The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-04-22 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

ri Eibtrpool &tanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 22, 1842

its prostrated energies

The following announcement, which we extract from
the columns of a Liverpool contemporary, is an exam-
ple of the kind of difficulty created by the factious
course of Lord John and his fellow-obstructives

" The sale of Costa Rica coffee, advertised by Bushby,
Son, and Foster, for the 26th instant, is postponed for the
present, on account of the uncertainty as to the duties."

A solitary instance this, in which the obstruction in
question is paralizing the commerce of this large com-

munity—damming up the channels through which its
fertilizing capital ordinarily flows—throwing idle, in
the very midst of the season when activity ought to
prevail, our industrious population, our mercantile
navy, our vast commercial establishments, and bewil-
dering alike, with the uncertainty which it creates, the
importer, the merchant, the manufacturer, and the
shopkeeper. A hundred similar instances occur daily
unnoted ; and yet a reformed parliament, or at the
least a liberal minority of that parliament, composed of
sticklers for the absolute sovereignty of the will of the

onstituent body, hears the remonstrances of the coun-

try—twitnesses its complicated and intense suffering—
and remains obstinately, daringly, and wickedly un-
heeding !

How long, we ask, shall such a state of things be
endured with patience ? In the name of this great
commercial community—by all the wretchedness which
we see around us—we implore of the legislature—we
implore of this shameless and dishonest faction—to
put an end, at once, to this destroying uncertainty !

The progressive substitution of infant and female
or male adult labour in the factories of Great Britain,

is a subject which, at the present moment, is well worthy
of the serious attention of the statesman. By a return
which is before us, it appears that out of a total num-

bet of 424,209 factory labourers employed in the five
most important branches of our manufactures 197,239
persons, or nearly one half, are under the age of 1
years. Of the entire number, only 159,709, or about
two-fifths, are above the age of 21. Of those em-
ployed under 13 years of age, amounting to 33,449,
16,844 are males, and 16,605 females. Of those from
13 to 18, 65,792 are males, and 97,998 are females.
From 18 to 21 the number of males are only 18,608,
whilst the females are 48,653 ! Of those above 21, the
males are 78,144, and the females 81,565. Moat of

the latter of course must be mothers, with families,
who are thus subjected to this unhealthy occupation ;
whilst their male partners, in too many cases, live upon
the proceeds of their labour, either perforce or by
choice !

The above numbers apply to cotton, woollen,
worsted, flax, and silk factories. In cotton factories
alone, the total number of both sexes employed are
259,962, of which 111,058 are under 18 years of age,
and 155,091 under 21 years of age. Of the 259,962
persons employed, 146,401, or nearly three-fifths, are
females. In the worsted, flax, and silk factories, the
proportion of females to males exceeds two to one. In
worsted factories, alone, the proportion is even greater.

The return from which the above numbers are
quoted is not a very recent one, and if we could have
authentic data as to the state of things at the present
moment, we believe they would. show that, along with
progressive improvements which have been making in
machinery, this substitution of infant and female for
male adult labour has rapidly- increased. The male
adult labourer is being grad ually excluded from the
factories of Great Britain, and his place at the loom or
the spinning frame occupied by children or by women.
Surely then a system, of which these are the ten-
dencies and results, is not one upon which any nation
can rely for the employment of a population driven
from
the healthy occupa Lions of agriculture to swell

In the notice of operations which we gave in our Tuesday's
paper as having seen performed at the Eye and Ear In-
firmary, we stated that two infants, suffering from puru-
lent ophthalmia, had been operated on, and sight immedi-
ately restored. We should have said one infant was born
blind, from cataract in both eyes ; the other had cataract
resulting from an attack of purulent ophthalmia when only
three days old. Both infants were operated on for cataract,
with perfect success in b)th cases.
With reference to a question from a correspondent signing
his letter " M. A.," respecting Mr. Grantham's remarks
on the friction of six-wheeled engines, we have made some
enquiries, and may observe, that, although the arguments
raised by M. A. as to the friction of bearings are correct
as a general principle, still, the additional weight of the
extra wheels themselves must, in all fairness, be taken into
the account as additional sources of friction. We, how-
ever, agree with Mr. Grantham, that the advantages to be
derived from six wheels more than counteract the objection
of extra friction.
We are compelled, by a pressure of advertisements at a late
hour, to postpone till our next publication reviews of seve-
ral new publications, amongst which are the Church of
England Quarterly Review, the Churchman, the Liverpool
Policeman, &c.

On Monday last the Income Tax Bill, brought on by
Sir Robert Peel, in accordance with a resolution af-
firmed by a majority of 106 members of the House of
Commons, was opposed on its first reading by that
homoeopathic drop of faction, Lord John Russell; and
at every future stage of the bill, we are assured that the
same fruitless and factious obstruction is to be offered
to its progress. The principle of the measure has al-
ready been sufficiently affirmed in both Houses of Par-
liament. Agitation against it has been tried in vain
throughout the country ; and the feeling in its favour
has been shewn to be overpowering. The most un-
scrupulous partizan cannot point even to a dawning
hope that opposition can be ultimately successful. The
commerce, the agriculture, and the industry of the na-
tion, alike, pray for its speedy settlement, as the only
course which can raise them from their present state of
prostration and suffering. Yet these unprincipled par-
liamentary gladiators—these reckless and venal hunters
after place and pay—are resolved, in defiance of the
declared will of parliament and of the people, to pro-
tract its suffering, and to trample upon and mock at