The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-29 00:00:00

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LONDONT-----
FRIDAY MORNING. APRIL 29, 1842.

The House of Commons has just published a paper
entitled "Property-tax Bill, arrangement of clauses."
This is a sort of synopsis of the measure, and ought to
have formed part of the Bill when, it was laid on the
table of the House ? Why did it not ? Because the
Tory workmen, with all their Ifeasting, are no better
than bunglers. They disdained/to follow the Whig ex-
ample, but they have in the err' been compelled. Pretty
work, too, they have made, of this synopsis. It is as
great a bungle as the Bill, 'out it is useful, as giving us a
bird's-eye view of the dr,formities of the hated measure.
It begins by stati'ag the objects of the three first
clauses, and then says—" Schedules A and B, Rules
for estimating the duty contained in Schedule A, in
respect of the 14roperty in lands and tenements, and in
Schedule B, in respect of the occupation thereof—page
32 to 46." Now that is a general head, and we naturally
supposed that the whole of the Bill relative to these mat-
ters was to be found in these pages. The c orrectuess of

The First Report of the Children's Employment Com •
missioners has just been published. It relates to mines,
and describes the ages, sex, number of children who
work in mines, &c. The Commissioners, among the
conclusions which they draw from the evidence supplied
by their Sub-Commissioners, say that "instances occur of
children being taken into the mines to work as early as
four years of age, sometimes at five, and between five
and six." " A very large proportion of the per-
sons working in the mines is under thirteen years
of age." "In several districts female children
begin to work at the same early age as the males."
" Parish apprentices are bound to serve masters in the
mines till they are 2 1 years of age." " There is no skill
to be acquired, and they secure only food and wages/
The children must be in the pit as soon as the work of
day commences, and they do not leave the pit before the
work of day is at an end." " They are excluded from
light, are without companions, and, except for the passing
of the coal carriages, would be in solitary confinement of
the worst description." " These children are compara-
tively dull, cheerless, and stupid." "In some districts
they remain in solitude and darkness during the whole
time they arc in the pit, and never see the light of day
in the winter season for weeks together, except
when there is no work going on in the pits,
and on Sundays." " Both sexes are employed in
the same kind of labour,. and work together
almost naked. The men are sometimes stark naked.
In many mines night work is organised, which is very
injurious, especially to children and young parsons."
" The regular hours for work are rarely less than eleven
more often twelve, and in some instances thirteen." We
must, however, stop, having quoted a small specimen of
he Commissioners' important conclusions.
The evidence, in which an extensive.. account is given
of the triode of working in the various kinds of mines, is
much more curious than the conclusions of the Commis-
si, iicrs. We will quote a single specimen :
"I visited the house of the parents of a little boy," says
Mr. Sub-Commissioner, " whom I saw keeping a door dawn Flat worth Pit on the 20th of May. It was about seven o'clock
on the Sunday evening, and the boy was in lied asleep. His
mother said he was aged about six years and seven months,
and he had been down the pit about a month or six weeks,
Always puts him to bed early, because he might get
up every working morning at throe o'clock, a.m., and goes
down the pit' at four. A. 31. He gets his dinner directly he
comes home, about half•past four, r.m. or a quarter to five,
r. m., and then he washes himself and goes to bed, between
six and seven; so that he will never be up more than two hours
from the pit for eating, washing, and playing. When his son
gets a little more hardened to the pit his father means to send
him to a night school and stop an hour off hie sleop. The nit
dues not hurt him, but makes him a little whiter, and perhips
a little thinner. He was a fat boy when three years old."
The evidence is illustrate] by a considerable number
of cuts, to show how the work is carried on in mines,
and those who do not feel the degradation to which
females are exposed in the pit, dragging along coals on
their hands and knees, with a chain fastened round their
waist, and passing between their legs, may, perhaps, be
struck and affected by the plates.

If nature be not kinder to 'those poor infants than
man, or even than their own parents, and do not temper
their lot by that benevolent principle :by which she
adapts man to circumstances, their condition must
be truly pitiable. We trust, however, that it is
not so bad as it looks—than the apparent exoess
of hardship, going to it so young, makes use a second
nature, and renders_ the infants indifferent to that which
to us appears an overwhelming evil. If the mines be
One of the sources of England's power and wealth, they
are also, as at present worked, a source of great moral
degradation. That a Commission should have been re-
quired to bring these facts to light, is not creditable to
the clergy. of the Church of England, one of whom is in
every parish, and amongst whose flocks all this occurs.
They ought before now to have made all England ring
with their loud and indignant expostulations against the
slavery of the mines. From whatever source the informa-
tion is derived, the public will receive it greedily, and le
thankful to the. Commissioners who, by making then
acquainted with the matter, have placed it in their power
to lessen, if they cannot extinguish, the shame of binding
infants of such tender years to such extreme drudgery.

NA vAr, 13roGnArne.—If there is one clam of na-
tional biographical literatnre Which appeals more strongly to
the feelings of Englishmen than another, it is certainly' that
which pourtrays the career of those heroes who " have made
their home upon the waters," and raised our little island to its
supremacy among nations by their noble courage, unexampled
skill, and adventurous daring. It is, therefore, with no little
gratification that we learn tha,t a Life of the celebrated Ad-
miral Keppel, written fr;.,m most authentic and interesting
sources, by his desestadant, the lion. and Rev. Thomas KePrel
(son of the Earl of Albemarle), is shortly to be added to dew
list of memoirs of our distinguished naval commanders. It will
no doubt be found worthy of a place in every library, on the.,
same shelf with the Lives of Colliagwood and Nelson.
SurcfnE.—Yesterday' an inquest was held in the
George the Fourth Tavern Ilagnigge-wells-road. Clerkenwell,
nest
before T. Wakley, Esq., 'M.P., Coroner, on the body of a
young woman, named Margaret Fairfoot, who destroyed. her.
self on Tuesday last. The deceased lived in Easton-place, Wil-
mington-square, Clerkenwell. She had been for some time
very much attached to a young man living in the same neigh..
bourhood, and believed the attachment was reciprocated. On
Sunday or Monday last, however, she became convinced of the
reverse. The disappointment reduced her to a state of the
most abject despondency.
On Tuesday morning, having oh-
twined some
poison in an apothecary's establishment in (ray's
inn-lane, she mixed it with some water and drank it. Two of
her friends saw her taking the draught, but had no idea of its
fatal contents. Soon after she told them; and medical aid was
obtained, but it proved ineffectual. In a few hours she was a
corp•e, atter suflering the most agonizing tortures. The de-
C,,•1`,1 WAS a robust anti rather handsome girl ; she was in he
twenty-first year. The verdict wa.—.." Died from the effects
o I oison taken whilst in a state of insanity."
itc.st.t R K ABLE Disk: % SE.—Yesterdav evening Mr.
on the body of Susannah Winterbourne,
1 Payne held an adjourned inquest at the RedCow, Long-lane,
Smithfield,
It appeared from the evidence given at the former inquest, ou.
Tuesday last, that on the night of Saturday, the v....id
instant, aged 54.
de—
ceased went to 'bed in excellent health, having, eaten a heatthr
supper of boiled beef. With the meat she ate ahem half a pint cA
pickled onions which had been given tether by a neighbour a
few hours previously. On the following morning deceased.
was attacked with a violent inflartunsta°n of the bowele, au&
died in a few hours. Mr. Henry Wells, of Aldergate.street.,
surgeon, now stated that he had made the usual pos'-ntortsnn
examination, and found the intestines of deceased is, a state of
great intlarnation. The onions which deceased ha,..1 eaten had
been completely digested, and the stomach prete nted no ap-
pearance of poison. Witness had, however, foti rid in the gall
bladder, one hundred and seventy stones, whio' a he now pro-
duced. They were all of a triangular shape, -,,j.0i one of them
was nearly as large as a walnut. Verdict.'r Nrcatural death."
This morning. notices were poste. 1 :at Guildhall
stating that the City authorities were ready/ to receive tenders
for wood-pavement, to be laid down in Cor Ahd, Gracechurch-
street, Newgate-street, and part of the Oki Bailey. In the
latter place the oetagon•block pavement laid down -before the
Central Criminal Court is a complete failsare, the carriage-
road being in a worse state than it was gndet ; the old plies

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our supposition '_-,i,.A what occurs at Schedule Mt
under which head °.-' *(',!fll.- similar enumeration of pages
land clauses, and all the clauses which refer to that sub-
-1
ject are found in the pages there set down. But we
find subordinate heads under Schedules A and B,
"Rules to be observed by the assessors iumuking the as-
sessment, of this kind of property,". which is clause 47,
t.) be found at page 26, and not included within the
general heading. That shows that both Bill and synopsis
are jumbles.
Again, the clauses Which refer to the Commissioners
and their duties range nearly all through the Bill ; thsLy
amount to no less than 45, in every one of which some-
thing is said of these Commissioners, and they in-'
elude the fourth and the one hundred and eighty-sixth
clauses. So with respect to Schedule D, which so deeply
concerns the bulk of the traders of the empire. We ex-
peetel to find from this synopsis all the N Rules fo
ascertaining the duties on profits of trades and profes-
sions," according to the reference, between pages 68 and
4 ; but, on looking over the clauses, we find them run
ning between pages 68 and 95, and amounting to not les
than forty-two. Yes ; forty-two complicated clauses,
scattered through twenty-seven pages, must the unhappy
traders study, to know the rules by which they must
guide themselves in making returns in order to be taxed,
or, like camels, kneel down that the Tory satraps may
mount on their backs.
As we have before said, the Bill is a horrid jumble,
dr.-..wn up without any guiding principle, or any regard
ti order and znethod. Being complicated, if not abso-
lutely incomprehensible, it is a proper instrument for the
tyrant to work with who insists on fleecing us by an
Income-tax. It is a huge piece of mysticism, expressly
calculated to confuse and perplex plain men, and place
them at the mercy of the subtle tools who will have to
inform this dead mass %shit their living eninning. It is
bad enough, we think, for men to be the slaves of some
splendid though perhaps brutal tyrant; but to be the slaves
of incomprehensible jargon—of a thing called an Act of
Parliament—is worse than being the slaves of the Grand
Turk. Men may understand why they must give up
their money or their lives to him—it gratifies him per-
sonally ; but they cannot understand the advantage of
giving up their property and their liberty to a-disorderly
mass of gibberish.
In the hands of SoLON, LITURCES, or MOSES,
legislation was, at least, intelligible to their 30)-
pets, but WE are called upon to obey lags we
cannot comprehend. With singular vanity, too,
the clodpole repress ntatives of a few counties,
and the money-gathering representatives of a few towns,
imagine that the mantles of these great lawgivers have
fallen on them, and that their incomprehensible rubbish
is to be obeyed and honoured, and revermsced like the
rules of the most profound wisdom, or the decrees of
inspiration itself. They may find themselves deceived.
There are indications at Nottingham, Norwich, and
other places that a »thing obedience will not be ren-
dered to this slovenly piece of Tory tyranny. It is one
thing for the House of Commons to ordain an Income- •
tax in time of peace, in order to maintain the Corn-law
and the sugar monopoly: it is another and a very diffe-
rent thing to collect the money.