The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-20 00:00:00

birb libttton

SUN OFFICE, Seven o'Cloch.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—The defeat sustained by Ministers onLord
Ashley's proposed limitation of the hours of labour for
women and children employed in factories to: ten hours,
has filled the ants-manufacturers with delight. 'The
Standard pronounces it a " glorious triumph ;" 'and
"laments that her Majesty's Ministers voted in the mi-
nority." "It is the first time they have so voted ; be-
cause," says the recently-installed organ of the Govern-
ment, " it is the first time they have been wrong !" The
Post absolutely revels in contemplation of the difficulties
in which the adverse vote has involved Sir Robert
Peel, and in the self-stultifying contradictio.rs which Sir
James Graham uttered, in utter obliviousness ,of for-
mer speeches. The Times, which on Saturday in-
voked heaven and earth to aid Lord Ashley in accom-
plishing his god-like purpose, was yesterday sobered by
• the vote of the preceding night, and looked at the ques-
tion with the eye of practical common sense. This
morning there is—no unusual thing with the Times—an
inclination to give the other side a turn. Sir J. Graham
is alternately rated and ridiculed for rigorously adhering
to the 12 hours he originally proposed as the maximum of
labour for females and children employed in factories.
Sir Robert Peel is hit off as a statesman distinguished
for infirmity of purpose ; who sees the right course, but
is scared from purSuing it by the difficulties which pre-
. sent themselves :—" He (Sir R. Peel) sees the future
duties of the British legislator only to shrink from
them. He sees, in the protection of the British
labourer, nothing but a horrible bugbear, pursuing the
unfortunate Minister, session after session, through
town and country, factory and de elling, through a
labyrinthine intricacy of public and private relations."
The truth of the description given by the Times of
the Premier, and of his man-of-all-work at the Home-
office, we are not disposed to question. But we greatly
doubt whether the prediction that journal ventures
to put forth as to the fate of the Bill, in favour
of which it embarks so much zeal, will be realised
by the vote to which Sir James Graham last evening
announced he intended to appeal on Friday night,
when the Bill will be further considered in Committee.
Mr. Labouchere having inquired of Lord Ashley "what
his intentions were as to the amendment on the
Factory Bill, which he succeeded in inducing the House
to adopt on the preceding (Monday) night'?"—Lord
Ashley stated, that "in order to make his amend-
ment as little offensive as possible in quarters which
he wished to conciliate, he intended to submit certain
modifications (which he stated at length) in the clause
as it now stood, and by which he hoped the oppo-
sition with which the ten hours' clause had been
threatened would be diminished, if not wholly with-
drawn." Sir James Graham's reply was at once prompt,
explicit, and—we apprehend—decisive of the fete of the
measure. We have expressed ourselves as doubtful re-
specting the policy of this legislative interference with
the rights of capital and the interests of industry,
now sought to be more stringently applied.
The humanity which is urged as the basis
of the interference is, we fear, short-sighted,
though sincere. Let us not be mistaken. We
are no advocates for the ceaseless toil to which the la-
bouring classes are subjected, and from which females
and young persons especially ought to be exempt. Un-
remitted labour is debasing to the individual, and dan-
gerous to society. But the severity of labour which
is demanded from the working classes, and the meagre-
ness of the remuneration which most of them receive,
is chargeable—not upon the manufacturers, to whom all
kinds of cruelty have been imputed, but to the
opponents of extended commercial intercourse, and the
partizans of monopoly. To these the charge of cruelty
to the factory women and children is far more justly
applicable than to the master manufacturers ; who
themselves share the disadvantages of the restric-
tive commercial policy, which necessarily falls with
crushing weight upon those in their employ.
The Ten Hours' Bill strikes at the root of none of
the evils which affect the poor. The opponents of al-
most every other measure which has been proposed, in
and out of Parliament, for promoting the physical and
moral elevation of the people, are found among the most
noisy clamourers for diminishing by law the hours of
labour in factories, with the certainty of, by so doing,
• diminishing the earnings of the labourers, and thus
further curtailing their
.already insufficient supply of
food. Those who originated this questionable measure
—we speak not of Lord Ashley, who has been induced
to take the lead by the impulse of his heart,
which has, in this instance, refused to be guided by
enlightened judgment in a matter in which his
feelings have become embarked ; but of the origina-
tors of this Ten Hours' Bill, and those who were most
active in launching it upon the tide of benevolent, but,
as we think, mistaken philanthropy—the originators
of this project are among the number of those who were
content to leave the people uneducated and uninstructed
in domestic economy; they were horror-stricken at
the thought of their being politically enlightened; they
were the indiscriminating defenders of the old vitiat-
ing poor-law system; they are the champions of re-
strictions on trade—and they would add to the bene-
factions of their microspic benevolence, the paltry
boon of reducing the hours of the labour of the ill-paid
poor, thus making them still poorer ! Surely these re-
collections are sufficient to create suspicions as to the
soundness of the philanthropy whence this scheme has
emanated, and to justify a disinclination to accept from
such quarters, without the fullest evidence to confirm
its claims to confidence, al project which comes z.ecom-
mended from so questionable a source !
STANDARD.—Lord Ashley last night declared his
willingness to agree to any terms uponwhich the abridg-
ment of the hours of factory labour, determined upon by
the vote of the House of Commons on Monday, should
be introduced in the most gradual manner. He was ready
to continue twelve hours for six months, then to pass to
eleven hours, and not to make the complete reduction to
ten hours before 1846. This proposition, we lament to
say, was not received as we think it ought to have
been, by the opponents of the reduction, Sir James
Graham declaring his resolution to adhere permanently
to the twelve hours. This perseverance is to us per-
fectly inexplicable. The limitation to ten hours will be
made final in 1846 as certainly as the year 1846 shall
arrive. The feeling of the whole country commands it,
and that feeling has grown up too gradually, and
is too much the effect of rational conviction, to
be changed in twenty-four months or twenty-four
_years.
The Leaguers will no doubt attempt to operate a
diversion in favour of their tyrannical monopoly,
by new and fiercer attacks upon the agricultural
body, but the Leaguers are in truth already dead
beaten—beaten, not solely or principally by the agri-
cultural associations, very properly formed to check
their progress in the rural districts, but beaten in
the first place by the good sense of the population
in the towns and in the manufacturing districts.
It was a consciousness that their fallacies and their
sordid purpose were seen through by the intelligent
townsmen and manufacturers that drove them into
the country to look for proselytes ; there is, there-
fore, no hope for them unless the representatives of
agricultural districts again throw the town popu-
lation and the manufacturing population into their
hands by opposing the ten hours resolution. Let the agri-
cultural Members look to this. They have the League
at their mercy ; they may 'crush it into annihilation by
supporting Lord Ashley ; they may revive it in aug-
mented strength by opposing his Lordship. Last night,
the 19th of March, 1844 (we mark the time exactly, be-
cause, if the agricultural Members now make a mistake,
we may have to recur to the state of public feeling
at this particular time), last night the emissaries of the
•League were ignominiously chased from a meeting calkd
by themselves in the metropolis of England—from a
meeting, not only in the metropolis, but in its very
centre—and that part of London where League
notions might be expected to be most popular.
The meeting was held on Clerkenwell-green, and,
of course composed in much the greater part of
the electors of Finsbury—the constituents of Mr.
Coroner Wakley and Mr. Thomas Slingsby Duncombe.
This shows the estimation in which the League is now
held. The agricultural Members of the House of Com-
mons may, by their votes on Lord Ashley's Bill, either
confirm the prostration of their enemies, or revive
them; and with this assurance, that it is not in their
power, or in the power of mortal man, ultimately to pre-
vent a Ten Hours' Bill, though it is quite competent to
them to resuscitate the enemy who would ruin them
and their constituents. But, excepting such efforts as
the Leaguers may make inthe interval,at
there divert
public attention from the question,
what that can occur to shake the present
universal
conviction that the hours of continued labour
Tor
women and children in factories ought not to exceed
ten ? Arguments will no doubt be offered in favour of
prolonged labour, and we welcome them, for we never
met one that would stand ten minutes of calm investiga-
tion. We have, indeed, met few that, properly con
sidered, did not conduct to a conclusion precisely the
opposite to that to which it was intended to lead.

STATE OF TRADE.
(From the Manchester Guardian of this day.)
MANCHESTER.—Notwithstanding the anticipations
which generally prevailed upon the Exchange yesterday,
as to the probable adoption of Lord Ashley's amend-
ment by the House of Commons on Monday night, the
market was exceedingly dull ; and all descriptions of
goods, with the exception of 40-inch shirtings, and 28-
inch printing cloths (of which latter very few are now
made), were difficult of sale, with a tendency to decline
in the prices. The same may be said of all the ordinary
counts of yarn below 60's, which were offered at a slight
decline on last week's rates.

ROCHDALE FLANNEL MARKET, MONDAY, MARCH 18.
—There has been a better demand for flannels to-day
than on either of the two preceding Mondays, but no
improvement in prices. The wool market remains the
same, both as regards prices and demand.

firDEATIT OF VIE EARL OF LONSDALE, K.G., &c. &c.
—We regret to announce the decease of the aboie
nobleman, which took place last night, at seven o'clock,
at York House, Twickenham, at the advanced age of 86.

JUST AND EQUAL GOVERNMENT IN IRELAND.—At
a meeting of the
i leading Reformers of Liverpool, held this
da -, at the Reform Association, William Rathbone, Esq., in
Apt ir, it was resolved, on the motion of Thomas Black-
sq., seconded by William Wood, Esq., that a public
4 meitin of the Reformers of Liverpool should be held, for the
..i- purpose expressing their convictionfirst, that impartial
.i.,justice )07 not done in the recent State trials in Ireland;
t2t, ..!.( --and, se d, that the only true way to act: towards Ireland
:.--i. Ayas to. 1 with that country justly and' fairly, both" in le-
., t7.7Lgislati d administration. And it was further resolved,
~,,;,__,_-----__ : tliattlip opportunity of Mr. 0:Colwell's return to Ireland 1
-/----'
..... - thonlik be taken for this public demonstrationo—Liverpool
1 I

111.1 WSP.,

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

(THIS EVENING.)

HOUSE OF COMMONS.
The SPEAKER took the Chair at the usual hour.
NORTHERN AND EASTERN RAILWAY.
Mr. GREENE moved it be an instruction to the Com-
mittee on the Eastern Counties Railway Bill to hear the
petitioners against the Bill on any ground of objection
arising out of the lease of the Northern and Eastern
Railway, thereby intended to be confirmed, although
such grounds of objection be not specifically set forth in
their petitions, provided it be shown to the satisfaction
of the Committee that such petitionershave a right to be
heard before them.—Agreed to.
Mr. TURNER presented a petition from Chichester,
praying that the House would adopt some means which
would tend fto put an end to the practice of duelling.
Mr. SHARMAN CRAWFORD presented a petition
from the weavers of Aberdeen, praying for a full, fair,
and free representation of the people.
DROPPED ORDERS. _ _

The dropped Orders, in consequence of the House
being counted out last night, were re-appointed.
NEW WRIT.

A new writ was ordered to he issued for the borough
of Hastings, in the room of the Right Hon. Joseph
Planta, who has accepted the office of the Chiltern Hun-
dreds.

INTERMENT IN TOWNS.
Mr. TURNER wished to ask the Secretary of State
for the Home Department, whether. the Government in-
tended to submit to the House of Commons any general
plan of cemetery interment?
Sir J. GRAHAM said that more than one Hon. Mem-
ber had put a question to him of the same kind, ,at a for-
mer part of the session. He could only give a general
answer toil the question. If he understood the Hon.
Gentleman, he wished to know whether the Government
intended to bring in. a general measure with respect to
interment in cities.
Mr. TURNER explained that he wanted to know if
the Government intended to introduce a general mea
sure on the subject, applicable to the whole country.
Sir J. GRAHAM said he had already stated that it
was not his intention, on the part of the Government, to
introduce any measure that should prohibit interment in
the ancient churchyards of the country in which the
dead had been interred for centuries.
COUNTY CORONERS' BILL.

On the motion for the Order of the Day for bringing
up the Report on the County Coroners' Bill being put,
Colonel T. WOOD said he objected to the Bill on prim
ciple, because it transferred the appointment of an ancient
county officer from the county electors to the town electors.
The consequence would be that the town constituency
would overwhelm the freeholders of the country. An-
other objection which he had to the Bill was, that it
clubbed together the country and town constituencies,
which were heretofore kept distinct. He should there-
fore move that the Bill be committed that day six months.
Mr. PAKINGTON said as he had several amend-
ments to propose, he thought it would be better that the
Bill should be recommitted.
After a few words from Mr. SCOTT, the Report was
received, and the Bill was recommitted.
After a few words from Sir J. GRAHAM,
Clauses 1,2, 3,4, and 5, were agreed to, with some
verbal and immaterial amendments. _ _

Clause 6, was also agreed to, after a few observations
from Colonel T. WOO Dd.

When the next clause was proposed,
Mr. SCOTT moved, as an amendment, that the words
" knights of the shire" should be omitted, and the
word " coroner " substituted in its place.
Mr. PAKINGTON opposed the amendment.
Mr. T. DUNCOMBE supported the amendment, on
the ground that as the clause stood at present it would
disfranchise many persons, and ho hoped they would
not consent to a disfranchising Bill.
Strangers were then ordered to withdraw, and the
Committee divided, when there appeared—

_
vv~For the amendment 7O
Against it • 45
Majority in favour of the amendment —2s
On our readmission to the gallery, we found clause
7 under discussion, which was agreed to. After a few
words from Mr. PAKINGTON,
Clauses 8,9, 10 were agreed to, without amendment.
- Clauses 11 to 19, inclusive, were agreed to, without
alteration.
On clause 20 being read,

,
Mr. PAKINGTON said it would be in the recollection
of the House that when they were last proceeding with
this Bill a good deal of discussion had taken place on
the subject of remuneration to coroners, and much differ-
ence of opinion prevailed. It had been maintained by
several Honourable Members, that when the coroner
had two or more inquests he charged mileage for them
all, and was authorised by the law to do so. From
that opinion he (Mr. Pakington) had differed, and, in
looking into the law authorities, he found his opinion to
be a correct one. The law permitted them to charge for
the several inquests only from place to place, the dis
tance from their homes they were obliged to go. This
was the law; but he had been astonished to find how
the practice had varied from the law. To remedy
this state of things, and make law and prac-
tice march together, he proposed to add to this
clause the following words :—" Provided always, that
whenever any coroner shall take more than one inquest
on the same day', then, in respect of every inquest after
the first, the said sum of one shilling per mile shall be
computed and paid to such coroner, for every mile only
which he shall be compelled to travel in going from the
place of holding any one inquest to the place of holding
any other inquest on the same day."
Mr. B. ESCOTT hoped his Hon. Friend (Mr.
Pakington) would not press the proviso.

(LEFT SITTING.)

SHAM ATTORNEYS.

Complaints have frequently been made at the Cen-
tral Criminal Court, the Middlesex Sessions, &c., of
the disgraceful conduct of a set of fellows who have
long been in the habit of attending there, and offer-
ing their services to the prisoners and their friends
as legal advisers, and who, after extorting from
them almost their last shilling, for the alleged
purpose of retaining counsel in their behalf, but
which, in many instances, they neglect to do, and after-
wards take care to keep out of the way of their dupes
on the day appointed for the prisoners' trial. The
attention of the Legislature has lately been called to
the subject, and the following clausd in the late
" Act for Consolidating and Amending several of
the Laws relating to Attorneys and Solicitors," will,
it is hoped, put an effectual stop to the disgraceful
conduct above-mentioned:—" That froni and after
the passing of this Act, no person shall act as an attor-
ney or solicitor, or commence or defend any action, suit,
or other proceeding, in the name of any other person,
or in his own name, in her Majesty's Courts of Chancery,
Queen's Bench, &c., or in any Court of civil or criminal
jurisdiction, or act as an attorney or solicitor in any cause
or suit, civil criminal, to be tried or determined before
any justice of assize of oyer and terminer and general gaol
delivery, or at any general or quarter sessions of the
peace for any county, city, borough, &c., or before
any justice or justices, unless such person shall have
been previously to the passing of this Act ad-
mitted and enrolled, or otherwise duly qualified to
act as an attorney, and continue to be so duly
qualified to act," &c. The thirty-second clause enacts
that if any attorney or solicitor shall willfully or
knowingly act as agent in any action, &c., or permit or
suffer his name to be in any way made use of in any
such action, or shall do any other act thereby to enable
such unqualified person to appear, act, or practice in any
respect as an attorney, &e., knowing such person
not to be duly qualified as aforesaid, and com-
plaint shall be made thereof in a summary way to
any of the said superior Courts, and roof thereof made
upon oath to the satisfaction of the Court that such at-
torney bath knowingly and wilfully offended therein as
aforesaid, such attorney may be struck off the roll, and
for ever after disabled from practising ; and it shall and
may be lawful for the said Court to commit such unqua-
lified person, so acting or practising as aforesaid, to the
prison of the said Court for any term not exceeding one
year.
. .

• In addition to the above the " new prison regula-
tions," recently promulgated by the Secretary of State,
directs that the governor shall allow prisoners com-
mitted for examination or trial to see their legal ad-
visers at all reasonable times, and in private if required,
unless a committing or visiting magistrate shall have
issued an order to the contrary, or unless he shall
know any sufficient cause why such legal adviser should
not be admitted. Every person, however, claiming ad-
mission must be a certified attorney or solicitor, or his
authorised clerk.

In order to tarry the thereinto fnii effect, the Sheriffs
of London have caused a notice to the following effect to
be posted in Newgate :
"No person, acting as the legal adviser of any
prisoner committed to Newgate for trial, will be
allowed to visit such prisoner, unless he is a duly
qualified attorney or clerk to such attorney ; and
that, in either case, he must produce a written
retainer, signed by
the prisoner, and authorising him
to act as his attorney, and sign an entry in a book to
be kept by the gaoler, stating that he is so authorised,
and that every attorney, or attorney's clerk, will be re-
quired to sign such entry before he will be allowed to
have an interview with the prisoner."
With regard to what constitutes "acting as an at-
torney" within the meaning of the above Act of Parlia-
ment, Mr. Walesby, when lately presiding as Chairman
at the Middlesex Sessions, intimated that preparing and
delivering a brief to counsel was acting as an attorney.

THE NAPOLEON-MUSEUM.
We allluded last week to an incident that took place
at this most interesting and extraordinary national
exhibition at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, relative to
the unfortunate Queen Marie Antoinette, on one of the
occasions when his Grace the Duke of Wellington
honoured it with a visit, and in order that our
readers may be able to form some idea of its
merits from other sources :as well as ourselves, we
have much pleasure in giving them copies of the follow-
ing interesting historical documents, from these we were
enabled to take :._lst. His late Royal Highness the Duke
of Sussex and Lord Holland's protests in the House of
Lords against the Bill for detaining the late Emperor
Napoleon at St. Helena. 2nd. The late Mr. O'Meara's
Letter to the Proprietor after visiting the Napoleon Mu-
seum in company with the Count Surveilliers and Prince
Lucien Bonaparte, many years before a public exhibition
Was contemplated. 3d. The Baron Emanuel Las Cases
letter to the proprietor on presenting him with one of
the two pens with which the late Emperor corrected the
M.S.S. of the Memoirs he dictated to the Counts Las
Cases and Montholon, and General Gourgond, at 4. He-
lena, and 4th. Lord Hollands letter, in 1828, to the writer
of a Memoir of the late Duke of Reichstadt, who dedi-
cated the same to his Lordship.
The Duke of Sussex and lord liollaml were among