The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-24 00:00:00

INDIA.- -TREATMENT OF THE NATIVES.

Lord ELLENBOROUGH begged to know whether
there was any objection to produce the proceedings of
three courts-martial which had been held in India, on
Mr. --, a lieutenant in one of the Bengal cavalry re-
giments. In 1850 this gentleman had been tried for
drawing his sword on his superior officer on parade, and
since that time be had been tried, within little more
than one month, on three separate charges, for striking
three natives—one of them a member of &Ate in high
esteem with the Hindoos. For these offences he had
been fined six months' pay and put back several steps ;
but ho was still allowed, it would appear, to remain an
officer of the army—that army upon the fidelity and de-
votion of which depended altogether the maintenance of
our dominion over India, which fidelity and devotion
depended on their respect for their European masters.
(Hear, hear.) The house might be assured there
was great danger in permitting persons who had
been guilty of such outrages as these upon the natives
to remain in the army. (Hear, hear.) He trusted that
the officer to whom he had referred would be taken to
answer for his offences before the Supreme Court, and
if found guilty, which there seemed little doubt he would
be, be dismissed the army. Should the Court of Direc-
tors decline to dismiss him, it was competent in her
Majesty, by an order under her sign manual, to dismiss
the offender. _ _ _

Earl GRANVILLE said, that the home authorities
anxious to do all in their power to protect the natives of
India from cruelty, oppression, or other wrong, had
issued a general regulation that any officer in the Indian
army found guilty of having committed any such offence
against the native population should be cashiered, and,
sent to England. He had no doubt that the next mail
would bring word, if the offenee complained of had been
proved, that the offender had been punished in pur-
suance of that regulation. (Hear, hear.)
COMMON LODGING-HOUSES BILL.
The bill passed through committee pro forma.
CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS' REGULATION ACT.
AMENDMENT BILL.

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The Earl of SHAFTESBURY moved that the report
ou this bill be received.
The Earl of CLANCARTY opposed the bill. With
respect to Ireland, the result of his inquiries was, that to
a great extent the act which the noble earl desired by the
present bill to enforce uniformly had been carried out ;
but in some instances it was found impracticable to apply
machinery to old houses. In the west of Ireland peat
was burnt, and the soot arising therefrom got into a
hard cake, which it was found impossible to remove by
the machinery at present used. In order, therefore, to
prevent crude and impracticable legislation, he should
move that a select committee on the subject should be
appointed, and that its report should be considered
before the bill was read a third time.
Lord BEAUMONT wished the noble lord who had
just sat down had moved the rejection of the bill, which
appeared to be erroneous and dangerous in principle, and
in its details ineffective and miserable. This was not a
bill to prevent boys going up or descending chimneys ;
for already, he was sorry to say, an act for that object
had been passed, but it was a bill to prevent boys, he
might almost call them young men, under the age of 16
from carrying a bag and a brush fur the purpose of as-
sisting the cleaners of chimneys. If their lordships
passed an act to prevent that occupation he did not
know where they could stop. and, where it not for the
high character of the noble earl, the originator of the
bill, he should be disposed to designate the measure as
the effusion of pitiful cant and pseudo-humanity. He
wished that the existing act had never been passed, be-
cause lie believed that the effect had been that a few
more houses had been burnt than would have been other-
wise. He admitted that there was cruelty in forcing
children up ill-constructed chimneys, but that might be
obviated by laws having reference to the construction of
chimneys. He objected to this constant interference by
the Legislature in all matters of private trade, and he
suggested that the bill should be reported that day six
months.
Lord PANMURE deemed it not unbecoming in that
house to throw the shield of its protection over infants
not able to protect themselves. That had been done in
respect to factories, and it was especially necessary to
do the same in the case to which the present bill referred,
because there was no trade in which infants were ex-
posed to so much wanton cruelty as in the trade of chim-
ney-sweeping. He knew that the lives of many hun-
dreds of poor children had been saved by the existing
act, and as that prohibited the master sweeps from taking
apprentices under 16 years of age, the present bill was
intended to guard against the evasion of the law by pre-
venting children under 16 years of age being employed
in the chimney-sweeping business under the name of
assistants, and being then forced into chimneys because
the owners of the houses would not incur the trifling
expense necessary for rendering the flues adapted to
machine sweeping. He did not regard this as an in-
fringement of the principle of free labour ; but be con-
ceived it to be just such a protection as their lordships
were bound, to throw round a class of persons who were
too helpless to protect themselves.
Lord ST. LEONARD'S thorght their lordships
should be careful not to adopt any course that might
tend to destroy the chimney-sweeping trade. It was a
trado which they could not do without, but at the same
time every body must`be desirous to remove any abuses
that were connected with it. As the law now stood,
chimney-sweeping by boys was not only prevented, but
also cruelty to boys, and therefore to that extent the
MO was provided for. He had been informed that
there were times when it was absolutely necessary to
sand persons up chimneys to extricate the machines ;
that even in that house, on occasions where the instru-
ment got up a chimney in which one flue communicated
will another, it was impossible to extricate the machine
without sending somebody up. (Hear, hear.) If a man
was too large, then a boy must be sent up—not to sweep
the chimney, but to extricate the machine. Now by
the law, as it stood at this moment, a boy might