The Sun. — 1844-08-27 (London, England)

PUBLIC JOURNALS.  FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.  GLOBE.—Are the slop-sellers of the metropolis alike destitute of the feelings of humanity, the sense of shame, and the consciousness of responsibility ? The fearful results of their grinding cupidity have been often exhibited, and their cruelty denounced. The Press has frequently brought before the public eye the sad scenes of privatiori, verging on starvation, caused by the miserable wages they pay to their wretched workwomen. The lingering death endured by many of these poor creatures—who, faint, from hunger, fatigue, and suffering, ply the needle through the greater part of the night, unable to procure sustenance by unintermitting toil during the day—has been represented in the homely phrase of prose, and in the more affecting appeals of verse. Hood's " Song of the Shirt " will perpetuate, for it faithfully portrays, the sufferings of this wretched class of the most helpless of the sex. Their weakness and woes would appeal to the sympathies of their employers—if they were men. If shame were capable of moving them to virtue they would, ere this, have convened a public meeting of their trade and pledged themselves to each other and to the public, that an advance upon their scandalously low rates of wages fur the making-up of the shirts, trousers, and other articles of dress, in the sewing together of which large numbers of females are daily and nightly employed, should take place. And if humanity and shame had ceased to operate, the denunciations of Heaven against those who " grind the face of the poor, and afflict the soul of the needy," might awake those apprehensions of future retribution against which the most obdurate are not altogether proof. But these considerations seem incapable of moving the slop-sellers. Their poor workwomen ,are ground to the dust, and are even pressed out of life, by the operation of the system of competition which this class of traders persist in carrying- on against each other. The profits they acquire are wrung from the vitality of the poor needle-women, who starve, while they " fare sumptuously every day." Another of these terrible examples is before us. A fine young woman, industrious and virtuous, unable to support life upon the wages of shirtmaking, and shrinking from the alternative which lures but to inflict upon its victims a deeper depth of misery, has been impelled to suicide. A double suicide was only prevented by the timely arrival of a labouring man, who, on his way to work, was attracted to the spot by a shriek, and succeeded in rescuing from death a sister of the wretched girl. They had agreed to terminate their miserable existence together by drowning. The survivor told the sad tale of their mutual struggles to :sustain life by their unintermitting toils, and of the horrid conclusion to which they came to terminate an existence which to them was alike destitute of inducement, in the shape of possession, or of promise, to prolong it. The Coroner's inquest commenced its inquiry into the cause of the death of the poor suicide on Friday, and closed it yesterday. The name of the deceased girl was Eliza Kendall—her age nineteen—the mode of death was drowning—the place selected for the act a ecluded spot on the Surrey Canal The jury marked its sense of the cause which led to the catastrophe by the verdict it returned upon the evidence :—" That the deceased committed suicide whilst labouring under a fit of insanity ; and the jury cannot but deprecate the cruel practice of the slopsellers in London, of employing young females at needlework at so low a rate of wages as to preclude the possibility of a subsistence." This was, in fact, a verdict of wilful murder against the system by which "the slop' sellers in London" manage their business. The manifest tendency of this system is the destruction of life. To reduce the prices of shirt7making to five farthings each,is —we will not mince the matter- -to consign the poor creatures who are condemned to toil for such a pittance to starvation. The appropriate designation of such cruelty is murder. Rent—food—clothes—firing— candles (for toil by night)—and all these out of sewing the materials of shirts together at five farthings each ! Those who think the thing consistent with the sustentation of life deserve to be undeceived, by being subjected to the experiment. Human legislation cannot prevent the horrible state of things. But public opinion can express its sense of the enormity ; and the public Press can, and will, utter its thunders against it, and against those who pocket the gains derived from human misery.