs to the contrary of their assertions that will
not be put aside. The mortality among the class
is fearful to contemplate, as many as nearly double
of the agricultural class being carried off in middle
life. The close state of the rooms in which they
labour is so bad that all comfort is destroyed, and
the wretched occupant, while he struggles for his
maintenance and the support of his family, is injur-
ing his health, undermining his constitution, and
inviting the attendance of the thousand ills that
flesh is heir to. The painful family of death more
hideous than their Queen, are the ministering spirits
of our workrooms, and implant their blighting
influences and spread their deadly snares around
the unsuspicious and hard working artizan, who
plies his toil in the vain delusion that he is doing
his best for himself and those dear to him. It must
be:considered that they which urge this subject upon
the attention of the Legislature do not labour with-
out a cause, they fight not as they who beat the air.
They put before the responsible agents of society
the evils of a system that make the emporiums of
labour the nurseries for foul :disease to ger.
urinate, and the charnel-houses where spirit and
strength are the prey of consuming languor.
How long will indifference be manifested upon these
all-important topics, how long will the priceless
daughters of fashion and the greedy sons of com-
merce pursue their way, in the knowledge that their
garments have been made by those who sewed with
a double thread, a shroud for themselves as well as
apparel of beauty and elegance for more favoured
fellow-mortals, it is an awful thing to refl3ct upon 1
that our vaunted civilisation tolerates such attro-
cities, and in some measure creates them. We
know that if we speak with the tongues of men and
of angels and have not charity, it shall not profit
us ; what, then, can be the lot of those who fail in
rendering the first principles of justice. The workers
of our community have a right to protection, and
a claim on the care of the authorities of the State,
that their hours of toil should not be overdone,
their places of resort rendered as wholesome as
possible, and their condition rendered as comfortable
as is consistent with the right performance of their
tasks. Laborare ess orare is a beautiful saying,
but the work that injures by undue pressure can
never profit or prosper, it will be a curse to those
who tail, and a reproach to those who traffic in such
barter, and when the voice of suffering and oppressed
humanity calls aloud for redress and remedy, it
must not be that such claims are unheeded.