The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1853-01-05
HE DAILY DISPATCH
From the Boston Post.
FRESH SLAVERY AGITATION.
Impudence Of British Aristocracv.
TcoNTINUED.1

Impudence Of British Aristoeraey.
[coNTINUED.1
Next look at the case of the POPULATION OF
THE BRITISH MINES. Take the appalling de-
tails presented in the "First Report Of 1e
Children's Employment Commissioners. -
ltrelates TO the mines and collieries. If that
is not picture Of ignorance, brutality and
wretchedDess, there never was onel Two
thousand folio pages of narrowing details as
to infant labor and full grown labor told the
powerful story of criminal neglect! What
tale of wo was there There, down shafts
sixteen hundred feet deep, under ground,
along subterranean roads for miles, from which
branch low galleries, or ways, or workings,
and in miserable novels! There were found
thousands of human beings who never saw the
light Of day! There were seen men, women,
young girls, children, working all together
and in q state of nudity! But let British
visitor say what he saw: II hare seen men
tsUtng on the diet of sWine, clothed in rags,
ana acatlotcing in Jftth, and yet their misera-
bic circumstances did not excite my commits
eration SO much as the recklessness with
which they regarded their state, and the utter
prostratlon OF mental energy which deprived
them almost 0f the wish, certainly Of the power
OF making sing.e effort to better their condi-
ton.' Indeed, the details of life in the coal
pits exhibited picture OF brutality without a
parallel. There children of tender wears work.
ed from morning till night from wear to wear.
'ln many coIlieres the children work ali dov
long in acater and mud" "The youngest
children must necessarily crawl on their
hands and feet, and in this posture they drag
after them their loaded corves of coal" A wit.
ness said: 81 don't know how old | am; father is
dead. am a chance child; mother is dead ais O;
don't know how long she has been dead; used
to sleep in cabins on the pits bank, and in the
old pits that had done working. eat for a
long tim e the candles th1t l found in the pits
that the Golfers left orer night 1 had moth.
| ing else to eat"
| Nor is this all the practice of employing
| females underground was universal in West
Yorkshire and North Lancaster; general in the
east of Scotland and common at Bradford and
| Leeds, Cheshire and South Wales. Now when
| this existed did these duchesses ever manifest
so much interest as TO enquire into the condi-
| ton of these wOmen Ii so, where is the evil
dence of it? What was the condition of this
portion of British society in 1842, when Lord
Ashley's bill was assed? Why the details of
the brutality are too horrible for recital. Girls
1 were almost universally employed as crap
pers" and "hurrers" in common with boys !;
and of all ages from seven to twenty-one. They
commonly worked quite naked down to the
waist; and in many of the collieries, the adult
| eoliiers, whom these women served, worked
perfectly naked. These girls and the women,
carried coal on their backs on unraied roads.
The report says "a cruel shaving revolving
old carrying cwt., and making regularly Ia
long journes day." One witness says 81
have belt round my waist and chain pass
ing betv cen my legs, and I go ON uay hands
and feet. The road is very steep. Ii is very
hard work for woman. The pit is very wet.
Nv clothes are wet through almost all day
long. Ihare drawn till 1 hare had the skin
| off me-" A sub-commssioner, who visited
| these places, says: 81 could not haze be-
lieved that 1 should haze found human nature
so degraded"
These details are not the half of the iniquity.
Recollect they are not of things done in by
| gone age, an age Of barbarism. 1t is only ten
| years ago since these notes were taken, since
Lord Ashley's prohibtory bill as to employ
ment of women and children in the coal mines
was passed. But this was but one portion of
the evils in these localities. Take one of the
latest British journals and read of the abuses
still existing about these mines, and then
| Judge what remains to be done. Leaving out
| the way how these poor, half-starved work
men are diddled by the check system out of
their hard pittancs, look at the state Of educa-
ton, of all that constitutes civilization in these
coal regions. Who shall say there is not at
this time, eren noe, state Of society calling
for all the philanthropy that the duchess Of
| Sutherland has to exercise? But what did
she, or the females of her "order," do to ex-
| pose this past brutality? What is she, and her
| associates doing n0r TO promote the well be-
| ing of these degraded collierss How much
| interest is she manifestng for their innocent
| children? Does she know that the prohibito-
| ry bill of l842, checking the British avarice
| and the hardness of British landed Proprietors,
| as seen in owners of British coal mines lis the
! duke of Sutherland one is sn0tdssregarded?
| Has she ever been to see These are the
| questions that American women will put TO
her grace the duchess of Sutherland, and her
order. They will say "Go to your coal
| pits. See that girls and women are not
| living again like beasts. See that they
| the remains ofcandles. See that the children,
! at least are educated, for property has its dx.
| ties, and this is one of them. See first that
| they are clothed and fed, and then that they
| have the gospel. This duty being done, and
other British misery relieved, and you may
with little less impudence, lecture US.
Once more: These duchesses and countesses
| NAV plead, TO account for the absen of &C.
tive philanthropic movements on their parf,
| that this was the appropriate field for men,
| Though this condemns their own intermeddling
win American cOnctInS, yct VIC pdes to uu-
other case. That of BRITISH NEEDLE woMEN.
| Here the matter comes close home-so close as
to touch not only their sex but their persons.
| What is the factf Let the London Chronicle
| answer. "The wretched wages of the needle
| are already the shame and sorrow of our own
time" The wages, under the most favorable
crc uinstances OF an5roken health and unfail-
| ing eyesight, range from Sd to 4d per day. AZ
Ter a vivid description of their sufferings, the
Chronicle says-"Society itself is in the field
against these unfortunates" Who does no,
know of Hoods "Song Of the Shirt''7
"Wi,h fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
woman sat IN U .wsmsnly rags,
Plying her needle and thread.
Stitch-stitch-sttchi
In poverty, hunger and dirt.
And still with a voice OF GolOrpus pitch
You'd thai as tones could reach hericf
She sang this song Of the Shirt
But no. This voice never reached the Gnii
sars of these duehesses and coun,esses: IL y
did, with what success Wnere = 1nen piea
| for these distressed needlewomeng where Is
the melioratiou of their conditionf DO they
not know that over work and usder pay are
| among the most active causes OF British female
dishooorf 7 One woman, not duchess. is do
| ipg more 20 relieve this class, by promoting
| emigration, than all the philanthropy Of this