The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-05-02 00:00:00

DOUSE OF COMMONS.-FRIDAY

Lord STAxLm- stated that several of t(►e noblemen and
gentlemen connected' with theTritish:Americau Emigration
Association had subscribed sums for the relief of the un-
fortunate emigrants who had been sent out to Prince Ed-
ward's Island, but who had fortunately for themselves been
driven back by stress of weather. He also expressed a hope
that the example would be followed by the remainder of those
gentlemen.

In reply to a question from Mr. LEFROY,
Lord ELIOT said that government was- by no means in-
different to the agitation in Ireland for the repeal of the
union, which could not be persevered in without danger to
the public peace.
Sir G. GREY then resumed the adjourned debate on the
second reading of the Ecclesiastical Courts' Bill, which he
had resolved to support, because the chief object of the bill
was to carry into effect many of the recommendations of the
ecclesiastical commissioners. He hoped, however, that his
proposition of referring the bill to a select committee would
be adopted, that its technicalities might be carefully consi-
dered, and some objectionable provisions removed. There
was at present a divided testamentary jurisdiction in matters
relating to real and personal estate leading to great inconve-
nience and expense by causing parties to go into two courts
in order to prove the validity one and the same instrument.
This should be altered, as should also be the exclusive mo-
nopoly of Doctor's-commons. All these matters could be
much better considered by a select committee than they could
possibly be in the committee on the bill.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL said that the defects and in-
convenience of the ecclesiastical courts had been long the
subjects of complaint. .The ecclesiastical commissioners re-
commended that all the courts of peculiars should be thrown
into three provincial jurisdictions ; but this bill proposed to
give all the business to one central and supreme court,
which, in his opinion, was an improvement on the recom-
mendation of the ecclesiastical commissioners. One strong
argument in favoUr of the bill was the importance of having
during a war a body of civilians well acquainted with inter-
national law.

Lord R. GROSVENOR said be was a strenuous supporter
of le, al reform, but to, this bill he bad objections, amongst
which, was the perpetuation of he monopoly of the Doctors'.
commons practitioners. The defects he perceived in the bill
would, he thought,.defeat the benefit which it was intended
to confer.

Dr. EI.PIIINTONE thought something ought to be done
to remedy the evil Hof the conflicting decisions of the various
ecclesiastical courts, but by fixing the minimum of jurisdic.
tion at £3OO, the bill in effect made good law for the rich and
bad law for the poor. There were many objections to the
bill, but he thought they might he remedied in committee.
Mr. Escorr regretted being obliged to oppose the bill, hut
the objections he had heard urged against it had confirmed
his opinion that it would prove unsatisfactory and insufficient.
The Secretary for the Home Department had said he would
blush for the house if personal interests led them to reject
the bill ; but he would rather blush for the insufficiency of
his•own arguments to support it.
Mr. G. H. VERNON, as chancellor of the province and
judge of the Prerogative Court of York, was aware of the
many evils of the present state of the ecclesiastical law, and
of tie conflicting decisions of the inferior courts, which called
for a remedy;.which he firmly believed the present ineasuie
Would provide, and be thus most .beneficial to the country.
Mr. T. DUNCOME, in an amusing speech, contended for
the total abolition of the ecclesiastical courts, and said that
in his opinion. tlie..whole business of those courts should be
transferred td.tlie courts at 'Westminster Hall. He was op-
posed to the bill,,though not upon the same grounds as those
put forward by,Sir R. Inglis. He was inclined to think with
Colonel Sibthorp that it was a " Doctors'-commons job,"
though the expression was one not likely to be used on his
(Mr. Dunconabe's) side of the house. (This assertion of the
hon. gentleman:in support of the extreme modesty of his
side of the house produced roars of laughter.) He was of
opinion that the bill was an attempt to bolster up a rotten
system, and he should therefore oppose it.

Sir R. Pim, said he had rarely seen a bill opposed, as this
was, by gentlemen of such discordant opinions, and it be-
came therefore necessary to classify the objections and prove
to the house in replying to them that this bill effected a ma-
terial improvement in the present state of the law by re-
moving many of those evils which had been long felt and
complained of. Many of those evils had existed more than
300 years, and had been denounced by Lord Stowell and
other great authorities, and had so existed because those who
felt the evils would not be content with moderate reform,
however useful it might be in getting rid of the most serious
portions of the'evil. Was this always to go on? Or on the
other hand would it not be better to go into committee on
the bill, and endeavour to render it as effective as possible
instead 4 opposing the principle on the second reading? He
was quite aware that there was much weight in an obserya-
tioi,
who would remember
of Mr. EscOtt's that if the Government went on with
that any executive Go-
gal abuses raised against
vtt
hhe
eri smn
enl ln
ttthhaeet
tdreeal
ynwpoatfisntgar
trial. He
wreeirfiofeur lmkbnoo
efdwlye•
them for a time a powerful body interested in the main-
tenance of those ahuses, even though they took every care
that in applying the remedy the interests of the individual
should not suffer. They were not, however, to be deterred
by such considerations, and he therefore trusted—indeed he
could not for one moment credit that the house would
strangle in its birth this attempt to apply a remedy at all
risks to a very serious evil. The bill attempted to carry out
reforms recommended by the highest ecclesiastical and judi-
cial authorities, and if the House of Commons should reject
it let no hon. member hereafter taunt Ministers with not
doing anything in the shape of improvement. The Govern-
ment had brought it forward, so help him God! from no im-
proper or interested motive whatever; and he never could
believe that the House of.Cornorns would defeat a measure

of reform in a system of law which all admitted~to be full
serious evils. _ _ _

---lift7l4-&E supported the bill, although he (lid not think
the bill. went far enough. Fourteen years ago the house
abolished the power of these courts in Scotland, and since
then every thing went on satisfactorily,. by transferring the
jurisdiction to the. courts of law. He could not, therefore,
understand why the same course should not be pursued In
England.
W...llAttuosr• supported the. bill, for although it
did not remedy all the abuses in the ecclesiastical law, yet it
did remedy those which might be considered the most im-
portant, • ' •

Mr.. ROEBUCK' would vote for the second reading of t
. .

bill, though he wished it to be understood that, tht;'ughliC
agreed in all that portion of the bill which went to pull down,
he entirely disagreed in' all that portion which went to build
up, and unless that portion was struck out or materially al-
tered in committee, be should feel it to be his duty to oppose
the hill altogether. h
The gallery was then cleared, and on a division the second
reading of the bill was carried by a majority of 186 to 184.
The other orders of the day. were then disposed of, and the
house adjourned.

COLONEL. CfiATTEILTON.—The magnificent piece of plate
voted by the conservative electors and citizens of Cork to
Colonel Chatterton of the 4th Dragoon Guards, has been
presented, with an address containing the signatures of the
subscribers, amounting to three hundred. The gallant office
has returned a suitable answer, in which he says :-
assured, that wherever my military duties may require
services, I shall always bear with me a warm attachment t
my native city, and a most grateful recollection of the friend
ship I have experienced from my fellow-citizens ; nor can
ever be unmindful of the steady and cordial support I have
received from you upon several trying occasions, when we
struggled together to maintain those sound constitutional
principles, whereby, as you so justly observe, the rights and
liberties of all the subjects of these realms are so entirely and
so happily secured."

at Alnwiek,'on the 21st instant,
TIIF. DUCHESS OF NOILTHUNIBEILLAND.—At meeting
the following anecdote was
related illustrative of her grace's benevolence :—Mary Atkin-
son was the daughter of humble parents. dwelling in a wild
part of the country near Alnwick. The father, who was a
hind, attended the March hiring of that town on a day of
extremely fierce storm and snow-drift, and anxious to reach
home the same evening, as may be supposed, in order to com-
municate the results of the day, he persevered in plodding
his way towards his place of residence, amid the fury of the
storm. 11e reached within half a mile of his own house and
perished in the drift. Meanwhile his wife, restless and
alarmed, ventured forth to anticipate his coming. • Disap-
pointment led her on to Within ¶ few yards of where her hus-
band lay dead, but not so near as to render it probable she
had ever learned his fate, and there she too perished in the
snow. Mary Atkinson and a brother, we believe, were thus
left orphans, and totally destitute. The sad tale reached the
ears of the humane Duchess of Northumberland. She proved
more than a mother to the poor forlorn girl, sent her to board,
educated her, and obtained her a situation in Edinburgh, in
a respectable family. Mary Atkinson was now about 20
years of age, when
the symptoms of that most insidious dis-
ease—consumption—be;-an to manifest themselves. She fell
very ill. No sooner did the duchess hear of her condition
than she requested that, if at all poSsible, she Might be re-
moved to Alnwick, which was done. It is needless to say.
that every attention was ministered to the sufferer that could
be supposed capable of-mitigating her distress. But in vain.
She died about 12 monts'ago, and sleeps in Aluwick church-
yard,-with an affecting tribute to her memory from -the
Duchees of Northumberland gracing her.humble grave.

Ebt Ztherpool &tantrarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 2, 1843.

It would be a circumstance truly humiliating to our
human nature, if it should turn out that the storm of
dissenting opposition, which has been directed osten-
sibly againgt the educational clauses of the proposed
factory bill, has had its leading source in hostility to
the limitation of the hours of infant labour contained
in that bill ; if the fears which have been so plausibly
put forth, of the consciences of little factory children
being oppressed by the iniquity of the Church of Eng-
land Catechism, have not been prompted by the greater
fear that such children were about to be emancipated
from the bondage of that tyrant, capital, and the cruel
selfishness of inhuman parents, which at this moment
are, together, wearing into soulless and fleshless ana-
tomies, or degrading into reckless criminals, so many
thousands of the children of the working classes. And
yet it is too much to be feared that such a feeling has
been uppermost in the minds of the prime movers in
this demonstration. Sincere as may have been the
convictions and the motives of many, who have singe
plunged themselves into it, we greatly suspect that
if the hearts of those who pulled the wires and set the
puppets in motion, could be searched, too much of
MAMMON would be discovered there—too much of
griping selfishness—to allow of our entertaining any
longer a doubt that the question of education is not so
much a religious, or even a sectarian question, as it
is a question of the pocket—a struggle between selfish
avarice' on the one hand and Christian philanthropy
on the other.

That such is the case, in the immediate districts af-
fected by Sir James Graham's bill, can scarcely be
doubted by any one who has closely watched the pro-
gress of public opinion, there, upon the subject. Let
us glance at a few evidences, as to this fact, which
have crept out during the past week in the neighbour-
ing manufacturing metropolis—Manchester. It has
pleased that very sapient body, the town council of the
" metropolis" in question, to hold a special meeting to
exhibit its wisdom in opposition to the bill, from the
proceedings at which we take leave to cull the follow-
ing morceau

One of the members, a cotton spinner, as reported
in the Guardian, stated that " he should be glad to see
education promoted either by this or any other bill ;
but he thought this bill would be a failure, inasmuch
as it would have the effect of inducing masters to turn
children under 13 years of age out of employment."
Why would the bill have such effect? why turn
children under thirteen years out of employment ?
Because children are to be educated upon this, or that,
or any system ? Not at all ; but because masters will
in future be permitted to work such children only six
hours and a-half per day ! Clearly it is not the educa-
tional clauses, but the limitation of the hours, which
are here excepted against ; and when Mr. Alderman
Murray tells us, therefore, that " he should be glad to
see education promoted either by this or any other
bill," we must take leave greatly to doubt his sincerity,
unless some system can be hit upon by which children
can be at school and at work at the sante time.
Another gentleman, a manufacturer, at the. same
meeting of collective wisdom, informs us that " he be-
lieved the effect of the present bill would be to turn
children under thirteen years of age out of the factories
into the streets, and then there would be no provision
at all for their education." Again we ask, why turn
them into the streets ? Are millowners Christian men ?
Are children who can read their Bible and say their
prayers unfitted for the meridian of a cotton-mill ?
Not at all ; but they cannot be worked the long hours of
adult labour.

But what followed from this pattern of manufac-
turing morality is still more worthy of admiration.
This same personage " believed it was intended to
throw the maintenence of children upon their parents
for three or four years longer"—a circumstance cer-
tainly not to be deplored if we had, as the result, their
training in a healthier system of religion and morality.
We can see nothing to be admired in a system by
which parents increase and multiply juvenile " ma-
chines" rather than the germs of a future generation
of Christian men and women. Ile also regretted this
operation of the bill, however, because it would " pre-
vent children contracting early marriages (!) It was,
therefore, calculated to PRESS VERY HEAVILY UPON
THE POOR (!)" Strange objection to the bill, this !
It will prevent children under thirteen years of age
getting married ! We couldn't wish it to do a better
thing, though we can scarcely see how this admirer of
early marriages can trace such to be its operation.
At a meeting of the inhabitants of Salford upon the
same subject, we find another gentleman, of whom we
never heard before, stating that " he had been told by
a manufacturer that the effect•of the bill would be to
throw 20,000 children out of employment ; and that,
in order to avoid the necessity of employing older
and giving higher wages"—is this the sore point after
all ?—" the manufacturers were fitting up machinery to
supersede manual labour!" Can there be much plainer
speaking than this, as to the real objection to the bill.
It rescues the demoralised factory iqfant from his phy-
sical slavery and his moral degradation ! There is no-
thing of sectarian objection here ; no objection to
Church of Enghnd trustees, or Church of England
Catechisms; but a very perceptible objection to paying
adult men and women for the unnatural toil extracted
from the life-blood of children.
Most emphatically we must express our conviction
that this latter gentleman libels, in this assertion, the
great majority of the manufacturing body. They are
surely not prepared to commit an outrage to decency
so gross as would be the discharge from their employ-
ment of the whole of their juvenile population, because
the legislature has declared that they shall be edu-
cated, and they shall not be over-worked ! If such be
the•case, the world can have little respect for their own
morality, or their "liberal" professions of care for the
welfare of those classes which Providence has thrown
into dependence upon them.

We alinddeeed, not long ago, at the horrible inde.
cencies and cruelties practised in the thin seam coal
mines of England and Scotland, as exhibited to us by
the report of a parliamentary committee. We were
shocked, more recently, by the appalling ignorance and
degrading vice, exhibited to us as existing in the ma-
nufacturing districts; and we have now to look upon
a similar record of mingled cruelties, selfishness, and
suffering, which is brought before us by a report of
the " Children Employment Commission," as existing
amongst the population employed in the lace manufac-
tures of this country. We shall take leave to bring a
few of the details of the report in question before our
readers, premising only a few explanation 4 necessary
to enable them more clearly to understand the subject.
The manufacture of lace comprehends a number of
different branches, in all of which, and in some exclu-
sively, young persons and children are employed—
some of the. latter, to use the language of one of the
commissioners, "as soon as they can tie a knot or use a
needle !" The first of these branches, which we shall
notice, is that of " drawing," which consists in draw-
ing out with a needle the threads which hold together
the separate widths, which make up the entire piece as
it comes out of the machine, In the Nottinghamshire
district the children commence their work at four, five,
and six years of age. Mr. Grainger, the commissioner
before referred to, found one child placed at its work
by its parent (0 BEFORE IT WAS TWO YEARS OLD !
We quote a portion of the evidence collected by this
gentleman respecting the hands employed in drawing :

" Mrs. Houghton examined.—ls a lace-drawer, and has
four children ; Harriet eight years, Ann six, Mary four, and
Eliza two years old ; of these the three elder are employed as
lace-drawers. Harriet was not quite three when she began
to work, Ann was about the same, and Mary was not quite

two years old I ! Eliza ' has tried and drawn a few threads
out:—[Sub-Commissioner.—All this was interrupted with
' Mind you work,' "Fake care,' Make haste,' Now, Anne,
get on,' Mind your work.']—Begins generally at 6 a.m. in
the summer, and 7 in the winter ; in the former goes on till
dark, in the latter till 10 p.m. The two biggest children
work with witness these hours; Mary begins at the same
time time in the morning, but she leaves off about 6 p.m.
The children have no time to get out to play. They go out
very seldom.' Have breakfast when they have tinze .to yet it ;
the same with dinner and tea. Have about a quarter of an
hour for each meal. The children are obliged to sit at their
work. They sit all day. [` Mind your work.'] The work

tries the eyes. The bla'k is the worst. It is drees work.'
[` Now, mind your work.'] The chiidren have very good
health."

" The children have very good health !" So says
the parent; and the commissioner remarks that " they
are very fine and pretty girls, and appear healthy."
But let us only reflect upon the amount of toil which
they endure, and ask ourselves how long such mere
infants can hold up under it. The " two biggest"
work, we are told, in summer, from six o'clock till dark,
and, in winter, from seven till ten, p.m." The latter is
fifteen hours; the former may be seventeen; on the
average, therefore, they work sixteen hours a day, sit-
ting the whole time on chairs, " their legs being too
short to reach the ground." And was-this inhuman
amount of toil imposed upon these innocents from ne-
cessity ? No. The father of these very children was
earning 235. per week as his regular wages !
Now, what does the reader imagine is the paltry sum
for which mere infants are thus mercilessly sacrificed ?
—for, we are told, that a few years of such labour re-
duces them to mere shadows in body, and to a condi-
tion of mind little short of idiotcy. Three shillings per
week is stated to be " a very high average," whilst ano-
ther is convinced that it is " much more than is usually
named."

The next process, " threading," is performed princi-
pally by boys about the age of eight years. At the age
of 15 the girls become winders, and the boys go to the
machines. During the seven years they are employed
in " threading," they are mere parts of the machines,
and must work for the 16, 18, 20, or 22 hours per day
that the machines work ! One child stated that he had
often stopped from four o'clock on one morning till two
o'clock the next, and that, twice or thrice in one week.
It is common to stay all night at the machines; and
the children are compelled to attend at whatever hour
they may be called for, and often in the middle of the
night. A constable, examined, states that "he •fre-
quently sees a number of children, many as young as
eight or ten, little things hardly as high as the knee,
going to various factories as threaders, at all times of
the night," or " coming out in the middle of the night
in light clothing, and apparently suffering from the
cold"—a circumstance scarcely to be wondered at,
when we are informed that the temperature of such
factories, when the gas is lighted, is sometimes as high
as 85 degrees, whilst that out of doors, at night, may
be below freezing point ! Another witness, Mr. Vim.
Hinde, states that hundreds of these children have been
sent to their graves by their incessant labour and want
of rest. .‘ They have no regular time for their meals :
they have their meals sent them, and eat them when
they can ;" and so irregular is their sleep, that they are
frequently seen lying down in the middle of the shop
floor, or under the tables, or on the old coats of the
men, glad to catch, in any discomfort, a temporary ob-
livion of their sufferings.
The process called " winding" is almost invariably
performed by children and young women, who begin
to work at the age of 12 or 14. The commissioners
declared it to be proved that in this employment they
haVe " no regular and certain time whatever for sleep
or recreation, being liable to be called upon at any pe-
riod during 16, 20, or 22 hours out of 24, while they
have frequently to go from one place to another, often
at considerable distances, at all hours of the night and
at all seasons." They are employed in the same facto-
ries with men, and in a great majority of cases no pre-
cautions are taken for the preservation of morality.
" In the town of Nottingham," says Mr. Grainger, " all
parties—clergy, police, manufacturers, workpeople, and pa-
rents--agree that the present mode of employing children
and young persons as threaders and winders is a most fertile
source of immorality. There can, in fact, be but few states
more immediately leading to vice and profligacy. Children
of both sexes are called out of their parents' houses at all
hours of the night, and, as it is quite uncertain how long
they may be required, whether for two hours or the whole
night, a ready and unanswerable excuse for staying out is
furnished. The threaders, who are usually boys, and the
winders, who are generally girls, are required at the same
time, and thus they have every facility for forming improper
connexions. The natural results of such a noxious system
are but too apparent, and must have contributed in no slight
degree to the immorality which, according to the opinion
universally expressed, prevails to a most awful extent in
Nottingham. In addition to the immediate evils to the
children themselves, the domestic peace and comfort of the
families of which they are members are sacrificed to this
most unnatural state of things."

Another witness, the clerk to the Nottingham union,
says " the extent of early sexual intercourse' is dread-
ful. A principal cause of this demoralization is the
facility of boys and girls mingling together in the streets
at night, and the almost total absence of parental con-
trol," whilst the vice-chairman of the board of guar-
dians gives the following striking description of the
operation of the system :

" I have known many parents come out of the country
merely to live on the labour of their young children. In one
case, a short time ago, a widow came with three children, of
12,14, and 15 years of age, out of Derbyshire. These chil-
dren were sent into a factory, the mother being only employed
in preparing their meals, and getting them up early enough
in the morning. They did not come home to their meals ;
they were taken in the factory. All these children died in
eighteen months. I think this resulted from their employ-
tnent. Almost all the families employed in the manufactures
of Nottingham are, with few exceptions supported more or
less by the labour of their children! Among other evils of
this system is that of reversing the order of nature ; children
become, at an early age, independent of their parents; in
many cases the latter are even obliged to act as menials to
their children. Another class of evils is, that worthless
fathers are enabled to spend their time in low pothouses out
of the earnings of their children. The vice and immorality
springing from such a system, are too obvious to require
illustration."

appalling facts
to m-
The above are a few only of the
brought before us by the report; but, askoNre.
fear-
lessly, are they not quite sufficient to warrant the i
mediate interference of parliament, in order 1
put
down a system so dreadful ? In what are the people
who can tolerate this awful sacrifice of infant life and
purity upon the shrine of cupidity, better than the
wretched fanatics who stain their idols with infant
blood, or plunge them into the fire or the flood as offer-
ing to their ideal Gods ? Better! Why the Christian
People, who thus mercilessly bestialize and slaughter
their offspring, are worse—a thousand times worse
—than the benighted heathen, for whose civilization
our missionaries are to be found labouring in every
chine! It is doubtless good to engross the commerce
of the world, It is a boast that we are able to supply

with owe fabrics every ruaitet of the globs. It is g"a
to be able to point to our exhaustless ingenuity as dis-
played throughout the range of our manufactured Po'
ducts, and to wield the vast wealth which they h'rlng
us ; but if these triumphs can only be achieved by the
sacrifice of the health and morals of our working P°-
he
pulation—if our wealth is to continue thus dyed in t
blood of infants, and its acquisition to be tracked inh
crime and suffering--we are prepared to say " peris
that wealth—perish that manufacturing supremacy
which is purchased at such a cost !" of
Most sincerely do we trust that the provisions
Sir James Graham's Factory and Education Bill maY
be at once extended to the population employed in the
lace manufactures of Great Britain ; for surely after
d
this he must be indeed a hardy man who can contend
that the bodily and intellectual training of the children
of the working classes can be safely left to the un-
checked control of either employers or parents. What
can voluntaryism or the Sunday school system de'
what have they done—to meet such an evil as we have
here exhibited ? Comparatively nothing. And, yet
we dare say that the very people, under whose dal
contemplation are these scenes of festering vice an
appalling human suffering, are at this moment loading
the tables of the House of Commons with petitions
against a measure of education and protection, for.
children similarly situated in the factory districts, ana
talking forsooth of their opposition to it being—lar
conscience sake !

to
There can scarcely be any man stupid enough
believe that the recent unworthy attack of Mr. Earle
upon certain members of the Watch Committee, wag
instigated by any better feeling than to give annoyance'
It imputed, by a sidewind, to no less than seven gen-
tlemen, equal in every respect—in character,
talents,
or ;and position, as well—to himself, the possibility, ra
ther probability, of their being influenced by dishone%
motives in the performance of their onerous duties. I
said to them, in substance, " you are not men of 11°-
nour ; you are capable of acts in your official capac
which, performed in your individual capacity, °-
w
render you unworthy of the name of gentlemeo

even honest men."
to allude
We should not have thought it worth while
to any thing so contemptible, were it not for the oye
portunity which it presents to us of urging ill)" tdie
better conducted portion of the " liberal" party inti to
council the propriety of, if possible, putting an en b ich
the scenes of personal attack and recrimination w"„
•
too frequently disgrace the proceedings of that boboe);
Is it not possible for gentlemen, opposed thoUgli
may be in politics, to debate matters of merely local
terest without forgetting the ordinary amenities of
re,
vilized society ? It may certainly be difficult t°
of
strain, within any reasonable grounds, a gentlerna;nf he
Mr. Alderman Earle's peculiar organization ; but 10,
will persist in his unseemly displays, surely it i$ I 1'
possible to allow him to remain " alone in his gl°.o
111;.
Why should.any men who have respect for their essie
ratter contest with such a one his very question
a'
honours?