The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-04 00:00:00

the business now done in thirteen hours could easily s years of age, has a strong French accent, and speaks
be done in ten or even eight hours, and consequently of herself as having resided a long time on the Con-
no pecuniary injury could be done either to the mas- tinent. She is well conversant with titled names,
ter or the assistant by shutting up one or two hours and very plausible in her manners and statements,
earlier than at present. In the case of the factory and apparently amply provided with a supply of ready
operatives, the diminution in the amount of produc- . money. It is hoped that this exposure may possibly
tion would be followed by a corresponding reduction lead to detection of other parties concerned, or at
in the amount of wages. Our readers are aware least prevent the accomplishment of the fraud else-
that the Drapers' Association has existed for some where. The lease has been retained by the solicitor
time. They are also aware of the objects for which to facilitate any further investigation.
it was formed. The unusual length of time each day
which assistant-drapers are obliged to devote to busi-
ness, has long been the subject of regret to all who
wish well to their fellow-men. The practice hitherto
has been, and in many instances is still, to keep
drapers' shops open to nine in the evening. Some
keep open even later; but let us take nine as the
general hour of closing. Now, to be kept confined
behind the counter from eight in the morning till
nine in the evening, must not only be exhausting
both to body and mind, but must be very perilous to
health. What materially aggravates the case of the
assistant drapers is the fact, that they take their meals
in their employers' houses, which are in every in-
stance above their shops. They have, consequently,
no opportunity of inhaling a single draught of fresh
air for thirteen long hours. Nor is this all. They
are only allowed half an hour for their meals—so
that out of the thirteen hours, they have to be
on their feet twelve tedious hours. Now
this, in the nature of things, must be too much
for the human constitution. Experience proves
that it is so. Many young men come up
from the provinces to the metropolis, possessed
of robust constitutions, and enjoying excellent
health, who, in a few years, catch, by means of
this close confinement and constant physical exhaus-
tion, the seeds of diseases which speedily terminate in
death. The injurious effects of close confinement and
continuous application to business, in drapers' shops,
are clearly seen in the countenances of the young
men, while engaged in their ordinary occupations. No
one can have entered any of our large drapery estab-
lishments, without being struck with the pale, sickly-
looking countenances, he sees around him. The ap
pearance of the young persons in these establishments
is sufficient, without a knowledge of the facts which
bear on their case, to convince the visitor that there
must be something wrong in their condition. What
aggravates the hardships of their case is, the circum-
stance that they are mostly young men of intelligence,
and, consequently, of susceptible feelings. And they
have a painful consciousness of the hardships of their
position. They consider themselves to be, not merely
in a state of drudgery, but in a state of slavery. Their
long hours are aggravated by the irksomeness of
their employment. The anxiety which they must
necessarily feel to acquit themselves in such a
way as to give satisfaction to their employers,
adds very greatly to their other sources of unhappi-
ness. Their ingenuity is constantly on the rack to
adapt themselves to the whims and caprices of their
customers—the permanency of their situations being
in many, if not the majority of cases, wholly depen-
dent on their success in doing business with those
who inspect their employers' goods. But there are
other respects in which the destiny of the assistant
draper is a hard one. He is possessed of sufficient
education and intelligence to make him desirous of
acquiring more. With the present system of long
hours, his advancement in mental cultivation cannot
be expected. He is so exhausted, so jaded, physi-
cally and mentally, by the duties of the day, as to
have little relish, and still less strength, for mental
application of any kind. The interval between the
hour of shutting shop and retiring to rest is so short,
that he requires it all for pedestrian exercise in the
streets ; or it may be, that he spends it in places
in which he may drown, for an hour or two, all
recollection of the hardships of his condition. If,
instead of the present hour of shutting up
haberdashers' shops, they were closed at seven in
the winter and eight in the summer, the young men
would be happy to avail themselves of the various
means of mental improvement with which the metro-
polis abounds. They could read at home, in literary
institutions, or in the more respectable class of coffee-
rooms ; or if they preferred it, they could attend
courses of lectures on literary, philosophical, and
scientific subjects. Messrs. Hitchcock and Co., of St.
Paul's Church-yard—the largest retail drapery house
in London, or, perhaps, in the world—have not only
an extensive and well-selected library for the use of
the young men in their establishment, but they have
lately established a course of lectures in their own
premises for their benefit—the lecturers employed
being the most distinguished men they can procure in
the various departments of literature and science.
Were the proposed abridgment of the hours of busi-
ness carried into effect, other houses would doubtless
follow the example. The objection on the part of the
master drapers to an abridgment of the hours of busi-
ness, is that they would thereby lessen the amount of
their business. There could not be a greater
mistake. The same number of dresses would
continue to be bought. If it were once under-
stood that the drapers' shops were all to
shut at seven in the winter, and eight in the
summer, those intending to make purchases would
make a point of paying their visits by six in winter
and seven in summer. And not only would the same
amount of business continue to be done, but there
would be a considerable saving to the master in the
expenses of the establishment; for he would save the
price of from one to two hours' gas-light, varying
according to the season of the year. This is not mere
theory. Messrs. Hitchcock have tried the experiment.
During the last six months they closed at seven, and
they found that they did as much business as in the
corresponding months of the previous year, when they
continued open from an hour to an hour and a half
longer. In the item of gas alone, they calculated
their savings to be 30s. per night, through this abridg-
ment of the hours of business. The views which we
are pressing on the adoption of the trade were ably
and eloquently advocated by the various speakers
at the meeting last night. The more the question is
examined, the more convinced the master drapers
must become, that while their assistants would be
incalculably benefited, mentally, morally, and physi-
cally, by an abridgment of the hours of business,
they would not suffer in any way by the change, but
would, on the contrary, in addition to the gratifying
consciousness that they were contributing in a very
great measure to the happiness of those in their em-
ploy, be considerable gainers by the saving which
would be effected in gas. light and in other items of
,ense.—Advertiser of Tuesday.

COMMONS INCLOSURE BILL.

(From the Morning Advertiser.)
In consequence of the indisposition of Lord Worsley,
the Order of the Day for going into Committee on
the Commons Inclosure Bill NA as on Wednesday night

postponed by the House of Commons till the 24t1i of
April, and most earnestly is it to be hoped that the
friends of justice and of the poor will spare no
effort during the brief interval thus given, in endea-
vouring to defeat this monstrous attempt at public

spoliation.
While the Morning Chronicle is employing its
columns in aid of this iniquitous proceeding, and en-
deavouring to blind the eyes of the public to its real
character, the Times admits into its pages a most
valuable expose of its true nature. The morning or-
gan of Whiggery volunteers to write in favour of a
rapacious act worthy only of the age of feudal oppres-
sion, and the " leading journal" does not leave its
readers without the means of perceiving the gross in-

justice against the poor, of Which the Chronicle is
the advocate. The Commons Inclosure Bill is, in

the language to which we refer, "a proposition which
gives 4,000,000 of acres to those who already possess
32,000.000," and which, we may add, makes this
magnificent donation to the landed aristocracy under
the most hypocritical pretences. Under the profession
of regard to the poor, and a wish to provide for them,
the great landlords in Parliament are about to divide
among themselves about one-eighth of the whole coun-
try ; and the organ of Liberal opinions, the stern as-
sertor of public rights, aids the cupidity of landlords in
Parliament, by trying to persuade the country that
there will be no harm done. We admire the pointed sar-
cas:m which pervades the following language, and unveils
the hypocrisy of which the Chronicle is the advocate :
" The parties to this important question are the
gentry of the country on the one hand, and the com-
mon people on the other. The first assume, and with
truth, that there is want of employment in many
parts of the kingdom, and by the inclosing, paring,
and tilling of many f those wastes, every labouring
man will obtain the great and scarce bDon of employ-
_ _

ment, for which he is pining. The increase of their
own estates is not for a moment admitted as a motive,

though an addition of one-eighth is not a contempti-
ble addition." If this very large portion of the
country which is now the property of the nation, is
to be brought into cultivation for the benefit of the
poor, we beg to suggest a plan by which the interests
of the poor can be effectually secured, and at the same
time the nation at large shall receive whatever ad-
vantage may be derivable from the improvement of
its own property. Let these four millions of acres
be sold or rented, or allotted to the poor, and let the
proceeds go towards the liquidation of the National
Debt. Can we afford to put into the pockets of the
landed aristocracy those funds which, if judiciously-
appropriated, would considerably diminish the bur
dens of an over-taxed population ? What man in his
senses, who knows the facts which for months
past have been constantly before the public, relative
to the heartless-kulifference of landlords to the pros-
' perity of their tenantry, would for a moment dream
of those landlords devising a measure simply for the
benefit of the agricultural labourers and farmers? What
a disinterested, benevolent race these landed Members
have become, to consent to have their estates en-

larged, not at all for their own advantage, but simply
from the kind and anxious wish to add to the comforts
of those miserable families to which their compassion
has assigned as an ample support, 6s. or 7s. a week !
The true extent of the regard which is had to the
poor in the contemplated measure, may be best un-
derstood by the fact, which is stated in the Times,
relative to the inclosure at Croydon :

" Some years ago an Act was obtained to inclose
no less than 6,000 acres of land at Croydon, in Sur-
rey. The lord of the manor, the holders of land,
and others received large portions—among them the
late Lord Liverpool. To the poor were allotted about
200 acres. These they never obtained, neither com-
pensation; but a court-house being -wanted, another '
Act was passed ; the poor man's lots were sold in pur-
suance of it, and the money spent in this monument
of rapacity."
Here is a beautiful specimen of the treatment to
which the poor are subject by landowning M. P.'s.
A large extent of common is inclosed for the benefit
of the poor, and their portion is appropriated to the
erection of a court-house, where they may stand in
the presence of their wealthy neighbours charged
with poaching on the manor which was, once their
own possession, and which the laws of their coun-
try have taken from them and given to the rich.
The friends of the poor have every reason to dis-
credit the professions of those by whom Lord Wors-
ley's Bill is advocated, and to oppose a measure
which, as long as the game-laws disgrace our sta-
tute-book, will increase the perils to which the lives
of the poor are exposed. The more inclosures the
more game preserves, and the wider will be the scene
in which desperate encounters will take place be-
tween the furtive intruder and the gamekeeper. To
the numerous illustrations which have recently been
furnished of the evil results of these foolish and
cruel laws, an addition has just been made by a trial
reported in the papers yesterday, for the murder of
the gamekeeper at Kingston. In the language of
the Learned Counsel who defended the prisoner, it is
"a melancholy thing that, in order to enable persons
in the position of Lord Grantley to enjoy their plea-
sures anci preserve their game, the lives of the poorer
classes are to be sacrificed, and it would be much
better if there were no game, and that such lordly
pleasures should be altogether abolished, than that
such dreadful cases as that before the Court, and si-
milar ones all over the country during the resent
assizes, should have taken place." It is evident,
from the confession of the unhappy convict Elsley,
as well as from numerous other similar statements,
that the feelings that exist between poachers and
gamekeepers are those of the most deadly hatred,
feelings strangely inconsistent with the trivial cha-
racter of the property which one of the parties has
to protect and the other is anxious to seize. In the
case to which we have referred, the gamekeeper
seemed determined to kill the poor man who had
knocked down a brace of pheasants, and a deadly
encounter, a "life-for-life" fight was the result. If
the victim of these inhuman and unnatural laws had
been the keeper of the Crown jewels or the guardian
of Majesty, he could not have displayed more ear-
nestness in the guardianship of the property intrusted
to his care, or have shown a more deadly enmity
against the man by whom his charge was assailed. It
is really a monstrous absurdity that the idle amuse-
ments of the aristocracy should be so sacredly fenced
round by the sanctions of law as to peril human life
and liberty whenever they are invaded. And when,
as in the unhappy case at Kingston, we see one life
sacrificed, and another barely saved from the gibbet,
in a contest for a brace of pheasants, taken to rescue
his wife and family from the fangs of starvation, we
are the more impelled to protest against a measure by
which the number of such cases will be increased.
Besides the design which the disinterested Members
of Parliament have of dividing this land amongst
themselves, there is another too obvious not to pre-
sent itself to the mind of every thinking man. This
scheme is one of the efforts of the pro-corn-law
party to perpetuate the ruinous policy of which they
are the abettors. Want of employment—the effect
of the corn-laws—is to cease for a few years by set-
ting the unemployed labourers to work on their own
land, and thus one of the arguments for free trade is
to be answered, and the clamours of the League to
he silenced. Should this policy (by the aid of the
Morning Chronicle) succeed, the day which the land-
lords dread will be put off, until it will be too late
to adopt the only measure that will save the country
from ruin, England will have lost her manufacturing
enterprise, and all her interests will be bankrupt
together.
(From the Times.)
The second debate on Lord Worsley's Inclosure
Bill is adjourned till after Easter. We are glad of
this. The interval of time thus gained will afford an
opportunity to Hon. Members of investigating the
merits of a subject on which, we suspect, the greater
number of them are more ready to vote than to re-
fleet. And, though we do not profess to be very
sanguine in our hopes that the arriere pence of a
Parliamentary majority may turn the scale of a
.on i L mn favour of a generous and just as opposed to an
L interested policy, yet we do not wholly despair of
seeing the House do on this occasion what it has
I done on others—namely, rescind its previous deci-
. sions, and retract its former language—an inconsist-
ency which, however derogatory it may be to the
dignity of a legislative assembly, is not unfrequently
more in accordance with the wishes, and more sub-
servient to the interests, of tilos() who are represented
in it, than the most stubborn and pertinacious eon.
sistency would be. The House has of late exhibited
a very strong predilection in iavour of the principle
, of humanity over the petty wisdom of economists and
the selfish abstractions of rich men. The causes
from which this predilection has arisen still exist, and
must operate on future occasions to thwart any ten-
, dency to a sordid or oppressive spirit of legislation.
It cannot be that those who have stood forth strenti-
,.l
than
nly
strenuously,
nudoetueslrT,inetdo championly,an
and not lessth triumphantly
mast s
rights in the populous towns whiechpooowre
their
wealth and prosperity to his labour—it cannot
1 be that the very same men can forget to maintain the
privileges which the policy and philanthropy of past
ages guaranteed to him and his children in the soli of
his native hamlet. We wish Hon, Gentlemen would

ATTEMPTED FRAUD.
A person assuming to be a lady called about a
fortnight since at the residence of a solicitor in Ux-
bridge, and produced an unexecuted engrossment of
a lease, purporting to be a lease from Mary Ann
Montagu, of Privy-gardens, to John Gray, of Henley-
upon-Thames, of a farm called Grosvenor Farm,
stated to be near Henley, at a rent of 500/. per annum.
The lease was admirably drawn, and properly
stamped, the stamps bearing the Hampshire mark
upon them, a stamp of 4/. being dated Nov. 29,
1841, and the second, of 11., the 30th of No-
vember, 1843. The deed altogether bore an ap-
pearance of being completely authentic. The person
represented herself to be the lessor, Mary Ann
M..ntagu, and that she was the owner of the farm
demised, the existing lease of which would expire at
Lady-day, when the lease then produced was to be
executed ; that the title-deeds of the property had been
destroyed in the fire at Hillingdon-house, where she was
at the time on a visit ; and that she was very desirous
before the completion of the lease to have her loss re-
paired by the preparation of fresh deeds, or some other
evidence of her title, for the satisfaction of the tenant,
if it could in any way be accomplished. She made
an appointment to call on the following Monday to
furnish instructions and full particulars of her title to
the property. Upon her again calling, her statements
were somewhat at variance with her former account,
in consequence of which inquiries were instituted,
which led to the discovery that her representations
were entirely false; but as there was no apparent ob-
ject for the deception, the professional gentleman to
whom she had applied did not apprise her of the in-
vestigation which he had made, in the anticipation
that her intentions might be discovered, and perhaps
an extensive fraud be thereby frustrated and exposed.
At a third interview she arranged for an appoint-
ment with the alleged tenant of the farm, to meet her
at the solicitor's office, for the purpose of execut-
ing the lease. It having been ascertained that
there was no such person as John Gray residing near
Henley, no letter was written, but on the 25th, the
appointed day, the soi-disant Mary Ann Montagu
duly made her appearance, accompanied by a respect-
ably-dressed young man, who stated himself to be
John Gray, jun., the son of Mr. John Gray, the
tenant of Grosvenor farm ; that his father had, upon
reflection, determined not to renew his lease from
Miss Montagu ; and that he, with his father's con-
sent, had proposed to become the tenant, it being his
father's intention to assign over to him all his farming
stock, and to assist him with capital. To confirm this
statement a letter was produced, purported to have
been written by the father. In 'some way (most
likely by inquiry at the Henley post-office) it had been
ascertained by the parties thatno letter had been written
to the tenant. Mr. J. Gray, jun., had been well tutored
in his part thus far, but on being requested to take a
seat in another room, apart from his instructess, where
a policeman was introduced to his acquaintance, his
assumed character required more art than he was
master of, and a few searching questions elicited
'that the aspiring would-be-tenant of Grosvenor-
farm, at a rent of 5001. per annum, was a servant in
the employ of a farmer at Colham-green. Unfortu-
nately no evidence of an overt act of fraud could be
obtained to justify giving the parties into custody ;
but it was apparent that there was for some purpose
a deep laid scheme, in which other parties of more
plotting capacity than Miss Montagu, or her pre'
I tended tenant, are concerned. The woman represent-
ing herself as Mary Ann Montagu is about thirty