The Sun.
London, England, 1838-06-14 00:00:00

published in March last, by order of the House of Com-
mons. In the course of the inquiry, of which these papers
contain the report, it was sworn by many creditable wit-
nesses, that the mothers of young children, being appren-
tices, were not suffered to provide their offspring with ne-
cessary food ; the driver permitting the children to starve
rather than lose one quarter of an hour's toil on the part of
the miserable parent. As the children are free
the planters have no longer a pecuniary interest in
caring the value of a rush whether they live or die ;
and perhaps it would be expecting too much of human
nature to dream of men, so degraded by the necessities of
their position, acting from any higher or purer principle.
One witness named LAWRENCE deposed as follows—we
quote the identical words—" I have seen many women on
the mill who had young sucking children ; the children
were left in the yard when the mothers were taken to
dance the mill ; they were put on the mill morning and
evening, and sometimes their pain would be so great that
they would shriek loud enough to be heard a great way
off. * * The women who had young
sucking children carried their children out to work on
their backs, and were never let out of the field
even if it rained ; if the Overseer was in the
field he would not allow the women to give their
children suck." Let every mother recollect this pic-
ture of negro maternal suffering, when the name
of any Member who may vote against Mr. O'CoN-
NELL's motion of to-night is mentioned in her
hearing. But perhaps the evidence of one witness may be
deemed insufficient. We shall take leave, therefore, to
quote a few others. A woman named LAWRENCE gave
the following appalling evidence :—" I am a married
woman, with a family of four children ; I was put on the
treadmill morning and evening. I have never recovered
from the punishment of the treadmill ; I have pains all
about my body since then. The under busha had a spite
against me, because I would not consent for him to form an
improper intimacy with a girl in the workhouse. 1
was obliged to say that she was my daughter, to pro-
tect her from him. One of the boatswains wanted
me to do what was wrong with him. I could
not get any rest for him. I used to fret about it very
much, but I never consented. I saw a whole set of women
who had come in from Hiattsfield ; they were dreadfully
cut upon the mill ; several of them had young children ;
they were quite lame, and sometimes they would fall off
the mill, and water would then be thrown over them to
bring -them to. One woman was placed on the mill so
big with child, and had such pains, that she could not bear
any person to touch her. When the mothers with young
sucking children went to work in the field they took their
children with them. If rain came, the children got wet ; the
mothers were hardly allowed to give them suck." SARAH
HIGGINS, another female apprentice, deposed as follows :
" I have six children alive ; three are free, and three ap-
prentices. Since the birth of my last child, which I have
in my arms, I have been turned out with the rest of the
people, and am obliged to do the same work as those who
are in the s.une gang. One day 1 was rather late at work ;
when I came to the place, Massa said, ' Don't you see
that the sun is up ?' When the shell blew in the evening
he put me in the dungeon, and kept me there till it was
time to turn out to work next morning. I got nothing to
eat or drink, nor would Massa allow me to go home to
give anything to my children; he would not even
allow me to get a little water to drink." In the now well
authenticated narrative of the apprentice WILLIAMS WC
find the following corroborative statement, which we give
in his own words :—" Them woman that have sucking
child have to tie them on them back, and to go to the field
chain two together ; when it rains ever so hard they have
to keep on at work, with the child tied on them backs ;
when the Overseer there he don't allow them to suckle the
child at all, if it cry ever so much ; him say the children
free and the law don't allow no time to take care of them."
These are records of womanly suffering which every man
with a heart in his bosom is capable of fully appreciating ;
and which the rejection of Mr. O'CONNELL'S motion must
have the effect of perpetuating for two years longer. It.
is idle to remind us that the Government has just passed a
Bill for the abolition of female flogging. There is no re_
medy for an evil, so hateful and inveterate, but the
immediate and unqualified abolition of the apprenticeship
system. We have had plenty of experience as to the work-
ing of remedial measures in the hands of the planters.
While the apprenticeship lasts there will be flogging of
females, accompanied with all the disgusting brutalities al-
luded to in the evidence above cited. The Government must
know this as well as we do. It is not possible that Lord
GLENELG or Lord J. RUSSELL, or any otter member of the
Cabinet,can urge the plea of such an appenticeship as we have
just developed, being necessary to fit women—the mothers
of large families—for the virtuous enjoyment of unres-
tricted liberty. Were it required to change them into
fiends incarnate—to destroy in them every principle of
womanly virtue—to rob them of every sentiment of mo-
desty and shame—to degrade them to the level of the
vilest and most abandoned prostitutes—then, indeed, it
would become the duty of Ministers to oppose Mr.
O'CoNNEI.I.'s motion by every means in their power ;
but if the contrary of all this be their intention
—as we know it is—we call upon them, and their sup-
porters, as men of honour and as Christians, to support
the motion of the Honourable and Learned Gentleman,
•h

Some speculation might be saved, and vituperation spared,
if those who are puzzled by the state of society in America,
and those who abuse others for a partiality to the instil
tions:of the United States, were to recollect the origin of
the people there, and the abuses of authority in Europe.
Mixed as the population of the United States is with the
expatriated from all parts of the old world, rarely or never
inclusive of those whose wealth enriches, whose virtues
improve, or whose manners adorn our society, and scattered
as they are over an immense territory, amalgamating with
actual savages, and in many cases becoming themselves
wild men of the woods, it • ought not to excite any
surprise, that the forbearance and the good breeding
of the civilized States of the old world are not
the characteristics of the Americans. That any other
than the free republican institutions of the United
States would be compatible with the peace, or even the
existence of those various tribes, races, and conditions of
men, may well be doubted, hut we are quite sure that none
other could give them a tithe of the prosperity they now
enjoy. No despotism of Europe, with its people all of one
stock, and long trained to habits of the strictest obedience
and most careful industry, offers any spectacle of worldly
prosperity at all equal to that of the United States ; while
it is not difficult to show that in any and every such
despotism, the outrages against life and property are conti-
nually as great as in the United States. The difference is,
that in Europe they are practised in the name of the
reigning Power, and are not called outrages. In the
United States the reigning power is the democracy ; in
Russia it is the CZAR. The mob is there the Emperor.
and clubs and stones are their guards and their executioners.
They pull down a house, or burn a convent, which stands
in their way, or thwarts their will ; be devastates a pro-
vince. The sovereign mob of the United States never
did any thing half, or a tenth part, so atrocious as the im-
perial and legal extirpation of the Poles. Eves where
emperors and kings commit no such horrible butchery, their
ordinary means of preserving their power, the individuals they
put to death for resisting their will, the taxes they levy, the
armies they maintain, the functionaries they employ to support
their authority, should all be weighed in the balance against
the riots of the sovereigns of the United States. With all
deference to some of our polished Contemporaries, we•must
be permitted to doubt whether the steel clad despotism of
a Louts PEILLIPE, and the thousand meshes in which he
first entangles his people, and then mercilessly cuts
them down if they endevour to resist and escape,
be not far more cruel and' mischievous than all
the riots and outrages by which the sovereign mob of the
United States occasionally carry their will into effect. We
do not defend the outrages of either or any Sovereign ; but
we maintain that to form a just opinion of the inhabitants
of the United States, they ought to be compared to the
crushing tyranny of the Sovereigns of Europe, not to
the orderly virtues of their well-drilled and patient people.

The treatment of the man Hummap since the close of
the Coroner's inquest is not at all warranted by the evi-
dence hitherto produced against him, and shows tba•.
magistrates and policemen may commit with impunity any
act of severity upon men exposed to popular indignation,
however erroneously directed. After three days' investi-
gation before the Coroner, not the slightest evidence was
brought forward to warrant his detention ; and what has