The Sun.
London, England, 1833-07-03 00:00:00

pable of the exertion which will be required of it ?
But the proposition is no: seen in all its deformity,
unless we remember that the great majority of the
workers are females; and we will venture to say
that knowing, as these Commissioners now must
know, the excessive labour to which these children
are subjected by the factory system, the leaving
wholly unprotected the young female of 13, or even
of years beyond that age, is one of the most dis-
graceful examples of what sordid natures ever pro-
posed or palliated. It would be an affront to any
man of medical science to ask him whether that is not
precisely the period when the sex demands the most
vigilant care and the most indulgent consideration ?
With respect to this point, we might send these
gentlemen to the evidence on Sir Robert Peel's
Bill, and especially to that of the justly-celebrated
Mr. Simmons. We might also refer them to what
such men as Blundell, Blizard, Elliotson, Tuthill,
Carlisle, Green, Key, Guthrie, Bell, Morgan,
Hodgkin, Travers, Smith, Young, Malyn, Brodie,
and Roget, have said on this subject. A host of
physiological writers might also be quoted, but it is
unnecessary. For ourselves, we would appeal to
the mothers of England, in preference to any medi-
cal authority whatever. We would ask them
whether this is the period in which their daughters
should be left to the tender mercies of the factory
system, such as it is now proved to be ? We might
ask the Commissioners themselves, individually, in
the language of the poet,
" Art thou of woman born, and feel'st no shame?"
Secondly, The proposition in question is irrecon-
cileable with the physical laws of nature. The Com-
missioners have actually, to serve the purposes of
the relay system, described the hours of night to
mean only the interval between ten o'clock at night
and four in the morning ; disregarding, therefore,
the usages of all nations, and the law of nature
itself. " Are there not twelve hours in the day ?"
asks Christ, " the friend and lover of children."
The Factory Commissioners answer, " There shall
be eighteen." " The night cometh, when no man
can work," says the same Divine authority; but
" the night cometh when the child of 13 or 14
shall," say the Factory Commissioners. " Man
shall go forth to his work and to his labour in the
morning," and " the sun shall not go down on the
unpaid wages of his toil," says the Book of God l
but the book of the Factory Commissioners says
" the child shall go forth to its work in the evening,
and shall often be compelled to toil all night, if it
shall have survived the venerable age of thirteen !"
Thirdly,—The proposition is inconsistent with
the established regulations of domestic life. See
the mother that has to send part of her family to the
factory on the relay system, and part on the unregu-
lated system. Her day must, of course, commence
at least half an hour earlier, and terminate half an
hour later than the periods mentioned, while her
children must be wandering to their work many
hours before day, and returning many hours after the
sun has gone down even in summer. But what
must be their condition in the wintry and inclement
seasons of the year ? In either case they must
be vagabonds, and the mother a slave. In a word,
the whole system, so far from being reconcileable
with domestic comforts, tuition, er affection, mocks
at every attempt to realise them, and would
render the cottage, at the best, a miserable care-
vansera. Lastly,—The proposition of these Corn.
missioners is contrary to the common law of the
realm, as well as to the laws of physiology, of na•
ture, and of God. Children of at least one sex,
while under fourteen, are held, by the ancient law
of the realm, to be, as we have already observed,
non potentes incorpore, that being the established
period when the poorer classes had, not to corn-
menee strenuous labour, but to apprendre—to be-
come apprentices, in order to learn some craft and
employment by which they might be qualified to
obtain their livelihood when they should become
adults. Still less did, or does, that law tolerate the
idea of a child of thirteen years being, to use their
own language, "properly speaking, a free agent."
This proposition, then, of theirs goes to establish,
and to legalize, if we may so speak, one of the most 1
hateful and demoralizing results of the fac-
tory system, attempting by a direct sanction
the total disruption of those mutual ties which
bind parents and children, and, consequently,
threatening to inflict upon society the most fatal
and hideous consequences. In short, this sys-
tem of relays for children under thirteen, accoms
panied by this horrible compromise—namely, the
withdrawal of protection from those who are above
that age, involves consequences which no man
worthy of the name can contemplate for one instant
without feeling the deepest disgust both at the pro-
position, and at its propounders. But they may
rely upon it that the people of England will not
endure this Mammon, or rather Moloch worship,
any longer among them. Strong as is the cause of
the factory child, and fast as is the hold which it
has taken of the British public, if any thing were
still wanting to give it additional force, it would be
found in the insulted and kindling feelings of the
adult manufacturers of the country. These would,
of course, have to work against two sets of relays,
and their period of toil would, therefore, become
perfectly intolerable. Often these are, " properly
speaking," as much free agents as the children
themselves. Let the recommendation of the
Commissioners be adopted, and they will be-
come free agents indeed. Another set of Commis.
sioners, wearing another colour and costume than
these youthful Barristers, must be sent down to
settle the dispute which shallow and mercenary
meddlers will have provoked; and the British sol-
dier will be disgraced, and the blood of British pa-
rents will have to flow, that the child under thir-
teen may be worked in relays, and the child above
that age may be worked to the death. We earnestly
implore our statesmen to look to this question, and to
remember that in treating it they have to deal with
one of the holiest feelings of our nature—parental
solicitude. If this, in the case of Witt Tyler, in a
dark and enslaved age, shook the empire to its
foundations, what may we not expect from its
outrage at this momentous period, when the people
are alive to their natural rights, and fully conscious
of their power of asserting them ? We will only
just add that the Journal which was the first to
announce the Factory Report also gives us to appre-
hend that the public money has been expended,
not so much for the purpose of obtaining a due
protection for the children, as for the base and ini-
quitous purpose of insulting and maligning those
who have disinterestedly taken up their cause, and
who, we are confident, will persevere through evil
as through good report, till this " damned spot"
upon the national character shall be finally washed
away. —Morning Herald.

LORD LOVATT.—(From " Walpole's Let-
ters.")—When he came to the Tower, he told them, that if
he were not so old and infirm, they would find it very diffi-
cult to keep him there. At his own house he used to say,
that for 30 years of his life he never saw a gallows but it
made his neck ache. The first day, as he was brought
to his trial, a woman looked into the coach, and said,
You ugly old dog ! Don't you think you will have that
frightful head cut off ?" He replied, " You ugly old --
I believe I shall."

A shocking catastrophe, which has occasioned
a strong sensation in the neighbourhood, occurred last
week at Chesham. WILLIAM MILES, a young man of
respectable appearance and connections, a native of Dept-
ford, had formed an illicit connection with MARY GOMME
LEWIS, a native of the former place, with whom he had
lived several month.. A short time since she loft him,
and returned home to her friends. About a fortnight ago
be came to Chesham, and wished her to go back with
him ; and on Thursday afternoon he pulled out a pistol,
and told her that if she would not return with him be
would shoot himself. She, however, refused. The
fol:owing morning he carried his threat into execution, by
shooting himself through the head, in a public path in the
Park; his brains were scattered about for several yards in
a shocking manner. An inquest was held on his body,
and a verdict of "Feb de se" returned. The body was
put into a shell, with his clothes, and interred about ten
the same night, in the churchyard, without ceremony.
Some letters were found in his pocket, one of which was
addressed to the young woman above mentioned, whom
he styled his "dear wife," and in which be expressed a
wish that his ghost might haunt her as long as she lived.