The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-03 00:00:00

ME SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 3 ISM

THE OVERWORK OF MILLINERS.

The committee of the Ladies' Sanatory Association
on Dressmaking have issued an address on the system
of the overworking in ill-ventilated rooms to which
many of this class annually fall victims, whilst the
constitutions of others who survive are permanently
injured. They describe the system as follows a.—
" The girls in the large London houses are, with a
few exceptions, thoroughly respectable. Character
is required by the managers, and is maintained in
their establishments. This is a great point, for many
of them are orphans, often well educated and well
connected, to whom character is dearer than life.
In a good house of business they are able to secure
protection. A girl is usually sent to the business at
the age of 13 or 14, and bound for about three
years. A premium of from £2O to £5O is paid on
entrance, and she receives board and lodging during
the time of her apprenticeship. At the end of that
time she becomes an improver' for one year or more,
receives her board and lodging, but is still depen-
dent on her own resources for her other wants. By
this time her little capital is generally exhausted,
shetaondher
begin to ea rna
t salarys varying according
abilitiessfrom £l2 o 0 a Sear."
Not one
in a hundred, they add, passes through the ordeal
with unimpaired health ; and, after touching more
minutely on the evil effects, they say :—" All this
occurs in a trade which is in itself perfectly healthy.
And whose fault is it ? We cannot help it,' says
the employers, ' for ladies will have their dresses to
the day ; they give short notice and take long
credit, and it is hard to pay our way and please
them. We cannot help if,' say the ladies ;' we
are willing to give a good prise for good work, but
we cannot take charge of work and work-rooms.'
We cannot help it least of all,' say the poor girls,
for we must keep our situations or starve—or
worse."
The committee, after consideration of the subject,
offer various suggestions to mitigate, and, in the end,
they hope to remove the evil. To ladies they
recommend the duty of ascertaining whether the
employees of the house they give their custom
to are treated with consideration, of refraining
from unreasonable demands, and f paying their
bills. To employers they urge that no overwork is
really profitable. " By-securing sufficient out-door
assistance in the early part of the season, so as to
avoid beginning the late-hour system, the skilled
inmates would be kept up to their highest energy
and efficiency, and the result would, we believe, be
found equally if not more profitable in the long run.
A wholesome atmosphere would also powerfully
conduce to the same end." To the workwomen, they
say there can be no thorough change till the work-
women combine among themselves to demand what
is right, and they urge parents and guardians to
protect their young girls from overwork and over-
crowding, suggesting that if such protection is im-
practicable in this trade they should seek other
trades. " There are many trades, especially those
which minister to the wants and tastes of their own
sex, for which women are more suitable and as com-
petent as men, into which young girls might enter,
if able to secure the necessary education and train-
ing. The power to write well, and to keep accounts,
would open to them many of the lighter and better
paid situations in shops ; and such easy feminine
trades as ladies' hairdressing would naturally fall
into their hands if they could gain the requisite
skill. Indeed, even among needlewomen skill is
much wanted, and will always secure better remu-
neration and position. There are plenty of workers
—too many ; but good workers are rare, and till
the competition for situations in which health is
sacrificed is lessened, fewer will be able to rise into
the rank of skilled workers, and demand a fair day's
wages for a fair day's work."
The committee; conclude by saying that public
sympathy, and it may be Legislative enactment,
would aid them, but they indicate one way in which
they think public support might aid largely and in
the most legitimate way, viz., "by encouraging
and patronising the establishment of houses of
business on the principle of partnership or co-
operation." By combinieg the capital of their skill
and industry, there is nothing to hinder dress-
makers from becoming, to a great extent, their own
employers, it ladies would be induced to pay ready
money, or not fake more than three months.' credit.
They might also aid in the task of opening fresh
employments to women by asking for their services
in preference to those of men in such things as at-
tendance in shops, hairdressing, 8:c. It is only by
efforts thus combined, and by attention to the laws
which regulate work and wages, that the condition
of dreestnalters can be permanently imprered. We
hope that suchen effort will be inude hel'ore another
season has added its victims to a system of cruel
and unnecessary over work.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TimEs.—The American war has presented the
most remarxable contrasts to all the features of for.
mer warfare, but not the least extraordinary of its

characteristics has been the voluminous correspon-
dence with which the Foreign Secretary has de-

uged the Governments of Europe. The long letter
rom Mr. Seward which we publish this morning is

only one of a mass of similar productions which:we
have had to read since the opening of the war.
Week after week, and month after month, Mr.

Seward has despatched to his representatives in this

country the same incessant commentary on every
event of the war, the same monotonous strain of
assertion that the rebellion is on the eve of failure,

the same plaintive appeal for fi yrnpathy and
moral support, and the same ever-recurring bur-
den of complaint against our fancied aid and recog-
nition of the insurgent States. The remem-
brance which we have of Mr. Seward's former let-

:ers induces us to read his prescrit letter with a less

anxious feeling than the source, the purpose, and
the character of such a letter would otherwise

evoke. We fancy we have heard it all before, and
know that it is worth little for either good or harm.
We have, in the first place, the same extraordinary
misrepresentation of recent events in the war, The

earlier events, we are glad to see, are at length
properly appreciated. This letter contains the tardy
admission that "in the battles of August, 1852, the
" Union forces suffered some severe and appalling
reverses." When we remember the tone of easy
unconcern in which these " appalling reverses"
were treated in Mr. Seward's despatches at the
end of last year, we cannot help receiving all
his explanations and songs of victory in this
circular with a very considerable discount. His
perpetual assertion weakens the force even of

the facts which are undeniable. When he has the

audacity to give it as a full account of General
Burnside's disastrous repulse at Fredericksburg,
that " his assault upon Lee's well-fortified position
failed, and he skilfully recrossed the river without
loss," we are unable to know where to trust him, or
how to understand a writer who can indulge in such
an evasion. These errors of honesty or judgment
are the more discreditable because they are wholly
unnecessary. Mr. Seward has had an ample supply
of undoubted facts to support his song of triumph.
It could not be disputed for a moment that the
Federal arms have had signal successes in the
course of the last few weeks. The fall of Vicks-

burg and Port Hudson, the failure of Genera

Lee's attempt at invasion, and the gradual pone
tration of the Confederate country by the
Union forces offered sufficient opportunity for
self-assertion, and even for prophecy, without a
resort to the old methods of extenuation which the
reverses of las: year excused. Great as the Fede-
ral successes undoubtedly are, their effect it weak-
ened, and not strengthened, by Mr. Seward's
recapitulation of them. He protests too much.
He used just as strong languege last October,
when the Federal forces had recoiled from the
strongholds of the Mississippi, and the Army of the
Potomac had been driven home in ignominious de-
feat. Besides, after all, to what purpose does Mr.
Seward reiterate these suecesses ? Why does he
snatch at the first favourable opportunity to entreat
our forbearance and to implore our patience? If
he has been so successful as he says, there ought to
be no need of his vaticinations and explanations.
When the ports of the Southern States are open to
ordinary trade, when the population are re-
suming their old industry, and we are re•
ceiving again the productions upon which so
much of cur population has depended, those facts will
compel our recognition far better than volumes of
diplomatic assertion. There will be no doubt about
them, and no need to assure us of their reality.
There is, however, one point on which we do went
some assurance, and on that Mr. Seward gives us none.
We want to know what chance there really is not
merely that the President will be able to raise a suf-
ficient number of conscripts and negro troops to in-
flict further disasters upon the South, to spread a
wider devastation, and to destroy another third part
of the Confederate forces, but what prospect there
is that this process of slaughter and extirpation will
bring about our old trade with the South, and relieve
our distressed manufacturing population. Mr.Se ward
directs the representatives to whom his circular is
addressed to " use the facts presented in this paper
" in such a way as may be most effective to con-
vince those who seek a renewal of commercial pro-
sperity through the restoration ofpeace in America
that the quickest and shortest way to gain that de-
sired end is to withdraw support and favour from
the insurgents." We do not know what facts there
are in this paper which could be used for such a pur-
pose, Mr. Seward represents that the Federal Go-
vernment has regained possession of a region of
200,000 square miles—an area as large as Austria
or France, or the peninsula of Spain and Portugal.
Can he show us one single advantage which has been
gained to commerce by this subjugation ? 'We were
assured that as soon as New Orleans, or even so pal-
try a place as Port Royal, was opened to trade vast
supplies of cotton would flow to us. We have scarcely
received a single bale. So far as we have any means
of judging, the area which has been conquered by
the Federals has been rendered useless for all pur-
poses of trade or cultivation. We were assured that
in all the States which Mr. Seward enumerates as
for the most part recovered to the Federal Govern-
ment there was a large Union party, held down by
a violent minority, and that the victory of the Union
arms would be followed by an immediate return to
peaceful commercial pursuits. Where has this Union
party been discovered ? We confess we are unable
to see the very smallest instalment of the advantages
which Mr. Seward is perpetually assuring us would
result from the complete success of the Federals in
their course of conquest. If Mr. Seward really
wishes to explain to Europe the prospects of the
United States in the event of the success of his
Government, this is the point which he ought to
have dwelt upon. We shculd like to have been told,
for example, in a calm and statesmanlike paper,
what are the intentions and the expectations of
the Federal Government as to the administration of
the revolted provinces. We see them conquered by
extraordinary exertions of force, and held in sub-
jection by enormous armies. We know thatin some
otthese subjugated districts the country has been
so ruined that the population are obliged to exist
upon rations furnished to them by the Federal
armies. If this is to be the result of the Federal
victories everywhere, we see no chance renewalofany
of commercial prosperity through the continued pro-
secution of the war. On all this Mr. Seward's letter
gives us us no information whatsoever, and therefore,
even if his arguments could persuade us of the ul
mate success of the Federal arms, they would not lead
us to hope for any of the advantages
result. If, too, this letter is a
in its
of peace from the
sgmain characteristics
former
a mere repetition of fEuropeo as to the probableurishe;, and if it fails
to relieve the anxiety o
consequences of this struggle, it is entirely needless
in its main purpose. The persons to whom it is
addressed are directedf to use the facts contained in
it for the purpose 0
donvin that the quickest and
shortest way to the restoration
the Governments of
Great Britain and
ds f Francet oration of 1 heir trade is " to
withdraw support and favour from the insurgents,
and to leave the adjustmenta of our domestic contro-
versies entirely with toe people of the United States."
So far, at least, as this country is concerned such an
appeal is entirely without meaning. The insur-
gents
have received neither support nor favour from
our Government. They have got absolutely nothing
from this country but such supplies of arms and
necessaries of life as they could smuggle in through
a blockade which we have scrupulouslywld, ought
respected.
The Americans, of all people
the or
to know that trade is entirely impartial. There are
Plenty of merchants in New York who are perfectly
ready to sell anything
to anybody any where if they
can get the money for it, and they will always send
it where they can get the most money. It
cause we have left " the adjustment of the domestic
controversies" of the United States exclusively with
the people themselves that the South has been able
to attract from this country the supplies which have
so exasperated the Federals. If we had done as
Mr. Seward would have Desired, and, at the demand
of the Northern States, prohibited by special legis-
lation any export to the Southern States, we should
have interfered in the most direct manner pos-
sible with the domestic controversie of the
United States. We have lett them to fight out
their own struggle in their own way, and we have
not the slightest intention of doing anything else.
If we have " accorded the character of a belligerent
to the insurgents," we have only yielded to a plain
fact, and are supported by the authority of the Fe-
derals themselves. We have, to the best of our
ability, preserved a constant and complete neutra-
lity, and we shall certainly continue to do so. If
the insurgents " have been enabled to protract their
resistance by moan of sympathy and aid received
from abroad," we (au only say they require very
little foreign help : and, if " the expectation of fur-
ther and more effective foreign assistance is now
their chief resource," Mr. Seward will find little
difficulty with them. As addressed, at least, to this
country, any such exhortations axe perfectly unne-
cessary. It might determine our sympathy if Mr.
Seward could show ns that there was any hope of
the success of the _Federal armies being followed by
a renewal of the peace, prosperity, and trade of the
South. But we are unable to see any hope of this
sort, and Mr. Seward's long exercitation fails to
throw one ray of light on the dark prospect.
HERALD.—Political events that used to be con-
sidered wonderful may now occur once a week, or
every day, without exciting any particular atten-
tion. if they are of such a nature as to effect us
personally, that, of course, roekes a difference.
When our own interests are not iuvo, red we can
listen with a becoming amount of piiilosopniom

sang froid to the story of doings which make for the
weal or woe of millions of human beings. A great
wit who is dead once observed that it would not

spoil a man's appetite for breakfast if ho were to
read in his morning paper that the whole empire of
China had been swallowed up by an earthquake.

Probably many persons will near, without any sort
of emotion, that seventy millions of men are on the
eve of political enfranchisement, and see before them
the commencement of a new era of prosperity and

greatness. It may not seem to concern them much
that the Emperor of Russia is about to grant a
magna charta to his subjects. But in reality it does
concern them, and that very nearly. A war means
to an Englishman so many pence in the pound
added to the income tax; such and such an increase

in the price of the necessities of life ; so much taken
from the provision for wife and children. However
small the intrcst he feels in foreign politics, he

_
knows that they may take a turn which must involve
the country in war. He would not avoid that war,
if it should seem necessary to the maintenance of
_ .

he honour and influence of his country, but he

knows that he must pay his share of it, and that
may press upon him heavily. The prospect of a
constitutional reform in Russia should thug be a

matter of congratulation to all of us. We escape,
in the first piece, the possible war which we might
have been called upon to wage in behalf of Poland.
Had Russia continued to behave herself in the

high-handed manner of those who will consent to
no compromise and make no concessions, had she
suffered us to believe that she was fighting, not

simply for supremacy, but with a view to the utter
subjugation of an unfortunate people, it would
have soon been more than the feeling of Western
Europe could have borne. But, if we are rightly
informed, the Russian Government is prepared to
grant more than the Western Powers have asked
of her. On the one hand, she is about to concede
to Poland an autonomy more complete than was

promised to her in 1815 under the collective gua-
rantee of Europe. Poland is to have her National

Diet, her national army, her separate courts of law,
her separate Polish administration, and an Impe-
rial Viceroy. We do not know what more even
Polish patriots can desire, and we are sure that
taller concessions than these have never been
dreamed of by any of the friends of Poland. But
. .

you cannot mend an old garment with new cloth
with any expectation of its wearing well. Acon-

stitutional Poland in the midst of an absolutis

Russia would be an anomaly, an impossibility. I
was for this reason that the magnanimous pro.

gramme of Alexander I. broke down. It was on this
account that the constitution granted, three years
since, to Poland, could not possibly be carried out
by Russian statesmen. A free Poland would be a
reproach to the rest of Russia, a continual cause of
disquietude, a centre of revolt, unless the rest of
Russia is to be free also. Since the accession of the
wicked and ambitious Catherine 11. the world has
looked on with much discomfort at the spectacle
of the gradual growth of the great military despo-

tism of the North. We are now to be relieved fr.Om
its incubus. Russia is to be constitutionalised, de-

centralised, governed by local parliaments, and a
central representative chamber, in imitation of the
system which is working so well in Austria. As
a self-governed country is invariably found to be
less aggressive, less mischievous, and more amen-
able to reason than a despotic monarchy, we may
hope that the charter granted to Russia may save
Europe from many future wars, and the world from
much unnecessary misery. The emancipation of
the serfs was the baptism of the regenerated Russia.
'the proclamation of a representative system for this
vast empire is as the right of confirmation which
admits it into the family of civilised nations. Up
to this time Russia, though ranking in military
strength as a power of the first order, has been at
the best a barbarous and heathenish country. The
revelations of the private life of her nobles and pea-
sants have made the ears of mankind tingle; the
tales that have been told by her court have horrified
the world. She has turned over a new leaf. There
is no more slavery in Russia; there will be no more
tyranny. The pure life and tho virtuous example
of Alexander 11. and his Empress have cleared the
precincts of her palaces from the harpies and vul-
tures that once frequented them. We shall hence-
forth find no more parallels among Russian princes
to the Neros and Agrippinas of old. The empire
has yet much to do to recover from the fatal
memory that her greatness dates chiefly from the
infamous thirty•four years of Chatherine 11. The
future of this empire, based on such a happy open-
ing, may be expected to outdo its past. The num-
ber of its population and the vastness of its terri-
tory have been the sources of the peculiar strength
and the peculiar weakness of Russia. Other nations
of Europe had hardly a fair chance with the poten-
tate who could bring, by a single ukase, two millions
of men into the field. Nor was it possible to over-
run by any army that could be launched against it
a territory of such vast extent that it comprises one
quarter or the globe, and that the most inclement
and the most inhospitable. On the other hand, a
country so spread out is wanting in power of con-
centration, and is in some respects hardly a match
for a people of one quarter its number if confined
within narrow limits. So long as she will keep
quiet Russia is in little danger from other powers.
Her territory, vast as it is, does not tempt them.
'l'uey are quite content that the trackless plains of
Northern Europe and Asia, where no one else will
live, should be peopled by this Sclavonic hive. All
the wars in which Russia has been engaged have
been provoked by her own desire to lodge herself
in more comfortable quarters. To some extent
she has succeeded, but not to, her wishes. She
has obtained a footing on the Baltic, and on the
Black Sea. She has laid her hand on a thriving
people of Central Europe, and even now is con-
testing with them their meadows and corn-fields,
She has failed in her great ambition of trans-
ferring the seat of her empire to Conetantinople.
It is worthy of note that the triumphs of Russia
have been obtained over second•rate powers, and
that she has generally been worsted by. powers of
the first rank. Peter the Great, the founder of
modern Russia, prevailed against the Swedes after
many disasters to his arms. During the seven
years' war the Empress Elizabeth gained vic-
tories against the Prussians, whose power was
then in its infancy. Catherine subdued Poland,
and wrested much territory from Turkey in the
bloody campaigns of her lieutenants, Potemkin
and Suwarroff. It was not Alexander, but the
elements, that drove back a French army in 1812.
The Russians were defeated at Borodino—as be-
fore at Austerlitz—when side by side with Au
tria. The Polish revolt, and the Hungarian s-re-
volt, were successively put down by Nicholas ;
but he succumbed to the Western alliance in the
memorable campaign of the Crimea. It is foolish
to make a bugbear of the Russian power, as
some people seem inclined to do. That power is
no menace either to us or to France. There is
no reason at all why we should not be on the
best of terms with it, not for state reasons merely,
or as a question of the balance of alliances, but
in the interest of the 70 millions that are under
its rule, who have yet in great part to be edu-
cated and civilised, who have a work before them
which will last for centuries, in the conquest and
cultivation of the soil which they people but
thinly. This vast dominion cannot solely be ruled
from St. Petersburg. Its inhabitants are to be
called upon to take their share in its govern-
ment. We wish all success to the plan—all pros-
perity, present and future, to the Emperor, his
simple-minded people, and their " Holy Russia."
POST.—According to a certain proverb, no British
Act of Parliament was ever yet drawn up and
passed, through which a coach-and-four might not
be driven by a law-breaker of sufficient courage
and ingenuity. The presumption is somewhat bold,
but, like many other towering figures of speech, it
rests upon a solid foundation. Our friends across
the Channel, with their fondness for abstract prin-
ciples and tendency to analytical neatness, may
vaunt codification, smiling at an Englishman's need
of acts of consolidation, of explanation, and amend-
ment falling thickly upon each other session after
session. Nevertheless, by that means, clumsy
though it may seem to our neighbours, we gene-
rally manage to carry our point in the end. " The
Nuisances Removal Act for England (Amendment),"
which passed on the 28th July, is a case in point.
If scanned with moderate attention, in sequence
with other acts to which it refers, the metaphorical
carriage-drive which its provisions aro intended to
bar will at once be obvious. Inasmuch as there are
more agreeable occupations than the perusal and
study of Acts of Parliament at any time, and consi-
dering that September is the month least congenial
of all the twelve to that purpose, we may not do.
amiss in sumrs arising in few words the purport of
certain antecedent Acts of Parliament to which the
provisions of the supplementary Act passed in the
session juat concluded refer. It would not be far
wrong were the assertion made that, prior to 1848
and 1849, the science which is inadequately trans-
lated into English by " public health," had no legis
lative and public recognition amongst us. B. cyond
the provisions of quarantine (in respect of which
there are good reaeces for believing they have done
more harm than good) and of vaccination, the ex.
Vernal circumstances effseties; public health were
taken less cognisance of by the State here than on
the Continent. At the same time no injustice
should be done to the provisions of municipal
enactments ; the fact, indeed, being that the post-
ponement of imperial legislation is doubtless in
some measure attributable to, the circumstance
that municipal
and therefore local ---Sere.
sight has lessened the need of Parliamentary inter-
vention. T
The Nuisances Removal and Disease Pre-
vention Acts were passed under the immediate psi
ti s-
an') Of that terrible epidemic, the cholera. No grea.
marvel, therefore, if tney were not Line perfect than