Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-08-25

"Do We hear the children weeping; o, my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years!
They are leaning their young heads against their
And thai cannot stop their tears
o,For. OH say the children, we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap.
five cared for any meadows, it merely
To drop down in them and sleep
our knees tremble Eorey in the STOPPING
we fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids dropping
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, drag our burden firing
ThrO the COal-dark, underground
Or all day. we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round"
The genius of Mrs. Browning has sent this
Cory of the Children" wailing and sobbing
through the world-a protest against the cru
el. splendid civilization of England, that Eng
land will do well to heed. Dickens has told
Ms of the "moving- on" of Poor joe" that
most pathetic of all death-scenes, when the
neglected boy murmurs for the first and last
time "Our Father" and dies in saying "ah,
that's reyy good, sir!" and Dickens, with a
burst of feeling, exclaims Dead your Ma
iestv! Dead, my Lords and Gentlemen!
Dead, Right-Reverends and Wrong Rever-
ends of every order, and dying thus around us
every day." Sidney Smith, in one of his es-
saws, tells us of the horrible condition of the
chimney sweepers, and how through freezing
and burning, and sufocation, these young
martyrs escape from the atrocious tyranny
wherewth society brushes them UNDECIDED in
its path The wrongs of children have been
brought before Parliament time and again.
of children in mines and factories, in. close,
ill-ventiated work-shops, in vile dens mis-
named 'homes " Year after year, these
dreadful evils have been made public, and
apparently with little effect, to Judge from a
recent report presented to Parliament by
commission 'on the employment of chill
dren" The same brilliant civilization rolls
on, crushing the little ones beneath its wheels.
This commission reports upon potteries, lu-
offer match factories, percussion cap tacto-
ries, lace and hosiery, paper-staining and
fustian-cutting works. 1t says
SIN Statfordshire alone IL 900 children are
employed in the potteres. These poor crca-
lures work from twelve to fifteen hours each
day. in an atmosphere intolerable by reason
of dust heat and ill ventilation, some of the
places ranging in temperature from one hun
dred and twenty-siX to one hundred and forty
eight degrees. The results are deplorable,
and seem to have affected large part of the
population The medical evidence on the
condition of the potters, asserts that, 'as a
rule they are stunted, ill-shaped, and fire.
quently Informed in the chest. They become
prematurey old, are short-lived, and espe
cially prone to chest disease, pneumonia,
phthisis and asthma. Scrofula is disease
of two thirds more Each generation,
mr. 6v-or I
and less robust, and but for their occasional
intermarriage with strangers, this deteriora-
ton would proceed more rapidly
In other branches of business there are the
same deplorable results from excessive hours
of work, over-crowdng, andill-ventilatlon o
the work rooms.
- Se.>treo+ uveu improved since Sidne
Smith made their wrongs public, (apparentl
in vain,) and any grand dinner given in Eng
land to-day may have been at the expense @
some burned or sutfocated child, and ill-treat
ment and cruelty toward these miserable littl
wretches still seems to be the rule in ''merr
England"
This narrowing report thus tells of the con
dition of children in the luuifer-match facto
ries -
A girl apparently about fourteen, employ.
ed in factory in Bethnal Green, ''does not
know how Old she is; never was at school in
her life; does not know a letter; never went
to church or chapel never heard of Eng.
land or London, or the sea or ships; never
heard of God does not know what He does
does not know whether it is better to be gooc
or bad" Another girl, aged sixteen, employed
in Camberwell, 'has not been to school more
than once or twice on a weekday in her life
and three or four times on a Sunday-ha.
been once to church and once to a chapel il
her life. Has never heard any preacher Oh
any one praying anywhere else. Does no
know what the Bible Is; has never heard o
it; does not know that it is a book; She,
sure. Never was taught any prayers" A boy
aged twelve, at work in Norwich, event to an
infant school, but has never been to any other
Never heard any one preach or pray in hi.
life. Has never heard of a Christian; doe,
not know whether he is one or not, or wha
being christianed or baptized is. Never hearC
of the gospel or Jesus Christ, or knew wheth.
er he was man; is sure he can't tell" An
other boy at Norwich, aged thirteen, ''has
only been in church chapel once in his
lite. Might have heard of Jesus Christ bu
torgets." third boy at Norwich, aged ten
''went to church a good while ago, and hearC
a preacher. Does not know anything of the
Bible, or the gospel, or Jesus Christ, or Chris
tians. Thinks he is Christian. When peo-
pie die, they come to dust;' their sould
sometimes comes to angels but he 'aint
heard of nobody Them what don't pray
don't? boy at Newcastle, aged seven =
when people die they gang to Jesus if
they are bad they do the same. It's the same
to be good as bad"
And this in great, rich, proud England
this in that dazzling, magnificent civilization
that boasts itself preeminent in the world!
"Have ye founded your thrones and affairs, then
On the bodies and souls Of living men?
And think ye that building shall endure
Which shelters the noble and brushes the poor?n
These terrible contrasts of condition mark
the weakness and insecurity of government
and the gulf that yawns wider and wider be
tween the'' dangerous" and the ''prvlleged
classes shall at last be filled up by the casting
in of the very institutions that have created
it. Humanity is greater than privilege, anC
the throne, founded on injustice and corrup
ton, shall toppe at last, however virtuously
filed.
See how the tender germ breaks the hard
est earth clods, and the green shoot finds its
way to the light. See how few grains nj
powder rend the rock that ages have CONSOLE
rod