The Sun.
London, England, 1833-07-01 00:00:00

,hirteenth year, are to be condemned to unlimited
labour ? The age of puberty is then, according
to these wise and well-informed Commissioners,
fully established, and therefore it appears to them
that from this period excessive labour cannot
do any great harm. Admirable observers ! Hu-
mane and intelligent reasoners ! How ignorant
and stupid must the world have been until
now that these philosophers have kindly under-
taken to enlighten it in all that relates to the
progressive development of the physical eDer-
g,ies of the human heart ! Hitherto it has been
held that the age which succeeds to that where
their financial restrictions cease is one of the
most critical and hazardous periods of human
life. But this, it seems, has been an error.
Messrs. Power and Drinkwater, and the rest,
have been down to Leeds and Manchester, and
lo ! it is discovered that at thirteen " the period
of childhood ceases ;" that " the body then be-
comes capable of enduring protracted labour ;"
that working sixteen hours a day µ ill, after this
age of vigorous maturity, be " comparatively
easy." But the physical discoveries of these
inquisitive Commissioners are exceeded in im-
portance; if that be possible, by the new
light they have shed upon the social and
domestic habits of the people of Evgland.
They tell us that on the completion of their
thirteenth year young persons " are not usually
chastised by corporeal-punishment ;" that " for
the most part they cease to be under the
complete control of their parents or guar-
dians ;" that " they begin to retain a part of
their wages ;" that " they frequently pay for
their own lodging, board, and clothing ;" that
" they usually make their own contracts, arid are
in the proper sense of the word free agents."
Hear this and learn to know your dignity and

rights, ye lads at Harrow and Eton, ye appren-
tices in the cities and towns of England, ye less
fortunate boys and girls whose heads have been
subjected to the wholesome discipline of the
billy-roller, whose backs have smarted under the
strap of the over-looker ! Would that it were
possible to revive the slumbering ashes of Dr.
Busby, for doubtless it would then be held ex-
pedient to remedy all past neglect by placing
these Commissioners, one and all, under his care!
The Commissioners go on to explain that of the
little labourers who have not yet attained to the
age at which protracted •labour ceases to be " fa-
tiguing and exhausting," who are not yet " in the
proper sense of the word free agents," there must
be two sets in each factory, that being the only
mode in which their hours of labour can be re-
duced to eight hours. From which of course it
follows, and is indeed admitted, that the other
workpeople who are to co-operate with them,
the robust, vigorous, enduring class who
have completed their thirteenth year, to whom
therefore protracted labour is comparatively
easy, and who, moreover, " make their own
contracts, and are in the proper sense of the word
free agents," are to toil sixteen hours per day.
This report, in short, is at once the most ridi-
culous and inhuman production that ever ema-
nated from men professing to be actuated by any
feeling of benevolence.- It is well that it is so
full of absurdity that it can never by possibility,
either in Parliament or anywhere else, be thought
worthy of the slightest attention. To legislate
in pursuance of its recommendations would not
be to improve the situation of the working
classes in the manufacturing districts, but to
punish them for having dared to seek improve-
ment, and to punish them severely. An Act
crf—PserVssystsarsit. CT etTnea'rreWthd.
down could not be in operation a year, or a;
month, without producing throughout the ma-
nufacturing districts one universal conviction
that the efforts of humanity in behalf of the
factory children had been worse than abortive,
and that it would have been much better for the
latter had they been permitted to remain as they
are. Labour rendered destructive to the health
and life of the more advanced members of a
family, including the father, and perhaps the
mother, the aggregate income of the whole
family at the same time reduced, would un-
doubtedly inflict evils upon the children' under
fourteen greater even than those from which
they had been rescued.—Morning Post.
We have much pleasure in correcting an ex-
aggeration we committed when we described
Mr. Fcier's Dili for the consolidation and
amendment (as he very wrongly says) of the
law relative to the observance of the Sabbath.
We find that the Bill, though in general ex-
ceedingly plainly and clearly drawn, has been
moulded after the example of that celebrated
libel upon ladies' letters., which declares that the
most essential part of the epistles of the fair sex
are to be found in their postscripts. All that
we said of Mr. Peter's Bill was true so far as
regards the clauses of it up to the last page ;
hut at the end of it (in a postscript) there are
what are termed " exemptions to the Bill," and
these exemptions run thus :
" Provided always, and be it further enacted, that
nothing in this Act contained shall extend to any servant
acting in the necessary service of his or her employer, or
to any person selling, buying, delivering, or receiving me-
dicines, or to any person selling, buying, delivtriug, or
receiving milk or fruit by retail before nine o'clock in the
morning, or after four of the clock in the afternoon, such
fruit not below cried or exposed for sale in any street,
highway, or other public place ; or to any baker setting
or superintending sponge, to prepare the bread or dough
for the following day's baking ; or to any person taking,
receiving, or delivering any meat, pudding, pie, tart, or
other victuals to, at, or from any bakehouse between the
hours of half-past nine of the clock and half-past ten of !he
clock in the morning, and between one of the clock and two
of the clock in the afternoon ; or to the sale or delivery, by
persons duly licensed to sell beer or cider by retail, of
any beer or cider for the use of private families at their
own houses, at any hour between 1 of the clock and 3 of
the clock in the'alernoon, and between 5 of the clock and 9
of the clock in the evening ; or to the sale or delivery of any
liquors, dressed meat, or other provisions in any house,
shop, or place (which shall be daily used for the sale of
dressed meat antb.other provisions, as hotel, ct,ffee-house,
tavern, inn, cook-shop, or eating-house, or some or one of
them) to any traveller, or to any person or persons who
shall have lodged and slept on the premises during the
preceding night, such liquor, dressed meat, or other pro-
visions, being consumed on the premises ; or to the sale or
delivery of any liquor, dressed meat, or any provisions, be-
tween the hours of 7 of the clock and 10 of the clock in
the morning, or between 1 of the clock and 3 of the clock
in the afternoon, or between 5 of the clock in the evening
and "9 of the clock at night, to any person or persons what-
soever; or to the proprietor or driver of any hackney-
carriage, duly I:ceused to stand and ply for Lire, ;ruder the
authority of the said Act made and, passed in the first and
second years of the reign of his Fesent Majesty, for (amongst
other things) amending the laws relating to hackney car-
ri 'go, so as to prevent such proprietor from standing and
plying fur hire with such carriage at any time of the
Lord's Dly, except during the usual hours of morning and
afternoon service in the parish church or chapel of the
parish, place, or precinct in which such proprietor or
driver shall et) stand and ply for hire ; or to any person
attending any meeting for religious worship in illy house
or place duly licensed for that purpose, or attending any
school for the purpose of religious instruction, or to the
travelling of the royal mail, or to works or cases of piety,
charity, or necessity."
No doubt these "exemptions"„ materially
alter the case ; but they are very far from re-
moving the strong objections we feel to the
measure. Mr. Peter has lived long eneugh ill
the world, and must have seen enough of the
Engiish people and of foreigners, to ki.ow that