The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-19 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY E*ENUfG, MAMA 19, 1 60,

tory inhich work has been going on day and
night may be more easily imagined than described.
Frequently only an hour or two's rest is allowed to
intervene between these long days of exhausting
toil, and that rest is often snatched without change
of garment, on piles of unfinished goods in the
store-rooms. "Sometimes," says one of the mana-
gers, in his evidence, " fourteen or more girls will
pass the night in this manner, after working nine-
teen hours, and coming out of those hot places
dripping wet." No wonder, if the hours of labour
are such that strong men complain of being stiff
and tired in the morning, no wonder that
the poor little ones drop asleep standing,
as they try to " hook" the cloth. No wonder
the very overseers have hardly the heart to rouse
them, through pity for their worn looks. With
aching limbs, festered fingers, and feet "blood-raw"
these girls and children are kept at their work.
Year after year they ask if the " short-time bill''
will pass ; year after year they learn that England
prizes her cheap calicoes and her millowners' rent-
rolls more than the lives and limbs of her labouring
toil-worn children. What is the use of talking
about national education and the diffusion of know-
ledge among the working classes ? How can mind
or soul either be properly cared for when the body
is so cruelly oppressed? Is it not a state of things
fostering to every vice, productive of every
wretchedness, degrading to our national character !
We quote a few passages from " An Appeal to the
Women of the United Kingdom," recently circu-
, lated, and we ask—Are these things consistent with
our professions of charity and Christianity?—

James Thomson (Mr. Wallace's Bleaching, Scouring,
and Finishing Works for Cotton and Woollens, Burn-
bank, Glasgow)--" I am manager of these works, and
nephew of the owner. In summer some of the hands work
occasionally from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m." (18 hours) " the whole
week through; we did this last summer several times.
Three days we worked 20 hours each day. The ages of most
of our girls is from 10 to 18." (Observe these ages—some
of the girls mere children.) " The stove-rooms in which
they work are in winter heated up to 100 or 110 deg. ; in
summer the heat is from 120 to 130 deg." (and at times very
much higher, as stated by the same witness in evidence
given at a subsequent page.) " I feel, when lam urging
the females to work these long hours that I am doing what
is not right, but I have been urged to do it to get a lot of
goods finished. Sometimes they stay here all night, and
then we make a place for them to lie down upon in a store-
room upon the pieces of goods unfinished. Sometimes 14
or more girls will pass the night in this manner, after work-
ing 19 hours, and coming out of those hot places dripping
wet with perspiration, an their clothes wet through with
it."—lbid., p. 59, Nos. 643-645.
And this in the country which is energizing through the
world to put down slavery
Alexander King.—" I work at Mr. James Your and
Son's bleachworks, Auldhousofield, Pollockshaws. There
are about 300 hundred hands employed ' • of these 250 are
females. When we are busy the number is about 400.
* * * Sometimes, about once a week, one shift will be •
gin at 6 a.m., and go on till 6 the next morning" (24 hours).
"This has happened once a week on an average for the last
six months. The females all work in the stoves."—lbid.,
p. 61, Nos. 682, 683.
They " fall asleep standing to their work. They fall
asleep standing before their hooks. I have to keep them
awake ; and my heart is so sore for them that I cannot
speak to them. I have worked at bleach-works, in the
finishing-room, twenty years, and it has always been so in
all the works where I have been" (No. 462).—" It falls
very hard upon the weaker boys. I have often seen them
sleeping on their legs, and I have done so often myself.
Their whole frame suffers. I have know at least eight In
the last twelve years who have fallen into consumption and
died" (No. 414).
This retiring from work to die is of conrsevery common :
" I have buried one little sister ; my parents always
thought it was from the long hours. She came here at
ten, and was fourteen when she died, and she used to work
very long hours. She was ill" (that is, off work before she
died) " ten days only" (No. 223).—" I have often been ill
from working in the great heat. • My log is now bad from
it, and the doctor told me I must give up. The girls very
often suffer from it ; go away and die from it and the long
hours" (No. 646).
Ten consecutive witnesses (pp. 42-44)—ten consecutive
witnesses, mark you, employed at different establishments
mention " many cases within their knowledge, of boys and
young men having been ill and off work, and who have died
from the long hours" (No. 422). Naturally, with females
matters are even worse.
Henry Waring, examined—
Mr. Kirk.] Has it not appeared to you that the hours of
work were too loag ?—Much too long : but if we did not do
it, they would turn us off.
[Had known "many families" go on without undress-
ing for more than five days and nights in succession.]
Joseph Crook, Esq., M.P , for Bolton, examined—
Mr. Clark.] Do the employers oblige children to work in
that manner e--Certainly.
Mr. Packs.] If a child were taken off the over .work,
would that involve the discharge of the parent from the
bleach-works ?—Yes.
There is nothing in this report more touching than the
patient and almost despairing anxiety shown among the
operatives for a protecting law :
"We are all most anxiously looking for the bill" (No.
420).—" Is there any sign of the ten-hours bill being got-
ten" (No. 213) ?—" Is there any chance for the bill being
passed this session" (No. 240) ?—" I feel very tired manv
timer, bat I dare not stop. I would like the short-time
(No. 211).—" I know that all in this room are very anxious
for the short-time bill" (No. 221).—" Every girl in the
room would like a short-time bill, though they would earn
less wages" (No. 276).—" I should like the short-time bill
very much" (No. 278).—" I have talked to them many a
time about the hours being shortened like the factories.
They wish that time would come" (No. 462).—" We have
long been waiting for the short hours" (No. 494).—" We
all very much want the short-time bill" (No. 496).—" They
all wished for the short-time bill very much" (No. 509).
" The short-time bill will do us all good" (No. 543.)—" I
have seen the girls, when they have been taking a piece
from the pulling-up machine, fall asleep ; one of them was
not ten years of age. The child looked as pale as a piece of
cloth. I have aeon men take this child in their arms and
say they wished they could see it in London in this state ;
—that is, so livid and wan from work. I mean that if they
could see such things in London, they would know that
there was a want of a bill" (No. 68).
We confess our inability to see what logic can
answer these facts. Master manufacturers may
talk about the evils of legislative interference with
private business: They may claim their right to
regulate their own affairs, independent of state re-
strictions, where the prices of goods and the inte-
rests of commerce only are at stake ; but when
hundreds of women and young girls are sickening,
fainting, and dying from their cruel exactions, the
voice of a free nation has a claim to
be heard in behalf of her suffering chil-
dren. The profits of our manufacturers are
surely large enough to permit " a fair day's wage
for a fair day's work ;" their large incomes are
surely not dependent on the sorrows of girls and
children ! If so, farewell to the glory of commerce.
Cheap cottons will not make up for a crippled and
sickly population. If the benefits of commercial
reciprocity be as great as the Manchester men would
have us believe, let them take advantage of their
increased profits to employ more hands at their
mills, to claim no more than human nature can
accord, without the fearful suffering consequent on
keeping children of fourteen at work for "two
nights and two days !"

Elisabeth Edgfs—" lam 14 years of age. I have worked
here" (at Mr. Sodden's, Breightmet Bleach-works) " fout
years. Three months since I worked" (and of course she
was not working alone upon the occasion) " two nights and
two days. I slept four hours the first morning, and not at
all th• next night. I have very often worked till twelve."
—lbid., p. 49, No. 491.

The strenuous efforts which are being made in
this good cause must, surely, bring about the desired
effect. The committee of ladies who have published
the appeal referred to above contains names of dis-
tinction and eminence. It is truly a case in which
the women of England, more especially the wives
and mothers, have a right to use their influence.
Let the mother of happy children think how she
would feel if she saw her little ones compelled to
work from before sunrise till far into the night;
their rosy cheeks wan, their angers festered with
the work, their feet blistered with long standing
upon the burning floors. Let her picture a group
of these hapless little ones standing at their dan-
gerous work, " nodding and trying to catch the
hook ;" or kept awake by " shouting, and getting
a board and rapping it on the table ;" or " kept
awake for an hour, or more than that perhaps, by
frightening them." It must be remembered that
these things are not the exaggerations of Quixotieal
philanthropists, but the evidence given before a
Parliamentary Committee by the workers them-
selves, and the foremen aild managers of the

works.
Let the members of our Legislature look to it.
They are now the responsible parties. The evi-
dence is before them ; it is uncontradicted. The
facts of the case speak for themselves—speak with
a voice of warning to the nation, whose hand is
ever stretched out to aid the missionary and the
hospital, but whose ears are apparently deaf to the

claims of simple justice and the appeals of common
humanity. Let those who will give their vote on
Wednesday think of the weary frames and droop-
ing hearts that will watch so anxiously for the :re-
sult of th motion, of the long night hours when
women and children are fainting and falling asleep
over their perilous work. Let them think of these
things, and then ask why this bill should be opposed
except by those who are interested in obtaining the
largest amount of labour at the cheapest possible
rate. The principle of the Factory Act is certainly
applicable to these establishments, though under a
different name. It is another form of the hydra-
headed evil against which Lord ASHLEY battled so
long and so stoutly—the tyranny of capital over
labour, that must work for its bread. We
do not wish to censure any manufacturer
individually— most probably these things are
not done with their cognisance, but through
the hands of an agent or manager, who re-
ceives a general instruction to get the most pro-
fitable labour he can. But they may exclaim, with
Hoop's " Lady"—

" The wounds I might have healed,
The human sorrow and smart;
And yet it never was in my soul
To play so ill a part.
But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart."
Surely the exertions now making on behalf of
these over-taxed workers will not have been made
in vain. When we remember the commotion ex-
cited by the discussion on the builders' nine hours'
work, it seems incredible that young girls and
tender children should be called upon to work
double that number of hours for two or three days
successively. It is almost a marvel that they can
do it, but it is true that we do not at once see the
consequences. We do not see the years of sickness
and infirmity, the crippled limbs, the rows of early
graves, that go to swell the profits of the proprie-
tors. Surely this infliction of human suffer-
ing is not to be passively encouraged by
the British Parliament—surely the members
of the Legislature—themselves men with families,
will not tacitly encourage this system by absenting
themselves from the division on Wednesday, or give
it the sanction of their names and influences by
voting against the bill. No sound reason can be
adduced for the exclusion of these establishments
from legislative interference. No valid argument
can be brought forward in defence of such a
state of things. The indefatigable efforts of Mr.
HOPLEY deserve public acknowledgment, and we
are glad to find that Mr. CROOK is determined
to bring the question forward. We should
imagine that few would like to range themselves
openly on the side of such oppressive and con-
tinuous cruelty ; but there will probably be a
strong opposition made to the bill under some
specious pretexts. We, therefore, earnestly hope
that the friends of humanity will not be absent
on that occasion, but will unite in carrying this
bill triumphantly through Parliament ; resolved
that the miseries endured by these poor creatures
shall not lie at their doors, that they will not
incur the reproaches of their own hearts, and
the indignation of the wise and good for the
sake of maintaining an extortionate and relent-
less tyranny.

LATEST NEWS.

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TURIN, MARGII 18.

A royal decree convokes the electoral assemblies
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FLORENCE, MARCH 18.

A solemn religious ceremony has taken place on
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The Archbishop intoned the Te Deum. The city
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The following telegram has been received at Mr.
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