The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-23 00:00:00

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THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY _EVENING, MARCII 23, Ib6o.

POLICE INT_ELLIGENCE.—(This Day.)

Paid.

Closing
Price.

111 asinees done

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

ROBBERY OF BOOKS BY A DANISH STUDENT.—WiIheIm
Amadus Bierregarde, a Danish student, was charged before
Mr. Bingham with stealing two books—"Bewicke's Birds"
—of the value of £3, the property of Mr. John Camden
Rotten, bookseller, 151, Piccadilly.
Mr. Hotten said that about a fortnight ago the prisoner
entered his shop, two, gentlemen being there at the time,
and asked some question and left without making a purchase.
The next day he missed the two books produced, a splendid
edition'of " Bewicre's Birds," and of the value of £3. He
mentioned his loss to the trade, and yesterday Mr. Heath,
of Oxford-street, bookseller,• called on him and gave him
such information as led to the apprehension of the prisoner,
who he was positive was the same person as called at his
shop the day before the books were missed. '

Mr. William Heath, bookseller, of 497, Oxford-street,
said that on the fith March the prisoner, producing the two
books,. asked him to purchase them, and as he asked three
and a half guineas, which was near the value, he was thrown
off his guard, and purchased them, thinking, in fact, he
was in the trade, at the same time giving him £2 108. for
them. He (Mr. Heath) afterwards heard they were missed
from Mr Hotten's, and gave him information, and in con-
sequence of the prisoner having given an address—though
he gave a number that was not correct—they made in-
quiries, but did not find him. While shutting up on the
previous night the prisoner entered his shop, doubtless
owing to the inquiries that had been made, and he then told
him that he was charged with stealing two books in Picca-
dilly, and, admitting the, fact, asked that he might be for-
given. He then gave him into custody.
Synan, 134 E, asked for a remand, as at his lodgings he
found several other books, and as several booksellers bad
lost books, he thought they might be identified. •
The prisoner, who wears a fashionable Inverness cape,
was then remanded.

BLEACHING AND DYEING WORKS.

For the credit of the House of Commons, for the
credit of British humanity, and, we may say, for
the credit of the British race, we rejoice that the
Bill ter Limiting the Hours of Labour Of Women
and Children in Bleaching and Dyeing Works has
been carried by a very large majority. Amid the
storms of European politics, amid the rise and fall
of dynasties, amid Indian outbreaks or Transat-
lantic squabbles, the deep, silent stream, of our
national life flows on with hardly a notice from
politicians and their followers. Statesmen in-
quire hardly anything about the people of this
country. The only test of their prosperity is
their quiet, and it is concluded that the satis-
faction of hunger is sufficient to counterbalance
every cause of dissatisfaction. Yet there may
be high wages with the greatest misery, large ex-
ports with a deteriorating population, and beef
and beer and gin consumed in houses where pale
faces and distorted limbs give evidence of the
ruin that is at work. The case of the women
and children in the Bleaching Works deserves,
and has at length received, the attention of the
Legislature. The stories which are told of these
poor creatures must move every One whose hea'A
the bigotry of so called economical science has
not turned into stone. The dullest imagi'dation
must be moved by the tortures inflicted
by grasping traders and ruthless parents on the
young, the delicate, and the sickle ; and it re-
quires no philanthropical wisdom to teach us
that a persistence in such a system is not only a
disgrace to a Christian land, bit a national impolicy
which will bring with it a Leavy retribution.
It is a melancholy reflection that enlightenment
and liberalism are entirely relative, and cannot be
predicated of any class in the community. The
Conservative gentry, as the possessors of the chief
privileges of the country, have been for forty years
taken as the type of stolid resistance to beneficial
changes, and of blindness to philosophical demon-
strations. But their adversarie seem only to have
been accidentally on the right side, for whenever
an abuse is threatened which has hitherto been
for their advantage no Tory can be stronger
against interference and innovation. The bill
on Wednesday was met by the usual argument
about the impolicy of interfering between master
and servant, between employer and employed. We
need not go into this subject. We area people of
precedent. We are lawyers, even in, our highest
acts of policy, and it will be sufficient for Mr. Turner
and those who argue with him to say that the point
has years ago been decided against them. The
House of Commons, in reading the bill a second
time by an immense majority, only refused to re-
verse the policy which has been embodied in the
Ten Hours Act and other legislative measures.
The people of England have solemnly proclaimed
that the principle of Laissez faire shall
not apply to the using up of human flesh
and blood. That women and children are
not free agents, and that society in its corporate
capacity has a right to interfere for their protection,
is a principle which it is now too late to combat.
Indeed, the Legislature has gone much further, as
in the Acts for the regulation of shipping, where
seamen and emigrants are placed under the special
protection of Government, and the doctrine of non-
interference in private contracts utterly repudiatel.
Far above the advantage to society of material gain
is the advantage of a vigorous and healthy people,
and if a cancerous growth of dwarfishness and imbe-
cility is allowed to come into existence in any part of
the island no one can tellwhat maybe the consequences
in the next age. In spite of all the care of Parliament
and all the labours of sensible and right-minded
employers, the population of a Lancashire town
cannot be contemplated without a certain misgiv-
ing. Watch them as they pour along the streets
to dinner, observe their pale faces, their stoop, their
thin hands and their somewhat unsteady gait, and
it will glance across your mind that the first place
in the commerce of the world may be too dearly
purchased. But, whatever that may be, it is the
universal testimony of the factory inspectors that
the evil Would have been far worse without Go-
vernment interfeience. Mr. Horner, in his report
for the half-year ending the 31st of October, 1859)
says, " The experience of twenty-six years con-
vinces me that the legislative interference for the
regulation of the labour of children, young persons,
and women, in factories, is now viewed by the
greatmajority of the occupiers as having done, and
as continuing to do, a great amount of good without
any interference with the prosperity of their trade."
Mr. Horner is sanguine respecting the employment
of children. He thinks that under the present law
they are not overworked, that the three hours they
get in school daily give them the rudiments of
education, while their employment sharpens their
faculties and gives them independence at an early
age. Mr. Baker says,--" I think I can show
that the Factory Acts have put an end to the
premature decrepitude of the former long-hour
workers ; that they have enlarged their social
and intellectual privileges; that by making them
masters of their own time they have given them a
moral energy which is directing them to the
eventual possession of political power, and that
they have lifted them up high in the scale of
rational beings, compared with that which they
had attained in 1833." So much for the right of
Parliament to interfere with the labour in factories,
and for the consequences which this interference
has produced.

Tarn now to the bleaching-works. Nothing in
the annals of Manchester or Stockport, in the days
when Lord Ashley carried on his campaign against
the millowners, can be compared with the revela-
tions which have been lately made respecting the
condition of these abodes of misery. Mr. Roebuck
only quoted a few of a whole series of heartrending
narratives. We may give some further extracts.
One youth says, "At times, if a sudden order
has come, we have not been in bed more than 16
or 18 hours a week." Another says, "At my
commencement" (when he was a child of 11)
" I begun at. 12 o'clock on Sunday night and
worked till 6 o'clock on Monday night. Then
we started at 6 o'clock on Tuesday morning, and
worked till 12 at night ; and we did this for two
or three months without stopping." Wright
Mather says, " I am foreman of the clamping-
room. In summer I have seen the room at
130 deg. ; in winter it is generally about 80 to 100
deg. We have come at 6 a.m. and worked till 9
p.m. all last week. . . There are four clamping-
rooms, and when they are all a-gate there are 16
females at work in them. In the other drying-place
there are five boys; they work very often 16, 17,
and 18 hours a-day. The heat is very great in that
room—from 100 to 150 degrees, and that is under
the mark." James Thomson, of Mr. Wallace's
works, Burnbank; Glasgow, says, "We em-
ploy about 10 men and 40 females ; in sum-
mer some of the hands work occasionally from
6 a.m. to 12 p.m. 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 are from 40 to 18. - . I feel when I am urging
the females to work these long hours that I am doing
what is not right, but I have beta urged to do it
to get a lot of goods finished. Sometimes they stay
here all night, and then we make a plaeesfor them
to lie down upon in a store-room upon the pieces of
goods unfinished. Sometimes 14 or more girls
will pass tho night in this manner, after working
19 hours, and coming out of those hot places drip-
ping wet with perspiration, and their clothes wet
through with it." We feel that we need add
nothing to this horrible picture. If such revela-
tions do not rouse society to rescue these girls and
these children from their living death, then do we
as a natieta deserve the worst that the world can
say of us, and an hour of just punishment will
inevitably arrive.-■-Times.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.—(This Day.)

• HOUSE OF LORDS.—APPEAL.
Peers present—The Lord Chancellor, Lord Cranworth,
Lord Chelmsford, Lord Wensleydale, Lord Kingston,
and other peers.

THE ATTORNEY•GENERAL V. fIRUNNING.
This was an appeal from a decision of the Court of
Exchequer, declaring that legacy duty was not payable on
£115,000, in respect of the agreement entered into to sell
the freehold lands in question before the death of the
testator.

*Their lordships were unanimously of opinion that as the
executor of the testator could only recover payment of the
price of the purchase of the freehold virtuti o.fficii, that
legacy duty was payable on the purchase money in terms of
the statute. The Lord Chancellor reversed the decision of
the Court of Exehquer, and entered up judgment for the
Queen.