The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-28 00:00:00

waited upon the Right Hon. W. COWPER, at the
office of the Board of Works, in Whitehall. A pre-
vious deputation had, in answer to inquiries of a
like kind, received some time back from Lord
LLANOYEII, then (as Sir BENJAMIN HALL) Mr.
(CO—WPER'S predecessor, the not unwelcome informa-
tion that £38,000 yet remained out of the sum of
T-145;000 originally voted by Parliament—£3B,ooo
still (at the time Sir BENJAMIN HALL spoke) in the
hands of the Board of Works, available for the cora-

"pletion of the embankment. The deputation yester-
day, encouraged by this recollection, put it to the pre-
sent Chief Commissionei of Public Works whether

—seeing that £60,000 might yet complete the de-
sign of this improvement—an additional sum of
£22,000 might not be aiked from Parliament to add

to this £38,000 already< in hand out of the first vote
of .X 143,000? What is the reply of the present

Chief Commissioner to the inquiry thus put to him
by Alr. TITE, as the principal spokesman of yes-
terday's deputation ? It is explicit enough, and
sufficiently fraught; too, with disappointment.
It, came thus painfully before the deputation—
Mr. COWPER remarks that " if, as Mr. TITE had
stated, the £38,0,00 remaining unexpended of the
sum voted by Parliament were readily accessible,
[there would no doubt be a claim, as had been sug-
gested, to go to Parliament for the revival of the
powers of the act, and to see how far that money
would go, but the fact was that the money was
not available !" Then followed this agreeable little
explanation—" It was a rule," said Mr. CowrEß,
" with the. Treasury that .when :tikes _of money
passed by the House of Commons were not isslied
within three years, they Were. ,Written off and
taken into the general revenue of the country, and
that was what occurred in this case. This £38,150
was *Rind in Mara, 185.9, to have been uncx•
pended and uncalled far for three years, and the
Treasury, in consequence, following the- ordinary
rule, wrote it off as so much money saved!" All is
grist that comes to the mill of that insatiable
and voracious functionary the Chancellor of the
Exchequer. And so this £38,150 have gone the
•
way of all similar waifs and strays of neglected
moneys sucked down into the all-absorbing Vortex

of that grand maelstrom of
,the Treasury ! When
the Chief Commissioner has added that "he should
be glad to milder all the assistancelin his power
and to urge the views of the deputation .in the
right quarter, but he could not hold out any hope
that Parliament would at Present. be dispoSed to
vote the necessary, funds"-7-the deputation has
nothing left for it to do, after the utterance of a few
ineffectual words ofentreatyand:expostulation, than
[like the mystical gallipot in the adage—about
.whose identity we should like to ask .Notes and
'Queries] to thank bir. COWPER " for nothing,"
and to retire .bowing from the presence
of the right hon. gentleman. By the
articulation yesterday of-the few words we have
here quoted, Mr.. _COWPER, it is undeniable,
has effectually put his " spoke " itithe, wheel of
good fortune (for the time being at.least) of the
prOject of the Battersea and Vauxhall embankment.
The same valid reasons; however, certainly do not
exist in regard to the'embankment deiigned to be
built to the east, and to be. actually constructed
out of—the old bridge at Westminster.‘ Let us look
hopefully for a more favourable decision, at any
rate in regard to this embankment, -from the new
Chief Commissioner (whatever his title) of Public
Works, Woods aad Forests, Parks and Palaces.

It -is with great
.satisfaction we 'observ'ellat
the attention of the House of Peers, has been-called
to the employment of .women and children in the
bleaching and dyeing ,works by no less an autho-
rity than Lord BROUGHAM. That eminent and
venerable peer, whose energetic voice has been so
often raised in the cause..of suffering humanity,
,de-
clared last evening that he had,..seazcely ever
read anything equal to the disclosures made in
-the reports and tracts which have' been recently
issued through the
_indefatigable ,philanthropy of
Nit. THOMAS HOPLEY. 't For hours," said the noble
Lord, "after he had read the particulars' contained
in
,theSe documents; he had been unable ,to get the
-subject discharged- from, his mind." Lord 'GRAN--
yILLE, in reply, pi.oniisedl o-inakelicniry.into the
subject, and we trust, for the honour ofiour Eng-
lish Parliament,,, this. promise will be kept. The
state of, things revealed by these reports.is a dis-
graCe ~to our national humanity—They reveal a
,system of cruelty . and , oppression the' more
intolerable becange exercised tOWardS. helpless
infancy. In the midst of . a free self-govern-
ing nation, which prides itself on the extended bene-
volence which embraces tribes of savages whose
names, are scarcely known td us 3 On the commercial
enterprise, whichhas invested trade and barter with
•, ,
the dignity of a national heritage; which
.resents
the exercise of undue coercion over even the ex-
pression of opinion Or the license of speech; in the
midst of all this, the health and lives-of,children, of
tender years, are being .sacrificed, slowly, delibe-
• rately, and remorselessly, as surely as if they formed
part of the infant sacrifice tnJUdGERNAUT, which
our Indian statesmen have striven so hard to re-
press. The following extracts, taken from crowds
Of similar statistics, speak for themselves
"At times, if a sudden order has come, we have not been
in bed more than 16 or 18 hours in the week (averaging
more than 211 hours of unrest out of the 24 during seven
successive' days and nights for girls and boys, some of
them-no,naore than 12 years old)."—Report of the Com •
'inissioner appointed to inquire how far it may be advisable
to eitend the Provisions of the Acts for the better Regu-
lation of Mills and Factories to Bleaching Works, pp.
10, 11; Nos. 81-84.
' William Johnson, finisher—" lam twenty-four years of
I
fr.r.4ag et.
for was eFlelveetenhwe.rh, eLneyllafinrds ts,wteennty
etaorsw.ork. At
mI
ywocroknesd_
mencement" (that is, when ho was a child of eleven) " I
began at twelve o'clock on Sunday night, and worked till
eight on Monday night (20 hours); then we started at
six o'clock. on Tuesday. morning, and worked till 12 at
night (18 hours) ; and we did that for two or three months
without stopping. * r * I have been at a worse place
than that for long hours since;' at Mr. Whowellc, Two
Brooks. * • * There were a deal of young girls, one
or two under ten years of age.—lbid p. 9, No. 68.
[To have a full perception of the severity of this toil, it
Should.'be borne in mind- that a very large number of the
workers in these establishments are standing and " .work-
(as rapidly as Possible) during almost the whole
of
fg these ele'
lengthened periods. It is shown in evidence that
sometimes for days in succession the girls and boys have
'no opportunity whatever of sitting down (save for their
haStiry-snatehed meals during the whole of the time spent
at the works.—Reports, passiind
Ann - Simpson (14 years old), Elizabeth Hilton (15),
Sarah Higson (16)--' We came to work last Friday morn-
ing at half-past six" (at Mr. Ridgway Bridson's Bleach-
works, Belton). "We worked all Friday night till half-
past five on Saturday morning" (twenty-three hours.) "We
did not Sleep any time in the night, except on Saturday
morning at half-past five we laid sown to sleep on the
hooking-box, and slept till a little after seven" (less than
two hours' sleep—and with the clothes still on—acter
twenty-three hours' work) ; " then we went to breakfast for
half-an-hour, and then edano and worked till ten minutes
past Eleven."—/bil., p. 25, No. 233.
No wonder, with such severe and unremitting toil,
tarried on, it must be rerninbered, in the hot
atmosphere of a crowded factory;-no-viende; that
a strong and healthy man" ebilfesSes to beingi
so tired that he. has often to sit, at t leis .bedsid&;
when lie gets up in the morning, with his fingers so
stiff, he can scarcely dress ! After which admission,
tw.reeedan but echo his own question, " If I feel thus
~what must the young' girls and -boys feel ?"
The evidence given by the foremen and managers
only tco painfully confirm. s ,the: reports; of,the
workers.

Jarnes _Thomson (Mt. -Widlace's Seoul-lug,
and Finishing Works for Cotton and Woollens, /turn