The Daily Papers have been fano. their columns (Wring the
past week; in the absence of the usual supply of news from Ant- werp and Oporto, with' extracts from the evidence taken before the Committee of the House of Commons on the Factories Bill. It is -4 to be hoped that we have the worst cases brought before us. They are indeed sufficiently horrible .and must render the
4, necessity of legislative interference in behalf Of the sufferers evi- dent to the minds of all but the most brutal. We have -seldom read any thing more distressing than the .accounts of the labour and sufferings which the children -are- made to undergo even in
v. some of-our best-regulated factories. It 'is clear that these poor little creatures have no natural protectors. The Legislature -there- fore must step in to guard them against the intolerable exaction's of their too often worthless parents and unfeeling taskmasters.
-4 A limit must be fixed by law to the age at which the employment of children in factories shoulg,cemmence, apd to the number of hours each day during which they should be forced to work; Any interference further than this should be discountenanced. It 11 is a most difficult subject to legislate upon We trust,' heweter,,' that the Reformed Parliament will be found to contain many men
A of business,: and of liumanity.alse, wird-Will know 'how' far they I can interfere with effect and without injury to the fair interests
A of any of the parties concerned.
Previous page
