The Sun.
London, England, 1833-02-26 00:00:00

RICKARDS AND OTHENS V. JACKSON.

This was an action to recover the va ue of nine cargoes
of granite.
The plaintiffs had advanced money to a Mr. Jonathan
Duncan, to enable him to work the granite of a small
island, near Jersey, of which he was the owner, and Dun
can had given them a mortgage on the quarries. A con
signment of nine cargoes of the granite having been made
to the plaintiff, they handed the bills of lading to the de-
fendant, with directiens to sell, and account to them for
the proceeds. Toe defendants had, however, refused to
render any account, and therefore this action was brought
to recover the value of the cargoes, the frieght of which bad
been paid by the plaintiffs.
The Jury found for the defendant.
ARABIN AND OTHERS U. LORD «'ALDEGRAVE.
This was an action on a bill of exchange for 4801.,
drawn by Lord Waldegrave upon his agent in London,
Mr. Jones, of the firm of Bateman and Jones, of Lincoln's-
Inn-fields, and indorsed by the defendant to Messrs. Daly
and Co., bankers, in Paris. The plaintiffs were the as-
signess of Daly and Co.
Verdict for the plaintiff for 1001., the balance claimed.

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, FEB. 23.

FRILL t. HARRIS, PROCTOR, AND OTHERS.

This case, which was not concluled yesterday when we
went to press, occupied the attention of the Court the
whole day, and was not finished when the Court rose.
The evidence is of little or no interest.

COURT OF EXCHEQUER, FEB. 25.

MEETING IN THE CITY, FEB. 23.

INFANT SLAVERY.

Mr. Ilm.rs' speech, continued from our Paper of Saturday.—
It was predicted that the Te❑ Hours' Labour Bill would in-
crease the cost of production, raise the price, narrow
consumption, and prejudice, if not ultimately destroy, the foreign
commerce of the country. Now it was exceedingly doubtful
whether this Bill would have any tendency in the long run to
affect the difficulty, and consequently the cost of production.
They might more fairly anticipate, as one of its permanent re-
sults, that it would rather distribute than diminish employ-
ment, and equalize rather than lower wages, profits, and prices.
--(Hear.) Admitting, however, for argument's sake, that it
might occasion a rise in the price of manufactures, did it
therefore follow that this would exclude our manufactures
from foreign markets ? On the contrary, were not the present
low prices of British goods abroad, as well as at home,
the consequence, generally speaking, of British competition
If this was so, he asked was not Great Britain the regulator
of prices in all the other markets throughout the world.—
(Hear.) The speaker then went on to show from the tariff, that
no fear was to be apprehended from American competition.
The Hon. Member, on reading that account, said one answer
was, that one Englishman could do more than eight French-
men—indeed that it could not be called work that they did,
for they had only to look at it and it was done.—(Laughter.)
France was behind us in the goodness of their workmen—
their coal was inferior and far dearer than ours ; and so far
from their having attained the systematic regularity of the
English factories, when it was attempted to put that system in
force, at Lyons, a riot was created, and several lives were
lost.—(Cries of " Hear, hear, hear.") A poor Englishman
employed at Lyons was obliged to beat a retreat because he
attempted to adopt the English mode of calling the workmen
together by ringing a bell. As to the legislative interference
with the concerns of private individuals, that had been objected
to ; he admitted the importance of that objection as a general
principle, but much depended on the extent of that inter-
ference.—(Hear.) It should be recollected that the proposed
Bill left the question of wages to be settled by the par-
ties concerned.—(Hear, hear.) It only limited the hours of
night work and day work for children of either sex, and as re-
garded children under nine years of age, it limited the period
to ten hours a day. He concurred, most cordially, in the pro-
position that ten hours of actual labour, by a child of nine years
of age and under, were the very utmost that ought to be per.
mitted.—(Hear, hear.) _ _

. .
Colonel WILLIAms, M.P. for Ashton-under-Lyne, proposed
the third resolution. The knowledge of the tyranny exercised
over the unhappy children employed in factories in Lancashire,
had convinced him of the necessity of legislative interference.
He considered the mischief to arise originally from the inabi-
lity of the parents to maintain themselves by their own exer-
tions, and they were, therefore, obliged to introduce their
children at an age when they were totally unfit for work. He
was happy, however, to say that there were some circumstances
which tended to alleviate these things. He had received a letter
from a friend at Manchester, which informed him that the
masters there were determined to co-operate in diminishing
these grievances. He cordially concurred with the statements
of the Member for Dublin, that such was the anxiety of these
poor children not to be too late to their work, for fear of punish-
ment, that they often got up in the middle of the night to
inquire the hour. The Worthy Gentleman concluded by pro-
posing the third resolution—That the meeting rejoiced to per-
ceive that the Bill introduced by Mr. Sadler was taken up
by the ;Light Hon. Lord Ashley, and was zealously supported
by the operatives of the empire for the protection of whose
children the Bill was designed.
Mr. LYA LL said he had been called upon very unexpect-
edly to propose a resolution. The principles of political eco-
nomy, no doubt, were opposed to their intentions, but this was
one of the cases where the modification of those principles was
absolutely necessary for the purpose of preventing the feelings
of those children from being debased, and their being brought
into the path of crime. He most cordially seconded the reso-
lution.

It was then put and carried unanimously,
Mr. DUNCOMBE, M. P. for Yorkshire, had been called upon so
suddenly to propose a resolution that he had scarcely yet had
time to read it over. The resolution was to the effect
that it was expedient to call upon all the towns and
cities of the empire to evince the same anxiety for the
abolition of infant slavery as they had done for that of the
Negroes.—(Hear.) When he represented the whole county
of Yorkshire he had often presented petitions for the abolition
of both negro and infant slavery, and a pleasing duty it was.
He need scarcely say, that if any more petitions were sent to
him upon the subject, they should have his most strenuous
support. He would only further say, as had been expressed by
Mr. O'Connell, that to no Bill would he give his support un-
less the time was shortened in place of being extended. To
no Bill with a moment more than 10 hours would he ever agree.
Mr. OASTLER would not enter into the evidence given before
the House of Commons, but would state what he, an impartial
witness, had seen. In his district little children, under seven
years of age, were made to work for eighteen, and in some cases
for twenty hours, out of the twenty-four. It was impossible
that the factory children could exist under such labour,
and the churchyards in Manchester had proved that
they were not long able to do so. He assured them that
it was no uncommon thing that a child should be beaten with
a heavy strap, laid on by a heavy hand, till its back and its
breast were black with spots. He had seen a little child, not
more than ten years old, who, being tired, had spoiled a piece of
stuff three inches long, the value of which there was no coin low
enough to express, was dreadfully beaten. That child passed
within a mile of his house, and he had counted 33 cuts on its
back. In a mill at Wigan the children for any slight neglect
are loaded with weights of .20 pounds, placed over their
shoulders, and hanging behind their backs. Then there was a
murderous instrument called a billy-roller, about eight feet
long, and one inch and a half in diameter, with which
many children had been knocked down, and in some instances
murdered. In Manchester the labour was restricted to 12
hours by Act of Parliament, but that was too long for any
child to labour in this country or any part of the globe. The
factory children, rising in the morning long before the rise of
the sun and the dawn of day, some without shoes and stock.
ings, may be seen dragging their weary bodies through the
rain and snow along the streets of Christian Manchester ; long
before the shops are open, long before anybody is stirring, ex-
cept the overlookers, these little children might be seen in the
streets of that great town.—(Loud cries of " Shame.") The
parents were, during this time, lying in bed, and in hun
dreds of instances they had sm other means of subsistence than
the wages of their children's death I—(Hear, hear.) The
little creatures thus bred up, when they did not fall into crime,
and come to an ignominious end, dragged on a short life of
misery and degradation. Thus it was that these sons and daugh-
ters of the martyrs of Waterloo and Trafalgar were rewarded.
Was this a state of things to be endured ? He doubted not that
the humanity of the country would shout forth an answer in
the negative.—(Cheers.) If England refused to interfere in
this matter, the God of little children would strike her, powerful
as she was, and snake her tremble. It has been asserted
(continued Mr. Oastler) that the volume which lies before you,
my Lord Mayor, is a volume of ex parte evidence. Surely
enough has been said to-day, and surely the character of the
medical profession alone would have been enough to sa.
tisfy the public, that that evidence could not have been
taken ex parte.—(Hear, hear.) The Committee had the
opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses. I myself un-
derwent a long cross-examination, and, at all events, they
had an opportunity of shaking the evidence that was given, if
it had been in their power to have done so.—(Hear.) The evi-
dence of the medical gentlemen seas founded on an experience
of sixty years ; and, as the engineers of the human body—
men who must know whether the steam engine of the human
body is of a ten or a twelve hours power—(Hear, hear)—they
unanimously decided that it was scarcely of a ten hours
power.—(Loud cries of "Hear, hear, hear.") Next came
the testimony of the operatives. Now, I have no doubt it
would be very convenient to some to prevent the testimony of
operatives being taken at all, but that day will never come.
When we sent up operatives, friends, of course, of the cause, to
be examined in London, headed by our worthy champion,
Sadler—(Cheers)—they were selected with the greatest
care. Many who would have been sent up were left at
home, not because they were not competent witnesses, but be-
cause if they had come here they would have been discharged
by their employer—(Hear, hear)—nay, it is a painful fact, that
almost all the witnesses who were sent up to be examined
by the Committee of the House of Commons have been
discharged by their respective employers.—(Hear, hear, hear,
and Shame, shame.) Talk of tyranny—he knew nothing to
equal this that has occurred in any of the heathen nations.—
(Great cheering.) There was a boy whose case is certainly
deserving of being brought before your notice : a boy,
seven years of age, who had actually to be trailed
(the Yorkshire phrase) a couple of miles, to perform twelve or
fourteen hours' work every day. He was trailed to his work
by an elder brother. That boy seas well formed originally,
but he is now deformed in every shape, and almost a dwarf,
though at this moment more than seventeen years of age.
Thank God, his mind has not been contaminated—his charac-
ter is good. He seas charged by his master—Addison, of
Bradford, with having come to London, and there told the
grossest falsehoods.—(Hear, hear.) That same Addison,
of Bradford, distinctly stated in the newspapers, that
words had been put into his mouth, and alluded to the Rev.
Mr. Bull as the prompter of the boy. He also alleged that
the poor boy was in concealment lest lie should turn traitor.
Addison thought the poor boy was friendless, but we soon
gave him the opportunity of knowing that he was no longer
under the tyrant's rod—(Loud cheering)—that lie had
friends to assist him if he spoke the truth, and those
who would condemn him if he resorted to subterfuge.
The poor boy was not in concealment, though Addison himself
once was.—(Hear, hear.) The poor boy was put to the Leeds
Lancasterian school—see procured a copy of his evidence given
in the House of Commons—see found that it seas substantially
true in every respect, and Mr. Osborne, of Leeds, who has
acted as his foster father, and myself, offered to enter into a
public examination of the circumstances, and undertook to
pay the expenses between us—(Hear)—certain as see were that
we could refute the calumny; but the man has concealed himself
ever since.—(Loud cheers.) There were some other matters
ventured to be put forth in the public papers equally without
foundation ; and here I must say, that the newspapers have
always been ready at least to give poverty fair play—(Cheers)
—I do publicly, humbly, but sincerely thank the gentlemen
of the Press for the way they have taken sip the sacred,
the holy, and the humble cause of these helpless individuals.
We have no payment to make—we have no riches wherewith
to fill your pockets; but Ido assure you, Gentlemen of the
Press, that your benevolence in favour of the factory children
has procured for you many grateful feelings, and prayers for
many blessings. A man of the name of Drown, of Leeds,