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SLAVERY IN ENGLAND.—REM:'py.

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SLAVERY IN ENGLAND.—REM:'py. THERE was a conversation in the House of Lords, last Friday, regarding the employment of children and women in collieries and factories, which seems to call for a some- what more lengthened notice than has been allotted to it, in the digest of the debate copied into our columns. For this reason we supply the subioibed i-enort The Bishop of NORWICH presented live petitions from the coal-mining districts of the north of England, praying tor some legislative enactment to prevent the employ- ment of children and females in coal-mines. His lord- ship dwelt upon the demoralising effect of the employ- ment of females in the coal-mines, and stated that such was the character of the women who had been so engaged, that the colliers actually refused to take wives from among them. Earl FITZWILLIAM admitted the evil, but saw the danger of restricting such labour, and hoped that their lordships would legislate on this subject with the greatest care and caution for the same objection might be raised to many other employments in which females were engaged. He (Lord Fitzwilliam) was disposed to think that the evils complained of were of a local character. Indeed he knew that they did not exist in those districts with which he was acquainted. He trusted that before they legislated on the subject of the employment of children in cc".l ir.i: tV.cv would take a comprehensive view of the effect that their" legislation would have on the employment of young persons in every ofmr Vc.-wh of industry. (Hear, hear.) The Marquis of Los DOSTDERRY said, that in none of the mines on the Tyne and Weir were any females employed. It was true that boys were employed, but they were I not chained together. Earl FITZWILLIAM said, that from the speech of his right lion, friend it might go abroad that the females were chained. The fact was, that the chain was used for drawing the vehicle in which the coal was placed. Why was not the commission extended to children in agricul- tural districts ? The boys in collieries generally had a better sustenance than the agricultural labourers. The Bishop of NORWICH said the chains were fastened round the waists of the females, and passed through their leg-s, In which way they drew the harry." The Earl of WINCIIILSEA said, that there was no com- parison between the occupation of children in agricul- tural districts and manufactories, although he agreed the commission ought to be extended to all classes. The noble earl then presented a petition against the long hours in factories. Earl FITZWILLIAM did not think there was the slightest moral superiority in the agricultural over the manufacturing districts. There was no need of a fresh commission to knoiv the state of the children in the factories; and he hoped the inhabitants of those districts who were happily exempt from those evils would not be deterred, by remarks in either houses of Parliament, from expressing their opinions on the subject. The mortality in manufacturing districts was beyond comparison. The parents wsre incapacitated from exercising that proper control over their children which was necessary, and he thought the legislature should interfere. The advantages in the agricultural districts over those in the factories was very great. Earl FITZWILLTAM said, that if there were any moral or spiritual inferiority among-st the poor of the countrv. he must say that tiie Church was to blame for it. The pro- position which he maintained was, that neither agricul- ture nor manufactures necessarily pre-disposes to vice. That "neither agriculture nor manufactures necessarily predispose to vice," is a position, perhaps, few persons will attempt to controvert; but, that manufactures as they are, and not as they might be, do not exempt those per- sons employed in them from demoralization, admits not of the shadow of a doubt. We have, on this point, the results of actual experience and the evidence of facts. It is, however, we are disposed to think, less from manufac- turers themselves, than from the injustice, which, under the present system, is done them, that so many frightful .evils flow. The Bishop of London, it will be seen, rely- ing on the fact that the mortality in manufacturing dis- tricts is higher than in agricultural ones somewhat pre- cipitately, we think, assumed that manufacturers were the cause of such increased mortality,—the Right Rev. Prelate less logically than humanely perhaps, jumped to the propter 7ior post hue conclusion. Be this as it may, the manufacturing population of this country appears to re- quire protection of some sort-but whether that protec- tion ought to proceed from Facto-y bills and legislation for the direct purpc.sc of stepping in between the employ ed and the emnloyer, er that we must look for the only lasting and efficient check to vice and misery in the revi- sion of our entire commercial and agricultural code, is a question which we shall not now attempt to determine. In our fourth page will be found some portion of the first Report of the Commissioners appointed under the Great Seal for inquiring into the employment and condition of children in mines and manufactories, just presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of her Majesty. This commission was appointed by the Queen on the 20th of October, 1840. and is dated 21st April, 1812. It is ad- dressed to her Majesty Queen Victoria, and contains a variety of woodcuts, illustrative of the horrible and degrad- ing labours to which too many of the unfortunate children employed in coal mines, &c.,appear to be subjected. One of these woodcuts represents a child dragging a small wag- gon full of coal on all fours, just like a beast of burden, and in a state of nudity To the naked persons of these chil- dren is buckled abroad leathern strap, to which is attached in front a rine and about four feet of chain, terminating in a hook! Other woodcuts represent children pushing the waggons forward, and apparentlv using the severest exer- tions to accomplish their task. Almost all of them arc more than half naked; and it appears that, in the district of Halifax, these wretched beine-s work perfectly naked, in low. dark, heated, and dismal chambers! In speaking of these children, or.e of the sub-commissioners tates I can never forget the first unfortunate creature (of this class) that I met with: it was a boy of about eight years old, who looked at me as I passed through with an expression of countenance the most abject and idiotic -like a thing, a creeping thing, peculiar to the place. On approaching and speaking to him, he slunk, trembling and frightened, into a corner, under the impression that I was about to do him some bodily injury, and from which neither coaxing nor temptation would draw him out."— We beg it to he understood that in our cursory notice of the sort of s lavery which exists in England, we have no disposition to create a spurious sympathy by dealing in those exaggerations which are commonly resorted to by those writers who are less careful of trllth than anxious to "point a moral and adorn a tale." And we yet more dis- tinctly disclaim the design of instituting an invidious comparison between the two great classes into which em- ployers may be divided. The demoralization of manu- facturing districts w- know is the rage of the day. But supposing that the alleged vice and cruelty prevail (which happily they do not) throughout the entire manufacturing parts of the United Kingdom, a wise man as well as a good man we think will rather apply himsrlf to discover the cause of the evil than pharisaically stand afar off hllg- ging himself in the comforting conviction that lIe and his bucolic friends are not like the friends of commerce called into newspaper-life by Mr. Ferrand. It is something worse than idle to pit one class of employers against another. Let' our agricultural friends—at least such of them as like catch-words better than reasoning—let them talk as they may about "Devil's dust," the conI ni r),l sense view of the matter is such as we have faintly shadowed forth. For the rest every bodv of course  shadowed forth. For the rest everv bodv of course knows that with respect to the condition of all people whether living in manufacturing towns or in agricultural villages, poverty produces vice as well as misery; and in order to make a proper moral, and at the same time to protect them from those abuses of power, and that cruelty the ex- istence of whi-h the Right Rev. Prelates noticed last Friday in the Lords we must raise their condition. Let a stcacly demand for labour be created—let it he rendered as constant as good laws can make it, and we shall find that vice on the one side and oppression on the other have both been nearly lost sight of—Want banished, Virtue will spring up—while honest independence and humane consideration will take place of degradation and of cruelty. Legislation cannot render a whole people, without any exception, good and prosperous; but, with the blessing of the Great superintendent of the universe, it can do much in furtherance of a consummation devoutly wished. The experiment has yet to be made.

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