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

CONCERTS,

. .
Donna Lucrezia ........ Miss Russell.
MOS° Orsini Mrs. Anderson.
Gennaro Mr. Henry Herbert
Don Altonzo Signor Tivoli.
Conductor—Mr. Jonghmans.
Comic Vocalists —Messrs. George Hodson (the Irish Come.;
Can and Mimic), W. T. Critchfleld, and E. W. Mackney.
Several interesting Pictures are added to the Fine Arts
Gallery. The suite of Halls have been re-decorated and
*stained, and constitute one of the most unique and brilliant
sights of the metropolis.
The g•allery is open from 5 till 11 on Sunday Evening.

THE WEATHER..—SUN OFFICE, MARCH 18, 1860.—
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
58—highest since noon yesterday.
61—lowest this morning and during the night.
54—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-30.03.
WIND, North-Westerly ; light, with fine weather. Some
alight rain in the morninz.

MARCH 19.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
57—highest since noon yesterday.
42—lowest this morning and during the night.
53—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-30.18.
WIND, Variable—from S.W. to W.N.W. ; light, with
dull weather.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tins DAY.—Morning„ 12h. 10m.—Afternomp 12h. 36m.
To-moßnow.-Morning, 12h. 57m.—Afternoon, lh. 17m.

So far as matters look, the independence of Italy
seems to be going on swimmingly. On Sunday
Governor FARINI was presented to the King, Vic-
TOR EMMANUEL, and delivered into his MAJESTY'S
hands the legal documents containing the re-
turns of the universal suffrages of the
people of Modena, Parma, and the Romagna.
It was expected that the Tuscans would present
their allegiance next day. The King accepted the
solemn votes, and would henceforth be proud to
call them his people. We must now wait to seo
how matters will right themselves in so far as
other parties are concerned.
The neutrality of Switzerland seems to be bound
up in a sort of tangled vein. Austria now steps
forward and insists, on the faith of treaties, that the
Neutrality of Switzerland shall be respected. This
opens a new case for the consideration of the
Powers who have been parties to the guarantee.
It were idle to speculate on the event, for every
new phase seems only to embroil matters more and
More.

Two Reform Bills are to be brought before the two
Houses of Legislature to-night, one in each. That in
the House of Lords for the first time ; that in the
House of Commons for the second time. We know
the contents of each Bill, however ; for that which
the Commons will consider has been printed at
length in our own columns; and that which the Lords
are to look at (no leave to introduce being needed
by a lord) is one which may be czmprised in a
single word, or in one with a very slight addition
—The Ballot—as in practice in our Australian
colonies. The Bill for the Commons professes to be
a bill to make " further provision for the due re-
presentation of the people in Parliament !" The
Bill for the Lords, tacitly probably, makes the
same profession. Both aro enabling Bills. But

that in the Lower House will enable persons to give
% vote who cannot now do so. That in the Lords
"will enable those who have a vote already, or ever
*hall have one, "to do their own voting." Lord
JOHN RUSSELL says to three or four hundred thou-
ond new voters, yoia also may vote for a member of
Y,arliament; Lord TEYNIIA3I says to all of these,
ould they get votes, and to as many more
litho now posseE s them, you may vote
you please. :Lord JOHN RUSSELL looks
at the "outer man, and if he " live in a £lO
a £6 house in the town,
house in the cou aty or
says,—your lips may
pronounce at the polling-
the candidates. Lord
booth the name of tatty of

TEIMHAM looks t• the " inner man," and says,—

you vote for the 1311 n after your own heart. With
n the Lord, by courtesy, " due representation" means,
permitting all to vote who will not endanger aris-

tocratic ascendancy and institutions ; and to this evil
permitting them to vote only under the surveiVr
lance of landlords or employers, of lawyers, bankers,

With the Peer, " due representa-
tion" means,—that it is " due" to each Toter to be
influenced by neither personal fears nor hopes.
The comparative reception which will be accorded
to each bill, it is not difficult to predict, In both
houses there are nobler minds— -minds which regard
men as men, and think that their honour and their
interests are equally concerned in securing to every
elector in the empire the most unqualified freedom
in choosing his representative. It will be seen, we
believe, through the introduction of Lord TEY3-
HAM'S bill, that there are more Peers than might be
supposed who are as honest assertors of the
elector's privilege of " free and independent"
voting, as of the right of the Peers to vote
freely in their own house. Their number may,
indeed, be relatively small at present, but we are
`.OO old Reformers not to know that minorities like

and creditors.

these are the leaven which has always, in its ap-
propriate time, leavened the whole mass. Hence,
while we can be certain enough of the long list of
Non-contents in the Upper House, and the compa-
ratively short one of Contents, we can feel equally
sure that the length of the lists must be some day
reverseel—an early day it may be ; for light some-
times bursts with somewhat tropical snddenness
even on the House of Peers ; but, with freedom of
the Press, and freedom of commerce achieved, and
with freedom of religion dawning rapidly on us,
freedom of election is certain to be not far distant.
We have emancipated negroes, Catholics, mer-
chants, even Jews—we must speedily emancipate

our voters.
But the so-styled Reform Bill—the RUSSELL
Bill—the Cabinet, or half the Cabinet Bill—what
will be done with that? Debated, of course, it will
be. Like the Treaty, after it had been substan-
tially decided on, it must be debated ; we sup-
pose, also, it must be divided on ; though, why,
"we never could make out." Not a point is there
in it which Tories can divide on as to principle.
The difference between borough and county fran-
chise which split their own Cabinet, can hardly be
selected, and the amount of the difference is a com-
mittee question. The disfranchisement of borough
county voters will never be again, in our time, put
to the vote. The number of boroughs to lose each a
member, with the exact amount for a voter's quali-
fication, can hardly be points for a discussion on the
second reading. The bill omits, indeed, the only clause
which, as we believe, hindered Mr. DISRAELI'S
bill from reaching committee without a division,
and we can hardly see, therefore, what pretext can
be found for not going into committee. The Radi-
cals have indeed ground enough for a division.
The omissions of the bill are its unpardonable sins ;
but then a powerful section of them have been duly
purchased with a treaty and a budget, and the rest,
we will not say unwisely, have made up their
minds to take any instalment. With but the one
fatal exception, we should gladly have taken Mr.
DISRAELI'S bill as an instalment—of course we
shall Lord JOHN'S.
There are, we know, some, both enemies and
friends to Reform, who think the bill will effect
more than we can hope. Amongst the former, our
great morning contemporary presents to timid
Whigs and listening Tories a frightful picture of
the transference of some hundred seats or more to
the Red Radicals. Amongst the friends of Reform
Mr. JAMES ACLAND calculates that all the boroughs
of which the constituencies will be increased fifty
or a hundred per cent. will return Radical mem•
bers ! while those increased from 25 to 50 per
cent. will return Liberal members. Hence we are
to be sure of 142 Radicals and 154 Liberals, and to
have but 41 " illiberals" from the boroughs where
the increase is smallest, though among these are
the metropolitan boroughs. The Times, of course,
gladly accepts such calculations as a reason for. at
a bill it most cordially hates, though the
writer makes them to induce Liberals to be thankful
for what is offered them. We must believe that both
the enemy and the friend of liberal politics are

mistaken.
Both estimate the increase of electors at far
above what it will be. They reckon from the num-
ber of houses between £6 and £lO rental. But the
deductions-are so very large, owing to tenancies by
females, indifference, the rate-paying clauses, ab-
sence, illness, and other causes, that in many cases
probably not more than half of the houses in ques-
tion will furnish registered electors, certainly not
half of them voters. But not only will the in-
crease be smaller than is computed—it will, under
open voting, be a very dependent class of electors.
Between employers of labour and buyers of votes,
the additions will be nearly all liable to coercion,or
purchase by the class above them, and in thecoun-
ties no one doubts that this will be the case. The
new voters will be servants or mercenaries of the
same masters or hirers as now command their ser-
vices. What change will this effect?
Some good amendments are already announced.
Mr. BERKELEY iS to proceed in regard to the
Ballot, by way of bill, on the 20th. Mr: MAC
EVOY has a ballot motion for Ireland when the Irish
bill goes into committee. And Mr. Tiros. DIJN-
COMBE is in committee to move for an optional
ballot, which, if it relate to individuals, is no ballot
at all ; if to constituencies, unless it be provided
that a small minority may require its adoption for
the whole, the ballot cannot be introduced where
the incorrupt or the independent are few—just
where it is most wanted ! Mr. EDWIN JAMES, whose
course Olathe Ballot and treatment of Mr. BERKELEY
look as if hewere thinking of an Attorney-General-
ship under Lord JoHN RUSSELL and Lord
of
rate-paying
PAL-
MERSTON, has a good amendment in favour of the
better class lodgers, and for discontinuing ;the
annoyingclauses. We trust they will
both be carried. It is too bad to be dragged up to
a revising barrister, or to lose your vote, because
you were away from home when the collector
called, and you forgot to visit him. Surely it is enough
to be rated—the law can collect its own rates,
without using them as an instrument of disfran-
chisement. As to lodgers, we all know that in the
suburbs of largo towns they are a numerous
intelligent class, and ought to have a vote,
wit and
reasonable residentiary qualification. It should
not of course be one requiring that the occupancy
be of the same apartments. This is no more teed-
ful than that a person should be a tenant of the
same house. Well—what with Budget and Bank-
ruptcy, and Parliamentary Reform Bills, it will be
strange if 1860 does not leave us somewhat
Reformed.

The second reading of Mr. CROOK'S bill for
bringing the hours of labour in the Bleaching and
Dyeing works under the control of the Ten Hours'
Act is announced for Wednesday next. We take
this opportunity of bringing the fact before the
notice of the public, and of earnestly entreating the
members of the Legislature to give their votes in
favour of the bill.

In these bleaching and dyeing Rorks women and
young girls, sometimes children under 10 years of
age, are kept at work for eighteen and twenty
hours at a stretch during several consecutive days.
The temperature is maintained at the heat of an
Indian summer
; while the state of a crowded lac-

tory in which 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 ;wars, 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 amom,g 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 coining out of those hot places dripping
wet with perspiration, and their clothes wet through with
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 Young and
Son's bleachworks, Auldhousefield, Pollockahaws. 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 coursevery 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 leg 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 long?—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 r—Certainly.
Mr. Packe.j 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 mane
*" times, but I dare'not stop. I would like the short-time bill
(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
se very much want the short-time bill" (No. 495).—" They
all wished for the short-time bill very much" (No. 509).
" The short-time bill will do us all good" (No. 543.)---I," I
have seen the girls, When they have been taking a piece
from the pulling-np machine, fall asleep ; one of them was
not ten years of age. The child looked as pale as a piece of
cloth. I have seen 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 fromwork. 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, inaependent 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 !"
Elizabeth Edge—" lam 14 years of age. I have worked
here" (at Mr. Sadden's, Breightmet Bleach-works) "
few
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 the 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 fingers 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-
ghoerooku;s„
er work,ke kept
naowd da
ki neg
bayn,d , s tryinghon to t
"shouting,
nzja n catch ch the
getting
awake
wba okaer df ar n
adn rapping nogr
ti
at
oro
en t hhmen t
ta
al e;t :p' e
io. a ks, I) i)t,
frightening them." It must be remembered that
these things are not the exaggerations of Quixotical
philanthropists, but the evidence given before a
Parliamentary Committee by the workers them-
selves, and the foremen mud managers of the
works.

Let the members of out 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 fn' 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 3 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
1 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
HOOD'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.

•
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A 47 .„,"!•A-
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,140
MCA v t • ,
•Lei
1

THE SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 19, 1860.