tbr Country.
Mr. G. II. Cavendish and Mr. Gisborne dined with their constie tuents of North Derbyshire' on Wednesday week. Both gentlemen delivered very liberal speeches; avowing their determiliation to take every opportunity of resisting the Tory Ministry, and to vote against the Ministerial candidate for the Speakership, as being the first step to he taken.
At a meeting of the members of the South Lancashire Conservative Association, held on Friday, at Newton, nearly two buralred gentlemen were enrolled as members ; and measures were adopted in furtherance of the proposed plan of erecting a spacious building for the meetings of the association.—Lceds latelligencer.
At Leeds, an election ball in honour of the return of Sir J. Beckett,- was given on Wednesday week, at the Leeds Assembly Rooms, ins connexion with the White Cloth Halls and the suite of rooms at the Music Hall, including the concert-rooms and the exhibition galleries of the Royal Northern Society of Paintings. Time number of tickets sold was nearly 3001); and amongst the purchasers were most of the
leading Tory families of the county, particularly of the town and neighbourhood of Leeds. The Cloth Hull was formed into a magni. ficent promenade, seventy yards in length, brilliantly illuminated, in which refreshments were provided in abundance. This splendid pro- menet& conducted to another ball-room sixty yards in length.
The mill.owners and their operatives in the woollen district are be- coming alive to the great importance of taking immediate measures
to obtain such an amendment of the Factory Act as will enable them to continue the working of their mills. After the 1st of March next, it will be unlawful to work any child under twelve years of age more than eight hours per day, in any woollen, worsted, flax, or cotton mill.
In many places it is already found difficult to obtain a sufficient number of children for the mills, owing to the restriction in the Act, prevent-
ing children under eleven years from working more than eight hours. The effect of this has everywhere been to prevent the employment of such children altogether; as it is found impossible to work with relays
of children, or to provide for their education in the way prescribed by the Act. On the 1st of next month, that very numerous class of children between eleven and twelve years of age, amounting to many thousands, will have to be dismissed from their employment, if the Act is put into effect. The consequence will be, that the children will be turned idle upon the streets to learn vagabond habits ; that the families to whom they belong will lose a considerable part of their weekly income ; that both parents and children will be pinched for food and clothing; and that the mill-owners must stop their mills, as it) most places it will be impossible to obtain a sufficient number of children
above twelve years of age. It is now the almost universal opinion both of the mill-owners and the operatives in the woollen district, that an Eleven Hours Bill, i. e. a bill restricting the labour to eleven hours a day, and not allowing children under ten years to work those hours, would be most conducive to the interests and happiness of all parties, including the children themselves.—Leeds Mercury.
A gang of poachers attacked the game and the keepers of the Ho- nourable Henry Moreton at Lasborough, in Gloucestershire, yesterday week early in the morning. The poachers were about twenty-five in number. They beat the keepers and others who resisted them ; but were filially driven off by a party of gentlemen who were going out coursing, and who took about twelve prisoners. Some of the keepers are not considered out of danger from the wounds they received in the scuffle.
Several of Lord Monson's sporting-dogs, worth about 100/., have lately been poisoned in the neighbourhood of Reigate. The Methodists of Leeds have scarcely completed a new chapel, which cost them 4500/., and every shilling of which is subscribed, leav- ing a handsome surplus, when they have undertaken a similar erection
in Park Lane, upon a very eligible site, towards the cost of which a 'era sum is already subscribed. Simultaneously with the building of other chapels, a subscription (which already amounts to near 1,5000 is in progress in Leeds, for a new and enlarged chapel, by the congre- gation of Dissenters of the Independent persuasion, under the pastoral charge of the Reverend Richard Winter flamilton.—Leeds Mercury.
The barns and stabling of Mr. Lovegrove at Reading were set fire to early on Thursday morning. Thirty horses were burnt in the stables. The total loss is estimated at between WOO/. and 40001.
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