A ease which occurred in a neighbouring county last week,
has re- minded us of the claims of the Squire-Magistrates on public attention. It was an appeal with regard to the licence of a public-house. The Bench divided ; when there appeared to be five (of these three were M. P.s for the county) for the granting of the licence, and four against it. The Chairman (a stanch Tory) had not voted; and the remaik was xnade, "that Chairmen did not generally vote except when required to aive a casting-vote." The Chairman replied, "that Ile should not have voted had not this remark been made, but that he now would vote and establish a precedent." The consequence was, that the numbers being thus made five on each side, the case was adjourned to the next Sessions ; rot, as it will be obvious, in consequence of any doubt as to the merits of the case, but owing to the wilfulness of the Chairman, who stated that, bad it not been remarked that it was usual for a Chairman not to vote except in giving a casting-vote, he should not have voted.—Deeen- port Independent. We copied last week, from a Manchester paper, an account of the treatment of sixteen men, women, and children, who were said to have been sent by the officers of a parish in Buckinghamshire to Manchester without any provision for their subsistence or employment. We warned (rat readers that the statement was ex parte ; and it appears to have bevn incorrect. The Globe says- " From some correspondence from Manchester we learn, that the case has lpesri investigated. It appears that out of eighteen individuals sent to Mr. Waterhouse, the manufacturer whose treatment of them was described as so un- feeling, (not by tlr., Poor-law Commissioners, but by the parish-officers, at the'r own instance,) only seven were of the legal age for employment. But it appc.rs that en r n under these circumstances, one family was offered 17s. and and the other 22s. a week wages; the usual wages in the parish from which they migrated being from 10s. to I2s. at the utmost. The engagements which these paupers were offered were only for the first year : they would have re- ceived an increa,e of wages after the first year; they would also have received, from the first, house-room, coals, and washing free. With the increased wages they were not satisfied, because, in ignorance of the description of hands wanted, they had been promised more. They were not content to wait until cottages could he prepared for their reception ; and the employer, Mr. Waterhouse, was compelled to discharge them. With the pauperized habits of too many of the Southern labourers, they at once appealed to the Magistrates, with the view of obtaining their intervention. No blame -whatsoever attaches to the manufac- turer : if blame attaches anywhere, it is to those who sent them without a pro-. per knowledge of the description of bands who are wanted. Both families pre- ferred seeking work where they are, to returning to Buckinghamshire."
The carpet trade of Kidderminster partakes of the briskness and welldoing which are stated to attend on the manufacturing interests of the kingdom generally at the present time. Not only, we are told, is every factory in full work, but the masters have a difficulty in obtaining a sufficient number of bands to execute in due time the extensive orders that are pressing upon them.— Worcester Herald.
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