The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-05-05 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

" Justice " cught to have furnished his name to us, as well as
to the gentleman mentioned in hi> letter,
We have a c )mmunication, headed " Clairvoyance and its Blas-
phemy,'" torn Mr. Hutton, professing to explain his adver-
lisement respect ng Herr and Frau Von Goennern. Mr.
'Hutton says that his meaning of false certificate has been
,misunderstood as if he attributed to the Goennerns a forgery;"
and denies that he intended to injure them by so wrong an
'imputation ; and proceeds to say, correct it by stating that
.1 intended wholly to allude to their having no authority to
publish any certificate from the gentleman in question."
'Mr. Hutton is certainly in a s'range state of canfusion as to
the man ng of words, or as to what is calculated to injure an
napratectett foreigner, a stranger in our land. We cln only
say taat we hav seen the certificate referred to; which says,
.• I have had various opportunities of seeing Madame Goen-
ale m's powers of clairvoyance tested, and I may truly say that
• she has been surp7isingly successful in detecting and describing
the nature o' cl.se lc is a duty to state facts, and I do nu
more." When a man fee s it a duty to state facts, we presume
it is not intended that his statement is to be locked up un-
seen. The latter part of Me. Huaoi's communication shows
such a disposition to t inure language that we decline to in-
sert it in our c•-ilurniis. As Mr. Hutton has been compelled
to withdraw his impatation from the Goennerns. we suspect
his ether statements will not be listened to with much con-
fidence.

!lit tibtrpoot 'taizbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 5, 1846.

We would direct attention to a letter in our
secon'd page from Mr. Isaac Buchanan addressed
to the Liverpool Times in reply to some statements
of our contemporary last week.

The able address of the honourable member for
Oldham, Mr. John Fielden, in moving the second
reading of the Factory Bi 1, contains some state-
ments which, as shadowing forth the views of a
practical man, with respect to the future state of
the social system in this country, under the operation
of the measures which government are now pressing
forward, ought to receive the earnest consideration
of the legislature, and of the community at large.
Mr. Fielden says, in concluding his speech—
" The arguments that I have used in endeavouring to
convince thrift that it will not suffer have been wrung
from me by the opposition that has been offered by the
manufacturing body in every attempt to abridge the toil
of their workpeople. I call upon the house, in conclusion,
to recollect that as the manufactures go on increasing
day by day, a: assuredly they will do, this species of la-
bour is becoming, not merely the occupation of a class,
but of a nation ; that the vast hives of industry in the
north of En Bland and in Scotland must become more and
more vast ; that, with their increase, there will be neces-
sarily an increase of the vices and miseries peculiar to
them, and already abundantly proved ! and I urge on the
house the necessity that there is for giving the young
children whose labour I seek to shorten time for personal
relaxaiion, time for education and religious instruction,
time for observing the routine of domestic duties, without
the knowledge of which it is vain to hope that they will
be a creditable, or even a safe, community."
We may remark that the "young children" for
whom the honourable member pleads, are young
males and females between the ages of 13 and 18
years. Children from 8 to 13 years, it may be
remembered, were restricted by the act of 1844
from working above six hours a day, the remainder
portion of it being set aside for education in the
factory schools. Those of both sexes from 13 to 18
years old, he reminds us—
" Have now to work 12 hours a day, which, with time
spent in going to and from the factory and the time of
meals, makes 14 hours occupation—a period of labour
much too long, in my opinion, even for adults; but, if 14
hours' occupation be too long fur adults, who can deny
that that length of daily labour is a shameful infliction
upon children from 13 to 18? I must say that the Par-
liament has shown a total disregard of those between 13
and 18 years of age—a period of life well known to be the
most critical, when more rest is required for the growing
and weakened frame of a young person. The factory com-
mission of 1833 reported to this house that our demand
for a ten-hour bill for all ages did not go far enough to-
wards the protection of those whom we most desired to
protect—that was, the young. children. They told you,
that for children from 9to 13 years of age, ten hours'
labour was excessive, and therefore you passed the act of
that year, limiting the hours of such children's work to
eight per day. Subsequently, you have again limited the
hours of the younger children to six per day; but why, I
ask, do you still keep up the hours of work for a child of
13 to 18 to the utmost limit that is compatible with the
strength of an adult? The real reason of it is this—that
the Government has always been so jealous of any inter-
ference that could possibly lead to a diminution of the
labour of the adult labourer, that it has not scrupled to
sacrifice the child that works by his side.
We may explain, to render more intelligible the
important cor siderations placed before us in the
first extract given, what has been, and must be, the
obvious operation of the existing law—what is the
extent of its seeming mercy to our manufacturing
population. The adult, and those from 13 to 18,
must work for twelve hours, or fourteen hours
including meal times. There must, therefore, be
a double set of children between the ages of 9 to 13,
in each factory—a double amount of our population
trained up to factory occupations—or we must
supply their places with an increased number of the
now adult males and females between 13 and 18,
upon whom the present hours of labour press most
severely. Now, let us see what is the condition of
these classes, and the tendency of the present law.
Mr. Fielding quoted the following passage from a
petition in favour of a Ten Hours Bill, presented to
the house by "the millowners of Dundee connected
with the Free Church of Scotland "
" Whilst resolved, as opportunity shall serve, to multi-
ply the means of education, and render more available
those already existing, we must be permitted to remind
you, that no school education, however protracted, or
however excellent, can ever compensate to the factory fe-
male operatives between the ages of 13 and 18 for the
want of that home education which forms the future
housewife and mother. This, we believe, is at the root of
most of the social evils of Dundee ; and what but more
time at home can provide the cure?"
The Rev. Mr. Gibson, at a meeting of the Free
Synod of Glasgow and Ayr, thus described the
condition of the factory operatives of that district:—
" Those of you who have paid any attention to these
subjects know what is the fearful state of our manufac-
turing population. I wish not to make general or sweep-
ing charges, but the system is such as to make it impossible
for private individu .1 parties to extricate themselves,
however much disposed, without some general legislative
measure. Toe vast multitudes of this portion of the peo-
ple are worn down in mind and body. They have not the
time nor strength to attend upon the means either of reli-
gion or education. The hands of ministers of the gospel
and other religious men are rendered powerless, and all
your efforts fruitless. What is the state of the case ?
When you offer visits during the day the male head of the
family, and even the ft male head of the family, are em-
ployed in the factory. The greater portion of the junior
members are there also. Even some of us who have
adopted the plan of commencing visits from six to nine in
the evening find that the greater portion of that time
elapses even then before they can return from the long and
exhausting labour of the day. As, for instance, in visiting
a family in these circumstances between eight and nine in
the evening, I found the parents at home, and just as I
was finishing my exhortation, at nine o'clock, two young
grown-up and evidently respectable daughters bad just
come in from the factory in another part of the city, having
left their house at five in the morning. Suppose I had
waited till ten o'clock, and it had been proper to do so,
how could these young women be expected to sit down
and hear my exhortation, exhausted, weary, and hungry ?
The thing is out of the question."
And, with respect to the effect of such long hours
of labour upon the physical health of these classes,
IVIr. Peter Ainsworth, of Bolton, a manufacturer,
quoted the following :
At a meeting held at Bury the other day, Mr. Ilinxman,
a surgeon, speaking of the evils to society that arose from
the present system, said.—" That many young persons
employed as piecers had to walk forwards aed backwards
while at work in the mills upwards of 24 miles per day.
He had often called sit the cottages of factory workers, he
had seen children come into the houses and immediately
fall asleep on the floor before they had time to eat their
supper; but of every 350 persons employed in factories
.only 144 of them enjoyed good health; whilst out of the
same number of persons not employedkin factories, 241
had good health."
The same gentleman went further, to shew that a
reduction in the hours of labour would lead to an
improved scale of health. Ile said he had received
that morning a letter from Mr. Gardner, a gentle.
man well know in this district, who has tried the
system of eleven hours, and found it as profitable to
him as twelve, in which be remarks, in reply to a
question as to the health of his workpeople :
" I beg to state that in my opinion they are generally
enjoying better health now and since the adoption of 11
hours than when working 12. They express themselves
so, and their appearance bespeaks it." Now, in many
concerns of this kind there are established sick clubs, and
it is rather curious that in Mr. Gardner's establishment
the sick society tr•a.s scarcely ever• called upon, at least to
the extent it was formerly, from the less frequency of
invalids in that es ablishment. Mr. Gardner says,—
"The sick club formed amongst my workpeople em-
braces about seven-eighths of the male adults in my mill,
the particulars in relation of which fully bear me out in
respect of the improved state of health enjoyed by the
members of the club. I find on comparing two years pre-
vious to the adoption of 11 hoursovith two years subse-
quent, that the number relieved by this club was 60 per
cent. less in the latter period, and the expenditure 40 per
cent. less in the latter period, than the former, the num-
ber of members being in both instances the same."
The latter period was that in which the mill only
worked eleven hours per day. And, with respect
to the time devoted to education under the same
experiment, and the fitness of the operatives to
spend well the hour deducted from their day's toil,
Mr. Gardner says :
" A good feeling existed between the employer and the

employed ; and again (which was answer to a statement
now seldom beard, that the factory operatives were wholly
unfit for the boon they sought), that the numbers attend-
ing school at nights, before the introduction of the eleven
hours' system, never exceeded 20, but was mostly much
under, and the numbers that now attended (many of them
adults, and women learning domestic acquirements, with-
ou! which they could :never perform the duties of wives
and mothers, including knitting, sewing, and many other
domestic accomplishments), instead of being under 20,
was every evening considerably snore than 100; and he
had no doubt, by very little persuasion and management,
would increase until those attending night schools would
comprise a good majority of the whole number of the
hands employed at those mills."

Turn back, then, to the consideration of the pas-
sage quoted from Mr. Fielden's speech, at the com-
mencement of this article. We are going to render
factory labour " not the occupation of a class but of
a nation." We are going to render our hives of
industry " more and more vast." Yet of what are
these hives to be composed ? 01 men, the develop-
ment of whose physical and mental powers has been
checked; and of enfeebled women, who have never
had time permitted them in youth to learn the ordi-
nary duties and arts of domestic life, the knowledge
of their duties as wives or mothers, or the know-
ledge even of their God ! This is the boasted frame
of society after which manufacturing cupidity and
political economy is hankering. We say emphati-
cally, with Mr. Fielden, that a community so framed
" can never be a creditable, or even A SAFE, co;n-
munity

We- are not in a frame of temper, after reading
this debate, to expose the heartlessness of the
principle, and the perversions of fact, or to hold
up to public reprobation the selfish grounds upon
which the measure is attempted to be opposed by
statesmen, and in the " Commons (!) House of
Parliament of a Christian nation. We say that,
with such tendencies of our present system before
us, incontestibly proved, as they are, there ought
not to be a week lost in removing such a scandal
from the nation. Nay more, that there ought to be
an immediate and an earnest appeal to the legisla-
ture, and, if necessary, to the throne itself, to snatch
these poor suffering over-toiled children these
young shoots of a future generation, Englishmen
and English wives and mothers—from an oppres-
sion which is wearing away their health and their
strength, and training them up, stunted alike in
body and i►t mind, without a hope in this world or
a sure and certain hove in a world to come.

It would certainly be a most desirable consum-
mation if, by any measures, the better observance
of the Sabbath by all classes could be brought
about, and increased habits of sobriety could be
p:omoted generally amongst our population. On
the ground of its tendency to improve the morals
and the comforts of the working man and his
family, we advocated strenuously the closing of
taverns from Saturday night until one on Sunday;
and that experiment, we submit, has been produc-
tive of most satisfactory results. It has afforded to
many a working man's family a Sunday's meal, the
cost of which would otherwise have been spent in
debauchery. It has cleared our streets of the re-
volting spectacles formerly to be encountered by
the well-conducted of our population, on their way
to the house of God. It has thinned the cases of
drunkenness which every Monday used to occupy
our Police-court; and at this motnent, amongst
those even who regarded the measure at the time
as an oppressive one, we do not think there are
many to be found who would look upon a return to
ancient practices as aught less than a calamity.
We cannot, however, by closing public-houses
for a few hours on the Sabbath, reform a whole
population. To elevate the morals of a people, we
must educate and Christianize them. If we wish
to make the poor man more virtuous and orderly in
his conduct, the rich man must set him a better
example. If we wish to draw him from the tavern,
we must teach him the way to the church door ;
provide him with places of worship to go to, and
with faithful ministers to guide him in his course
through life. Hence we have not reaped all the
advantage which some anticipated from our recent
Sabbath regulation. We have still to deal weekly
with a mass of crime, engendered by habits of in-
dulgence in stimulating drinks. We have closed
our public-houses for a portion of the Sabbath;
but we have neglected to provide for the working
man enjoyments of a higher character as their sub-
stitute, and we have continued to leave the mass of
the rising generation in a state of semi-barbarism.
If the Council to-morrow affirm Mr. Horsfall's
resolution further to close the public-houses, we
hope they will not stop there,—indeed they cannot
consistently do so. The cheap trips by railway and
steam-boats must be put an end to, and the Council,
to justify their taking the initiative in such a pro-
ceeding, will, we hope, make some great effort to
advance the moral character and improve the re-
ligious habits of the people. They have not hitherto
done what they might or ought. They are liberal
patrons of art, it is true. They have lavished vast
sums, and will have to lavish more, upon the erec-
tion and decoration of St. George's-hall. They
pride themselves that they are about to complete
the most elegant building and the most powerful
organ in the town. But where are their endow-
ments for religious purposes ? We look for them
in vain. They were invited to contribute towards
paying off the debt of the Collegiate Institution;
and their reply was they were too poor, and the
effort was left to such men as Mr. Horsfall, who is
thus consistent in advocating the proposed re-
striction.

We hope also to see the Council urge upon the
Legislature the adoption of a large and liberal mea-
sure of church extension, an increase of the
means of religious education for the young, and the
recognition of the duties incumbent upon us as a
nation to legislate for the improvement of the moral
and social condition of our working classes and our
poor, and in this way we shall be making progress
in the right direction, and attain eventually that re-
sult which all good and wise men must look forward
to as much to be desired and prayed for. But
whilst we throw from us, as a nation, all care for the
provision of increased means of religious teaching
for our own increasing population, whilst our com-
mercial policy is daily drawing that population into
our large towns, and it is left to the exercise of indi-
vidual beneficence, necessarily as human nature is
constituted, insufficient for the task—to provide
those masses with religious teaching and proper
surveillance, whilst the object of all our legislation
appears to be to afford increased power to ca-
pital, and to heap n w burthens upon the backs of
the poor, we cannot expect to witness a much bet-
ter state of things than that which we see around
us. A population brought up, and left in igno-
rance of its responsibilities to God, is not the most
likely to recognize or pay any great deference to
those conventional rules of conduct which society
has set up. Ignorance of God it is—not mere un-
lettered ignorance—which is the fruitful source of
crime and of that dissipation which is complained
of. The toil-worn man, scantily fed, and inade-
quately paid, flies too readily from his comfortless
unhealthy home, to seek beneath the glaring lamps
of the splendidly lit up gin palace a temporary ex-
citetnent and forgetfulness of the hardlessness and
hopelessness of his lot. It is his Saturday night's
enjoyment ; and we fear greatly, that until we can
elevate his moral character and his tastes, and add
besides to the comforts of his home, it will continue
that of a portion of his day of rest as well, not-
withstanding any restrictions which we may now
throw in the way of its gratification. At the same
time it is desirable to use all the means in our power
to prevent the horrid scenes of drunkkenness which
are to be seen on the Sabbath.

The magistrates may do no little with a view of
attaining this desirable end. The majority of the
cases of breach of the present arrangement for
closing on the Sabbath forenoons, and for per-
mitting drunkenness in their houses, are the cases
of beerhouse-keepers and a few taverns in streets of
known disorderly character, which, had our licensing
magistrates acted upon a different principle, during
the last few years, would long ago have been re-
moved to respectable localities, where licenses were
wanted by the new neighbourhoods springing up,
instead of the existing number of licenses being in-
creased, or their places supplied by disorderly and
ill-conducted beerhouses, vending poisonous trash
instead of an honest commodity.

We have never taken a decided part in the dis-
cussion going on between the Highway Board and
the Town Council with respect to the merits of their
respective bills for supplying the town with water,
or by whom the powers of any bill for such a pur-
pose should be exercised, although without the
slightest disrespect for the Board, we have expressed
an opinion that the latter body is the most fitted, by
its position and constitution, to undertake and per-
form the duty with advantage to the inhabitants.
Nor do we intend to enter at length into the clues-

tion now, when the ratepayers themselves, at the
meeting of Friday next, are about to decide it. Our
object is to impress upon both the advisableness of
a timely arrangement, and the impolicy of two local
bodies. both presumed to be actuated by a desire to
promote local interests, and both composed of hon-
ourable and disinterested men, appearing before
their constituencies and before Parliament in a con-
flicting attitude. Our object is to suggest to both
the advantage to the town of their working amicably
together ; and to assure the Highway Board that,
after conceding to the Council in this matter of the
supply of water, they have already in existence, and
in prospect, within their own immediate depart-
ment, an amount of useful employment quite suffi-
cient to tax their utmost energies, and for the
effective performance of which the inhabitants of
Liverpool will be sincerely grateful.
One of the greatest aids to the improvement of
the health of the town, and the comfort and credit
of its population, is a well-devised system of sewer-
age, of road formation, and surface cleaning. To
the Highway Board the carrying out of such a
system is especially committed. But is that
duty of theirs efficiently performed at the pre-
tent moment. Are they not vastly in arrear
with the wants of the public in their sewerage
and drainage ? Every impartial witness will answer
yes ; and every practical person will say, also, that it
will require a great outlay of money, and quite as
much engineering ability as the Board has shewn
itself to be possessed of, to bring their works fairly
up to the requirements of the present time, and to
repair past blunders. Then look at the future; see
the town branching out in all directions, no one can
predict in which first, or in which chiefly ; see our
docks now progressing south, now north, and each
way carrying a new suburb with them ; new traffic,
requiring new and substantial roads; new streets,
requiring a new system of sewers, and a perfect
net-work of house drains. See those docks again
progressing eastward, into the heart of the built-
over portion of the town, sweeping away whole
masses of streets, and creating the necessity for
spacious thoroughfares, well-paved and well-
sewered roads, where, hitherto, we have had
only narrow alleys with surface drainage, or very
imperfect sewerage. Is there nothing here which
requires enterprise, ability, and great watchfulness,
or is the body, to which the necessity of displaying
these qualities is committed, likely to have much
leisure on their hands ? Indeed it is not. The Hig-
hway Board will have enough to do—enough money
to raise and to expend—without grasping at the
management of matters beyond their sphere.

There is, moreover, a vast improvement to carry
out in the cleansing of the existing streets and courts
of the town—a great quantity of paving to execute,
many unsightly and unseemly obstructions to re-
move, which will require much energy on the part
of the Board, and, perhaps, no trifling outlay of
money. Look in what quarter we will, there is work
for the Board to do, and useful work, conducive at
once to the health, the safety, the convenience, and
the comfort of our population. Here stagnant pits
of water affect the nostrils of the passers-by; there
open drains pour their noxious vapours upon the
atmo phere ; here we come upon dangerous por-
tions of unfinished streets, or open and unsecured
cellars. In removing all these, the Board may well
expend its newly awakened zeal.
We may be told, however, that they can do no-
thing in the way of cleansing without the command
of an ample supply of water. That, we answer,
Parliament will give them power to demand from the
Corporation. They want money, perhaps, for some
of the required improvements. Shew Parliament,
however, that snch improvements are necessary for
sanatory purposes, and that they are the body
peculiarly adapted for carrying them out efficiently,
and money powers will be granted them, and rates
cheerfully contributed by the owners and occupiers
of property in the town.
We would strongly urge, in conclusion, that such
an arrangement as we have above suggested should
be brought about; and that the meeting of the rate-
payers, on Friday, should be allowed to devote
themselves to a careful discussion- of the clauses of
the bill proposed by the Town Council, with such
amendments, to render it more operative and ad-
vantageous to the town, as the harmonious judg-
ment and united experience of both bodies can
devise.