The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-22 00:00:00

you in perfect confidence that youwill listen to their prayer
and will pass this measure for their relief."
Mr. ROEBUCK'S powerful and impressive ad-
dress was followed by a speech from Mr. COBBETT,
the member for Oldham, and his explana-
tions relative to the select committee took away
the last stronghold of the opposition. A com-
mission had, he said, been issued, and they re-

ported in favour of a bill. Subsequently a com-
mittee was appointed, but, in consequence of him-
self and several other members being prevented

from attending it, it fell into the hands of the
opponents of the measure. "The committee, in
fact, resolved themselves into a bleachers' and
manufacturers' committee." He was requested
to draw up a report, but the committee
refused to adopt it, and substituted one
drawn up by the honourable member for
Manchester and Mr. KIRK. This statement is a
sufficient explanation of the proceedings of the
committee, although, as Lord J. MANNERS ob-
served, since the manufacturers had not even
adopted the suggestions made by the report,
its members are absolved from its decisions.
Mr. COBBETT stated that he had written to
Scotland for information, and the answer is so
strong an argument in behalf of the measure that
we place it prominently before the public. "He
had received a reply that morning, containing a
note of the time of females and young persons, for
the fortnight ending the 17th March, 1860, at the
works of JOIIN SANDIEMAN, Esq., in the dyeing
department :—Monday, the sth of March, 17-1
hours; Tuesday, the 6th, 151 hours; Wednesday,
the 7th, 151 hours ; Thursday, the Bth, 151 hours ;
Friday, the 9th, 15 hours; and Saturday, the 10th,
7 hours. The next week the hours of work were
as follow :—Monday, the 12th, 171 hours ; Tues-
day, the 13th, 151 hours ; Wednesday, the 14th,
13 hours ; Thursday, the 15th, 151 hours ; Friday,
the 16th, 151 hours ; and Saturday, the 17th, 71
hours." These terrible hours of labour are
thus even now being exacted from women
and children. This very week, while the
discussion is pending, the sun is rising and set-
ting over the feeble frames wearily carrying on
their exhausting toil. The hon. member for Old-
ham said that it had been objected that the worst
times of the year were taken as samples, and that
the average of the twelve month's labour should be
given. But he asked, " Who would work his horse
20 hours a-day and then let him rest a day, then
work him 20 hours a-day for two or three days.
The horse would die of exhaustion, and it would
be no answer to say that he had only worked an
average of 11 or 12 hours." Surely, then, the manu-
facturers can hardly claim from human beings what
the owners of cattle would refuse to subject them to.
We feel confident that the Bill will pass triumph-
antly through committee, and the good work so
nobly begun last night by the members of the
Legislature will be carried to a conclusion which
shall obtain for them the blessings of the suffering
and helpless, and the warm approval of the British
public.

Already the evidence given by witness after
witness before the Select Committee upon the
Serpentine may be pronounced overwhelming and
conclusive. Day by day the facts have been ac-
cumulating rapidly in one scale alone—until "the
other" has fairly kicked the beam. As the cele-
brated Mr. SQUEERS said, when in " durance vile"
—pronouncing his opinions orthographically as
became a schoolmaster—" It is a double 1 AWL,
substantive a cobbler's weapon, everything ; u p
UP"-with (in the present instance) this absurd
scheme of filtration. The Committee can only in
reason report against the plan of filtration as, at
once, irrational, ineffectual, expensive, and never-
ending ! The imaginary picture but just now
drawn with a master-hand by one of the many
clever contributors to DICKENS'S All the Year
Round—the revoltingly truthful picture drawn
thus in pen-and-ink is only too real—it
is only, like a certain impertinent conun-
drum in regard to a certain article in a lady's
toilet, " fiction founded upon fact." It is worth
repeating here, this little sketch of the Serpentine.
Speaking of which charming " Familiar" to every
fashionable Londoner, says the writer in' Mr.
DICKENS'S weekly opuscule :—" Let us fancy our
friend without his gay outside, let us imagine his
smooth exterior—there is a little scum upon it—
removed, and the real depths of his character re-
vealed, would it not be an astonishing disclosure ?
What should we see if the water in the Serpentine
could suddenly be drawn off, leaving what lies be-
neath it now exposed to view ? We should see, first
of all, a great black ravine of unequal depth,
stretching its pestilent width before us. I fancy
that its level would be pretty even, because the
holes are so filled up with mud that, except by a
slight depression over them, we should hardly know
where they were. Into this ooze of filthiness we
should throw the first stone that came to hand,
and should watch it as it sank into the fat slime
and disappeared from view. There is a long course
before it, ere it gets to the bottom. It will travel
slowly through that dense medium, and haply
may meet with a bone or two before it has done
sinking. And it is beside this black valley, it is
on the edge of this abyss of pollution that we are to
I spend the hot summer afternoons, using the margin
of this cesspool for our promenade and daily lounge.
It is over this pit that the wherries float with
stench at the prow and sewage at the helm. It is
to this place that our ladies come from their per-
fumed bedchambers to . take the air." Faugh !
and this is the filthy reservoir of nastiness that
we have actually begun to dabble ani mess in, and
filter and agitate, at a cost of £17,000 to begin with
—until fortunately the nasty process was interrupted
by the appointment of the Select Committee, now
vigorously carrying on its operations under the
Chairmanship of the Right Hon. Wamam Cow-
PER, her MAJESTY'S Chief Commissioner of Public
Works. The occupancy of that chair by Mr.
COWPER is an auspicious commencement of the
right hon. gentleman's administrative career as the
conservator of our Parks and Palaces. It is an
incident that promises well for his iEdileship.
And if these good promises be but fulfilled, no one
will rejoice more heartily than ourselves at this
particular Ministerial appointment of the step-son
affordedthe
head
of the Boardof the First Lord of the Treasury. The Chief
Commissioner, in point of fact, has an opportunity
himatth o
e v etf. trskest—o
Works—an
nhis labours
enviableop-
portunity
a t
of showing himself worthy of being the
successor to the post occupied three or four years
hack by Sir BENJAMIN HALL, now Lord LIANovEn.
Indeed it is agreeably apparent even now that Mr.
COWrEIC has no reluctance whatever to take a leaf
out of the book of Lord LLANOV ER. Insomuch is
this obvious that we have every reason to hope
that before we have dune with the matter in hand
we shall have it recommended to the House of
Commons by the Select Committee of Inquiry, that
the same plan which has been carried out so suc-
cessfully in. St. James's Park shall be applied to
the larger and fouler sheet of water (river, pool,
call it what you will) separating Hyde Park from
Kensington Gardens at one part, and extending
along the south side of Hyde Park at the other,
between Rotten-row and the Ring—in other words,