The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-12 00:00:00

that their living is a slow dying mostly ending in death.

The cases are not few in whi this has been ascertained

Lo be the fact by legal investigation. How can it be other-

wise',? or, to take another viow of the matter, is it sur-
prising that so many women live upon their personal at-
tractions when they see the dismal, prolonged :misery

which needlework, the widest field at present open to fe-
male industry, entails ? On Monday last a woman was

charged at Worship-street with pledging six shirts, value
155., which had been entrusted to her to make up. When

needlework was slack she went out charing, or rather, we
should hope, when charing was slack, she took to needle-
work° for charing, though not as refined an employment
as needlework, is neither sedentary nor so ill paid. Its
emoluments are not indeed large, but there are meals in
addition—and even without them the pay exceeds:the pro-
fits of ;shirtmaking. Poor Anne Domangett working all
day into the small hours after midnight could make six
shirts in a day I This we should have thought a good
day's work had it been accomplished by machine. But she

did it all with her fingers, and the woman who employed
her seemed to think that so handy a seamstress should have
been above the dishonesty of pawning her employer's
goods. But what were the earnings of this poor creature
after such a day's toil ? Exactly tenpence ;halfpenny
Nay, not even that in clear gain—for she had to supply
herself with thread and needles, and, in the evenings, with
candle-light. seven farthings for each shirt was her mu-
nificent reward—with, perhaps, a clear profit upon the
whole day's work of sevenpence. Two considerations arise
in contemplating such a case as this. First, the suffer-
ings of the needlewomen themselves, their ceaseless toil,

working their flesh literally off their bones through the
long dreary hours, from early morning till past
midnight, day after day, month after month, and year after
year, if it is possible that flesh and blood can yearly stand
such wear and tear. Who can say, knowing that Anne
Domangett's case is only one of thousands, that there is not
a stern necessity for the efforts which are being made to
open np fresh sources of occupation for women ? Hera is a
worse than African slavery in the midst of us ; a freedom
which is perfect, but is yet a mockery. In a metropolis
gorged with wealth, shut up in their miserable garrets,
thousands of women are enduring worse toil, with less food,
than the slaves on a Southern plantation. This is not only
a pitiable thing in itself and a reproach to us, but it exer-
cises a fatal influence on the morals of young women who
see on one hand these white slaves daily wearing out a joy-
less life, and, on the other, the comparative affluence of those
who forsake the thorny path of such ind ustry and purchase
freedom from its sufferings at the cost of virtue, This is
the second consideration, and it is in one respect the more
important of the two. For men who are indisposed to
work there is the resource of theft, with the prospect of a
prison. For women there is an alternative more terrible
indeed in fact, but, we fear, not so in the unsound judg

merit of too many ill-regulated minds. To those who scoff
at the efforts made to find women other employment than
the wretched labour of the seamstress, this view of th e
matter is worth considering. Such efforts tend towards a
twofold result, to procure remunerative work for the indus-
trious, and to make industry less terrible in the eyes of those
who are not inclined to it. Needlewomen who. after they
have undergone a day's work more slavish and exhausting
than breaking stones on the highway, have not been able
to earn the price of a single wholesome meal, are an anomaly
in a civilised and wealthy nation. But the example of their
unrequited drudgery preaches a dreadful lesson of discou-
ragement to their sex.
THE "READER" ON THE LATE EARL OF CARLISLE.—
The death of the genial and kind-hearted nobleman who
expired last Monday afternoon within the princely walls of
Vanbrugh's Castle Howard leaves a blank in society which
will be felt by all classes. It would be difficult to conceive
a character better suited to that position which, especially
in his riper years, he seems to have singled out for himself
to fill. Amply qualified, by a fine taste and cultivated
mind, to shine in his own sphere, the late Lord Carlisle had,
moreover, a large benevolence and an innate love of good
and beauty for their own sake, which throughout his life—
too early brought to an end—were ever widening the circle
which shared the benefit of his varied attainments. He was
distinguished as a scholar in his youth, and had, in his
earlier political lite, been accustomed to the solace of literary
pursuits during the intervals of business ; bu t it was not

until the close of his career as Lord Morpeth in the lower
house, in 1848, on his succession to the peerage, that the
qualities for which his memory will be most cherished began
to be fully appreciated. The offices of state which were then
conferred upon him either demanded for their due perform-
ance the exhibition of those high social qualities which he
professed, or they left him leisure to occupy at the same
time his chosen sphere of usefulness. As Lord Lieutenant
he won the affections of the warm-hearted Irish people by
his engaging manners and genial hospitality, and he like-
wise endeared himself to the shrewd Yorkshire mechanics
by the enlightened eloquence and liberality of his public
addresses. It is rather of Lord Carlisle than of Lord Mor-
peth that it is our province to speak. Yet the political
capacity of the late Earl may be regarded as bearing on,
and harmonising- with his social character- His term of
office in the House of Commons was passed in troublous
times, and there were occasions when firmness as well as

temper was necessary to the maintenance of the position he
held, But what is mainly remarkable throughout his
career ig the appreciative tact by which he gained the re-
gard of all parties alike. Neither on this side of the Irish
Channel nor on the other have political or religious dife
ferences in any degree lessened the kindly feeling which
adheres to the memory of the deceased Earl of Carlisle.
Such a power of gaining universal esteem can hardly be
consistent with originality of character or great depth of
thought; yet it carries with it a just and (generally) a
salutary influence. In the case of the late Earl it implied
the conscious superiority of a noble nature, which enabled
him to extend a helping hand to his humbler fellow-
workers, and to give them not only the patronage of his
rank, but his friendly aid to become more like himself. To
the public at large, beyond the circle of his personal
friends, and apart from Ministerial position, he has thus, of

late years, been chiefly known as a singularly eloquent I
speaker and lecturer on social and literary subjects at popu- I
lar meetings and Mechanics' Institutes. These various
addresses form an important part of his contributions to
literature. George Frederick William Howard was the
seventh Earl of Carlisle. He was born on the 18th of
April, 1802, and educated at Eton and Christ Church,
Oxford, where, in the year 1821, he gained both the New-
digate prize for his English poem " Paaetum," and the
Chancellor's medal for his Latin " Eleusis," In 1823 he
took a first-class degree in the Classical Tripes, and
shortly afterwards he accompanied his uncle, the
Lae Duke of Devonshire, as attache to the em-
bassy to Russia on the coronation of the Emperor Nicholas.
In 1826 he was returned to Parliament for the family
borough of Morpeth. In 1828 he published a five-act
tragedy in verse, called " The Last of the Greeks ; or, the
Fall of Constantinople." The work is not without poetic
feeling, but it wants dramatic power. The young Lord
Morpeth now devoted himself to political life, in which he
consistently adhered to the Whig party. In 1829 he took
an active part in the pasting of the Emancipation Act, and
in the ensuing year was returned for the West Riding of
Yorkshire. In 1835 ho became a privy councillor, and from
that time till the fall of Lord Melbourne's ministry, in 1841,
was chief secretary for Ireland. under the lieutenancy of
Lord Mulgrave (afterwards Marquis of Normanby), having
in the course of that time the charge of the Irish Tithes
Bill, the Irish Municipal Reform 8111, and the Irish Poor
Law Bill. Being now freed from Parliamentary duties, he
spent a year in the United States and the West Indies,
taking a special intereet in the slavery question, on the
side of abolition, then much less popular than it now is
with the upper classes in the North. On his return to Eng-
land he began the series of his popular addresses at
Mechanics' Institutes. A collection of 12 of them has been
published (in 1852) in Longman's Traveller's Library, un-
der the title "Lectures and Addresses in aid of Popular
Education." They range in date from 1843 to 1851, and
were, for the most part, delivered at various towns
in Yorkshire, and on such subjects as "The Benefits of
Education," "The Union of Labour and Intellectual At-
tainments," "The Improvement and Development of the
Intellect," " The Great Exhibition of 1851," and " The
Objects of Mechanics' Institutes." In 1846 Lord Morpeth
was again returned to Parliament for the West Riding, and
appointed Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests. In
October of the same year he delivered an address to the
members of the Manchester Athenaeum, which is printed
in a collection of speeches on "The Importance of Litera-
ture to Men of Business," published by Messrs. Griffin
in 1852. A speech of Lord Morpeth's on Sanitary Re-
form, delivered in the House of Commons on the 30th
of March, 1847, was also printed and published in that
year. In 1848 his lordship was removed to the House
of Peers, and in 1850 was appointed Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster, which office he retained for two years.
In the same year he delivered two lectures at Leeds, which
are amongst the most esteemed of his works—one on the
poetry of Pope, and the other on his own travels in America.
These lectures were printed in 1851, and are also comprised
in Messrs. Longman's volume. Another lecture of the
same class, " Oa the Writings of Gray," is prefixed to a
colleotion of Gray's poems, published at Eton at about this
time, In 1853 Lord Carlisle gave further expression to his
sentiments on the slavery question in a preface to " Uncle
Tom's Cabin," and published another address, delivered at
a meeting in aid of evening classes for young men in Lon-
don and tine suburbs. In the same year he was appointed
Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen. In June of the
same year he left England for a tour in the East, a pleasant
account of which, written in an easy agreeable style he pub-
lished on his return home, in 1854, under the title "A
Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters." An edition of this
work was published at Boston, U.S., in 1855. His lordship
went to Constantinople by way of Vienna, saw the English
squadron in Besika Bay ready to sail into the Black Sea,
and paid a visit to the Troad. The volume contains plc.
tureaque descriptions of scenery, particularly in the ao-
count of Rhodes, and in some speculations on the site of
Troy; the author's classical tastes leading him to reflect
on the remote past rather than to speculate en the great
modern contest then about to begin. In the following year
the Earl of Carlisle was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ire-
land, in which post he remained, except during the few
months of Lord Derby's second government in 1858, until
his failing health compelled his resignation last September.
When out of office during the short interval above men-
tioned, his lordship's pen was again taken in hand. to try