The Sun.
London, England, 1833-04-01 00:00:00

FRASER S MAGAZINE.

The periodicals this month are all hot, even
to blood-heat, on the factory system, which one
and all agree in pronouncing to be the most de-
vilish refinement on torture and despotism, on
this side Tophet. The system has had a long
start of them, but they are close on its haunches,
and will run it down and worry it to death in a
month more or so. Fraser, like Blackwood,
i s full of " splendid bile "on the subject. He
writes with his hair on end. Pray attend to
the following anecdote, which is enough to
make " patience " herself start up in a passion,
from her " monument :"
" Exactly in accordance with these facts, is an anecdote
which we know to be most literally true. A young M.P.,
desirous of judging for hims'elf on this question, was per-
sonally inspecting a large factory not many months since.
Struck with the sight of so great a number of girls, and
so few women employed, he asked, "But what becomes of
all these children when they grow up, and become unfit
for your purpose ? " " Oh," said the factory-owner in an
unguarded moment, " very few of them will reach 20."
Attached t,) this animated diatribe is a little
poem full of feeling and simplicity. We give it
entire :

"'Twas on a winter's morning,
The weather wet and wild,
Three hours before the dawning
The father roused his child;
Her daily morsel bringing,
The darksome room he paced,
And cried, The bell is ringing,
My hapless darling, haste !'
Father; I'm up, but weary,
I scarce can reach the door,
And long the way and dreary,-
0 carry me once snore !
To help us we've no mother,
And you have no employ ;
They killed my little brother,
Like him I'll work and die!'
Her wasted form seemed nothing,—
The load was at his heart;
The sufferer he kept soothing
Till at the mill they part,
The overlooker met her,
As to her frame she crept,
And with his thong he beat her,
And cursed her as she wept.
Alas! what hours of horror
Made up her latest day ;
In toil, and pain, and sorrow,
They slowly passed away :
It seemed, as she grew weaker,
The threads the oftener broke,
The rapid wheels ran quicker,
And heavier fell the stroke.
The sun had long descended,
But night brought no repose;
Her day began and ended
As cruel tyrant's chose.
At length a little neighbour
Her halfpenny she paid,
To take her last hour's labour,
While by her frame she laid.
At last, the engine ceasing,
The captives homeward rushed ;
She thought her strength increasing—
'Twas hope her spirits flushed:
She left, but oft she tarried ;
She fell and rose no more,
Till, by her comrades carried,
She reached her father's door.
All night, with tortured feeling,
He watched his speechless child ;
While, close beside her kneeling,
She knew him not, nor smiled,
Again the Factory's ringing
Her last perceptions tried ;
When, from her straw bed springing,
'Tis time!' she shrieked, and died!
That night a chariot passed her,
While on the ground she lay ;
The daughters of her master
An evening visit pay;
Their tender hearts were sighing
As negro wrongs were told,
While the white slave was dying
Who gained their father's gold!"
" Celebrated Trials of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury" is curious as a matter of research, and
may afford food for some future novelist.
Reformed House of Commons" is a somewhat
prolix exhortation to Honourable Members,
and, like most " good advice," is worth just
nothing. The biographical sketch of William
Dunlop (to which a portrait is affixed) smacks
of Dr. Maginn in his best manner.
" This remarkable biped," quoth the Doctor (meaning
Dunlop), " who is now in London for a few weeks, to
worry Goderich and Howick about some beastly pro-
ceedings of our Government, stands six feet three inches,
and measures two feet eight across the shoulders ; the calf
is just twenty inches in circumference ; the paw would
have startled Ali Pacha; the fur is of the genuine Caledo-
nian redness and roughness ; and the hide, from long ex-
posure to Eurus and Boreas, has acquired such a firmness
of texture, that he shaves wiih a brick-bat."