The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-17 00:00:00

etit c§un,

LONDON
TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 17, 1842.

It is better late than never, and we can at length
congratulate some of the mere Whig Journals, which,
in the first instance, found Sir R. PEEL'S tariff redo-
lent of good, on having acquired sagacity enough to
adopt Sir R. PEEL'S own conclusion, that it will con-
fer little or no benefit on the people. We shall have
cheapness with it, that is very likely. To make dear-
ness there must be, in relation to the things to be
sold, a great number of buyers. But while our
agricultural productions have not, so far as we
can understand, undergone diminution, the
number of buyers, and their means of pur-
chasing, have probably decreased. We are very
likely, therefore, to have commodities cheaper,
whether PEEL'S tariff• be passed or not. We shall
not to have thank him for the cheapness, but only his
,Income-tax, which will diminish the power to pur-
chase. If some of our Liberal Contemporaries and
Liberal friends had been less sparing of their commen-
dation of the tariff at first, Sir R. PEEL might not
have found it so easy to pass his Income-tax. That
was partly accepted on his assertions that the tariff
would compensate the tax ; and his assertions found
credence, because they were echoed by those who now
reproach him with having made the assertions to deceive.

Mr. COBDEN'S letter, which was read at the Man-
chester meeting, places the recently, not discovered,
but published, corruption of the House of Commons
in its proper and important light. The Honourable
Member says—s' If all that I hear be true, of the
bribery, corruption, and intimidation—of the brutal
violence, even to homicide, which are said to have
distinguished the late general election beyond all that
preceded it, then I have no hesitation in declaring
that the present House of Commons has no moral or
Christian title to the obedience of the people. A
Parliament, if so returned, is not the choice of a
nation, but the representative and offspring of its
suborned vices." The reading of Mr. COBDEN'S letter
was followed by loud cheers, so that the character of
the House of Commons, which is the offspring of cor-
ruption, is well known and widely spread.
It is not surprising that the Tories should begin to
repent that they conceded Mr. ROEBUCK'S Com-
mittee. His ardour took them by surprise, and
when they had time to reflect
,they saw their error,
but could not extricate themselves from their con-
cession. They are aCraid of having more corruption
exposed. They are afraid that the bread-taxing,
income-taxing House of Commons will lose all autho-
rity—that its laws will be disregarded or condemned
before they are well passed, and they are anxious to
prevent the inquiry from throwing too much light on the
mode of collecting the House. Will they find means
to render it vain ? Will they in some way or other
baulk the Committee, and baulk the expectations of the
people ? We are afraid they will ; we hear it whis-
pered that such is their intention. But do what
they may they cannot wipe out of the public knowledge,
the deep impression already made, that the Parliament
is, as Mr. COBDEN says, the representative and off
spring of the suborned vices of the nation. Men
will not have such a power for their masters.

Few publications at any period of the world have
excited more attention and created a deeper _ interest
than the Report of the Commissioners to inquire into
the Einployment of Children in Mines. A great sensa-
tion was created a few years ago by the publication of
the accounts given by the Factory Commissioners of
the unremitting toil of children employed in the foe-
,'" torifog, and of the scarcely remitting cruelties to which
they were exposed; but that sensation was faint com-
pared to the impression made by the present Report.
The metropolitan and provincial journals equally use
the language of surprise and indignation. "It requires
the strongest evidence to make us credit fhe state-
rnentA," writes one ; "the immoralityand cruelti-
are not to be tolerated," says anoTher ; "it is a bar-
bariam and demoralization to which the annals of ci-

vilized Europe afford no parallel," says a third re-
port ; " reveals a state of things which would be
disgraceful to a barbarian people, far more so to a
civilized and Christian country," says a fourth ; and
so through the majority of the Press. And well do
the facts brought to light deserve all the indignation
which can be poured on them, for nothing like them,
we believe, were ever to be found elsewhere in the
world.

However justly it excites the public indignation,
it is no novelty. Men, now advanced in life, went
into the pit when they were children. Thus " Richard
Baker, aged forty-six, went into the pit at five years
old," that is forty-one years ago. Thus " John Gor-
don, aged thirty-four, commenced under-ground
work at seven years of age ; thinks there is
little difference at which lads have begun
in his childhood and since." Several gentlemen

were examined, who have known the collieries all
their lives, and none of them assign any date to the

commencement of the practice of employing children
in mines ; but, on the contrary, they all speak of it

as a practice of which they do not remember the
origin. More than thirty years ago we saw children,
not above eight or ten years of age, working naked iq

a coal mine in the West of England.

The terrible

and cruel practice, therefore, is not a modern, hinova-

lion, not one of those changes in good old customs
which have been wrought by the pregTess of know
[edge, and the influence of a cheap Press.

Why the rich coalowners,_-Who can control all the
operations of their lessees"; who are not ashamed of
inordinate gains obtained by the labour of these poor
infants, have not put a stop to such practices, we

know not, but we know they are much to blame for

having suffered them. In general they belong, we

believe, to the class of landowners, and according to
the theory of the Constitution, receive their ample
wealth for the protection of the people; but the experi-
ence of our time has demonstrated that, when the
question is to increase their revenue, that class of
men care nothing for the interests of the labouring
elaEses. Why also the capitalists, who work the
mines, should not have interfered, is to be explained
on the same principle. When their profit is con-
cerned, humanity must take care of itself. There is
another class, too, especially ordained to take care of
the poor. Why have the clergy of the Church of

England not reported these scenes to the world ? What
have the Bishops and Archdeacons done in their annual
visitations, that they have never discovered these
enormities, and held them up to the reprobation of a
Christian public? They have been? we are afraid, too
closely allied with the capitalists and landowners to
waste a thought on the colliers. Even now, it is pro-
bable that the facts would not have been brought to

light had not some severe attacks on Corn-law land-
lords ledto reprisals on cotton-lords, to crimination and
recrimination, to close investigation, and ultimately to
bringing the state of the mining population before the
public.

Now that it is known, journalists and public men,
Linder the influence of the new and vivid impression,

hasten to require some new and stringent legislation.
If they forget, we cannot, that the classes and the in-
dividuals to whom they appeal have been continually
legislating for the working classes, and, under the
pretext of taking care of them, have brought them
to their present distress and degradation. If they
forget, we cannot, that only a few years have elapsed
since the period when the Legislature was engaged in
abrogating an immense number of unnecessary penal
laws, and when the opinion was embraced, by the best
and wisest of our statesmen, that it behoved every
man to be cautious how he added to the statute-book.
We have not forgotten, if they have, that lesson of
political science, which teaches that the employ-
ment and the food of the people are amongst the
last things the legislator should lay his hands on.
We, therefore, must at once venture to differ from
our zealous Contemporaries, and express a hope that
the Legislature will not too eagerly, and too rashly
meddle with this very important subject.
We have not heard that the colliers themselves
have complained. They have not appealed to
the Legislature. Though the public have been
ignorant, the colliers have known of their own
condition. They have worn the shoe, of the pinch-
ing of which not they, contrary to the proverb,
but somebody else, now complains. They are not
only the supposed sufferers—they are also the actors
in most of the scenes which appear so terrible. With
the exception of a few parish apprentices who arc
hound to the pits, the bulk of the infants appear to
be children of the colliers themselves, and except that
the apprentices labour many years without payment,
they are treated no worse than the children of their
masters. It is proper to quote a few examples of this.
At page 12—
Joseph Ellison, Esq., of Birkenshaw, near Birstal,
says—" I have been practically acquainted with col-
lieries nearly all my life. I know it as a fact that a
collier, now living, has taken a child of his own, who
was only three years old, into a pit ' to hurry, 'and when
the child was exhausted, it was carried home, stripped,
and put to bed. This is a rare occurrence, but I can
prove it if required, by undeniable evidence, to have
been a fact." Another witness, John Ibbotson, aged 43,
collier, says, " I have once known a man called Joseph
Cawthrey, who sent a child in at four years of age, and
there are many who go to thrust behind at that time,
and many go at five and six."
A case reported by Dr. Mitchel at page 9, the " collier
immediately said my boy is only a little more than
four." At page 11, John Fisher, collier, " has two sons
down the pit, one seven, and the other eight. The one
seven years old has worked three quarters of a year." At
page 14, Joseph Gledhill, banksman: "I have three sons
living, one of them went into the pit when he was
three years old, and commenced working regularly as a
harrier, when he was between five and six." At page
16, Richard Barker, a labouring collier, " has four sons,
who all went in under six years of age." Edmund
Stanley, another collier, sent in his boy between six and
seven. So in the West of Scotland, Mr. Tancred states as
" a child being in the pit enables her father to earn more
than he otherwise would, he is induced not only to take
him down but to bring down another younger, of nino or
ten."

In the great majority of cases let us impress it on
the reader, they are the children of the colliers who are
doomed to such early toils, and they are doomed to
them by their own parents. Painful as the observa-
tion may be, it is nevertheless also true, that all the
cruelties we read of, such as driving a pick at a child
to make it move faster, and the Sub-Commissioners'
Reports abound in instances of cruelty, are inflicted
by colliers on their own offspring or on the offspring
of their neighbours, relations, and fellow workmen.
They are not inflicted by capitalists or landowners, or
by any of the upper classes. What is really wanted,
therefore, is such an improvement of the colliers, as
will make them refuse to doom their infants to
slavery. They are a rude and a hard race, they have
been so, we believe, since the memory of man, and it
would be better to inspire them- with motives for
treating their offspring properly, than to take the
control of their children from them by the law.
Our apprehension of legislation is, that we do not
see how it can well meddle with the subject, without
superseding the parent by the State. Such an ex-
tension of authority, which may be, and probably
must be, followed out in other cases, is full of mis-
chief. The colliers are serfs enough already—to take
their children from under their control, would be to
make them more than ever serfs. If the State remove
the children from the parent, it will also be under an
obligation to provide for them,which we hold to be unwise
statesmanship. As much of the hard brutality of
the people is owing to the neglect of their imme-
diate superiors, We expect much improvement, from
the publication of a Report, which cannot fail to
shame the owners and workers of mines, and the
clergy of the mining and coal districts, into some
exertions to wipe out the stigma they have contri-
buted to fix on Britain. If they are taught to look
for help from legislation, they will not redeem their
characters, nor seek to humanize the characters of
the working classes.

We rejoice very much to see that the men of Not-
tingham will not be parties to the disgraceful com-
promises by which they were to be made over to the
Corruptionists. They will be neither Mr. WALTER'S
nor Sir G. IL LARPENT'S purchased slaves. Success
to their struggle for independence! We hope that
they will return the amiable, the humane, the en-
lightened JOSEPH STURGE, by a large majority.

The following is an extract of a letter received by
a respectable mercantile house in Glasgow, from Singa-
pore, dated Feb. 22, 1842 :—" By the arrival of the
Sylph, this morning, from China, we learn that Amoy,
Chusan, and Ningpo, had been declared free ports, and
that the people of the Che Keang province had requested
the English to take possession, as they preferred being
under our Government to the Chinese.
Her Majesty the Queen Dowager has forwarded
20/. in aid to defray the expense of erecting National
Schools in the parishes of Compton Martin and NWT-
nett, Somerset.

THEATRES. -
ENGLISH OPERA ROUSE.

The bill-of-fare at this theatre was exceedingly attrac-
tive.. The performances commenced with an operetta in
two 'acts, the production of the late Thomas Haynes
Bayley, called .Picturesque and Beautiful. The plot is
very slight. The interest turns chiefly on the smartness
of the dialogue. Old Dauberry, (Mr. Granby) whose
occupation is pourtrayed by his name, is a pseudo artist,
devoted to picturesque, though his man, Toni Muller,
(Mr. Wigan), is by no means devoted to his constant oc-
cupation of grinding colours. In the opening sce.;-,e,
Dauberry is just giving some finishing strokes to a cha-
racteristic daub, intended by the artist to r',present Mary
Queen of Scots and her favouritil Itizzio. The
painter has a daughter, Miss ]liza . Dauberry,
(Miss Fairbrother), who
is
devoted te, Henry Lorimer
,(Mr. Barker), who in his turn s equally devoted to
her. There is, however, a second suitor, Mr. Kit Cadence
devoted to national airs, as
(Mr. Walter Lacy), who is
well as to the lady: Henrrj Lorimer secures the esteem
of Dauberry, by his adurlaation of the gem which he is
i engaged in executing,
'out the old gentleman refuses to
countenance his sVit to his daughter unless he can pro-
duce a fair copy of the original within a month. A plan
is hit upon ti) 'get out of the difficulty ; after a supposed
lapse of sCrae days, the old gentleman is told by a chain-
berma.i,e. •Jamed Fanny (Miss Hughes) that the copy is corn-
pletV, and the curtain supposed to conceal it being drawn
tIV-iovers, habited as the Scottish Queen and Rizzio, are
"presented to his view. The deception is complete, until
dispelled by their leaving their position, and in reward
for their ingenuity Dauberry consents to the union. The
piece was enlivened by the introduction of several songs;
both the acting and singing were of the best description.
To this succeeded two burlettas—the burlesque burletta,
of Olympic Revels, or Prometheus and Pandora, and the
burletta (written by J. Brougham) of Enthusiasm. The
latter piece would deserve special notice, were it not
already familiar to most of the theatrical public.
It is a witty attempt to throw ridicule on the science
of phrenology, by the exhibition of -the effects produced
by the study of, and belief in it, on an old gentleman
named Vane Waverly. The piece abounds in fun
throughout. In the excitement of his enthusiasm,
Waverly discovers that he has a large development of
the bump of destructiveness, and exclaims, in horror,
that he is an "involuntary destructive." and, perhaps, a
" prospective assassin ;" that " while his heart proclaims
him philanthropic, his head proclaims him savage." His
conduct immediately becomes consistent with his disco-
very. Suddenly, however, he finds another bump.
Dreading that this, too, will prove some fearful develop-
ment, he compares it with a cast in his room, and to
his astonishment finds that it is " benevolence." From
this time his conduct becomes the opposite of what it
had previously been, every one about him is amazed at his
sudden benignity. Amongst his extravagances, however,
which arc not confined to phrenology, the most extraor-
dinary is that of his being suddenly seized with a strong
desire for fishing. On hearing some one allude to a
fishing party, in his enthusiasm for the sport he orders a
washing-tub filled with water to be brought- into the
room, and he is seen fishing with the usual implements,
and with the zest of an Izaak Walton, watching for nib-
bles. This scene is admirable; nothing more exquisitely
ridiculous can be conceived. All the characters in the
piece are admirably sustained. A rand ballet, in two
acts, entitled La Sylphide, or The latul Scarf, met with
a most favourable reception, and was announced for re-
petition during the week. The whole concluded with
the well-known and laughable farce of The Irish Tutor,
Brougham sustaining the character of Teddy O'Rourke,.
which lost nothing in his hands, and Mr. F.
Mathews appeared as Doctor Flail. We regret
to say that the theatre was by no means so
crowded as we could have desired to see it, or as the
merits of the actors and pieces deserve. We would sug-
gest to the managers the propriety of hastening the in-
terval between the different acts. The interest is apt to
flag when the time is extended to nearly a quarter of an
hour. Great impatience was manifested by the audience
yesterday evening. An addition is about to be made to
the corps dramatique, which will doubtless attract amuck
larger company.