THE COMPANION TO THE NEWSPAPER. No. 8. TO BE CONTINUED MONTHLY. AUGUST 1, 1833. Portugal-Don Pedro and Don CONTENTS. PAGK Scotch Burgh Reform F. 113 Factories Inquiry 116 Miguel. Public Petitions. 119 121 123. Abstracts of Parliamentary SCOTCH BURGH REFORM. PAGE 124 128 Two bills, brought in by the Lord Advocate, have just passed the House of Commons, which, when they shall become the law of the land, will effect, in some respects, a greater change in the political state of that division of the empire to which they apply than has been effected even by the Reform Act itself. We allude to the bills respecting the election of Magistrates and Councils in the Royal Burghs of Scotland, and in the other burghs and towns of that part of the island, which now return, or contribute to return, members to parliament. Price 2d. posed to bring forward in the House of Commons; and a select committee of that House was appointed to take the subject into consideration. That committee made its report in 1793; but here the matter dropt. The war with France drew off attention from all questions of domestic policy; and the alarm excited by the progress of the Revolution in that country made the very name of reform or change unpopular in this. The agitation of the subject was not resumed till some time after the termination of the war; nor was it till the year 1819 that it was again formally brought before parliament. On the 6th of May that year the late Lord Archibald Hamilton moved in the House of Commons for a select committee to examine the allegations of the numerous petitions which had been previously presented, complaining of the existing system of government in the burghs; and although he was opposed by Mr. Canning and the ministers, he carried his motion by a majority of 149 to 144. The committee produced a voluminous report the same session; and, having been permitted to resume their labours in 1820, followed it by another that year, both strongly confirmatory of the statements and views of the petitioners. Before the passing of the act for the reform of parlia- In 1821 a new committee was appointed, by whom a third ment, Scotland could hardly be said to have a constitution at report was produced; and on the 20th of February in the all. The people generally had no political rights whatever, following year Lord Archibald Hamilton moved that the no share in the election of their legislators and governors, subject should be taken into consideration in a committee no power of influencing the conduct of public affairs, any of the whole House. The motion, however, was negatived more than the cattle that grazed, or the trees that grew, in on the division by a majority of 35 in a very thin House,the fields. The elective franchise was wholly in the pos- only 46 voting for it and 81 against it. Soon after, in the session of a mere handful of individuals, not amounting to course of the same session, the Lord Advocate brought in a much more than one five hundredth part of the population. bill, which passed both Houses, restricting to a certain exIf this was a constitution, it was one in which the democratic tent the powers hitherto exercised by the magistrates in the element was altogether wanting. Still, there were circum-expenditure of the burgh funds, but not touching the exstances which, even under this vicious arrangement, pre-isting system in any other respect. And this is all that has served to public opinion some controul over the conduct of been done in the matter up to the introduction of the present the parliamentary representatives of the country. First, bills. there was the usual protection arising from the division of parties in the state. Secondly, there was the publicity of parliamentary proceedings. And lastly, and principally, there was the nearly complete identification of the interests of the country, and of its government and public concerns, with those of another country enjoying so comparatively free a constitution as England. On these accounts the Reform Bill, although it may be said to have given for the first time a free constitution to Scotland, and could not therefore fail to change the whole aspect of things almost as if a new sun had appeared in the heavens, nevertheless did not bring with it that feeling of entire regeneration which, in different circumstances, might have been expected to attend the sudden endowment of a whole people with the gift of a political existence. The restoration of a free constitution to the burghs, although apparently a far lower as well as more limited reform, will probably occasion a greater immediate stir and renovation. This will be to let in the light where all has hitherto been impenetrable darkness,-to bring under the popular control what has, up to this time, been almost as independent of public opinion as the movements of the planets. The details which we are about to present will sufficiently prove that we do not exaggerate in thus expressing ourselves. The Royal Burghs of Scotland are sixty-six in number, all having charters older at least than the year 1707, when the Act of Union was passed, which declared that their number should never be either increased or diminished. The antiquity of some of them reaches, we believe, to the eleventh century. The reform of the constitution of these corporations has been loudly demanded by the public voice for nearly half a century. The subject was taken up about the year 1787, by the burgesses, or freemen, who appointed delegates to proceed to London, and to manage an application to parliament in their behalf, A bill was even prepared which it was proVOL. I. In one most material respect, however, the act for the reform of the representation has anticipated the object of burgh reform. Till that act was passed, the election of the members for the burghs was wholly in the hands of the magistrates and councils, the general body of the inhabitants having nowhere anything whatever to say in the matter. That is now altered; and one consequence is, that burgh reform becomes a question to be considered by itself, and not, as before, chiefly in reference to another and a more important question. The grand argument against the reform of the burghs used to be, that it would be in effect a reform of parliament. Mr. Canning employed no other in opposing Lord Archibald Hamilton's motion in 1819. Those, therefore, by whom the proposition was brought forward, were always wont to be vehement in their protestations that they had really no such ultimate object as was thus imputed to them; but, with all their pains, they could not disprove or dispute the fact, that the tendency and effect of the measure would be what was asserted. From all this difficulty and embarrassment they are now relieved, and the question comes to be, simply, whether or no the right government of the burghs themselves requires that a new constitution should be given to them. Originally the magistrates and councils in the Scotch royal burghs appear to have been elected annually by the votes of the burgesses, or of the whole community. But in the year 1469, an act was passed by the parliament, which entirely abrogated this free constitution, by declaring that for the future the votes of the burgesses or community should not be taken at all, but that at the end of every year the old council should elect the new. By another act passed in 1474, it was further ordered, that four of the persons composing the new council should be always selected from the old one. Upon these two acts is founded the practice of election which now universally prevails. The particular mode, however, in which the principle of (WILLIAM CLOWxs, Printer, Duke Street, Lambeth.] I self election is carried into execution, varies a good deal in [ the different burghs. The committee of 1793 state, that in thirteen burghs the majority of the council either may or must be continued without change or re-election; that in one, half the council are continued without election, and there is no restriction against re-electing the majority of the remainder; that in two, one less than the half of the council is continued, and that with that number a majority of the council may be re-elected; that in thirty-four the council, or a part of the council, elect the majority of the new council, without there being any restrictions in the sett, (or constitution,) against their re-electing a majority of themselves; and that in four, the old council elect the new, but a majority of the counsellors for the ensuing year must be different persons. The setts, it is remarked, appear in several cases to have been framed by the Town Councils themselves, while, in other places, the modes of election rest on no other authority than usage. The new mode of election introduced in 1469, although designed, as expressed in the act, to get rid of the great contention yearly occasioned "through multitude and clamour of commons, simple persons,' was not attended with the tranquillity and contentment which it had been expected to secure. On the contrary, it not only led to multiplied abuses in the government of the burghs, but produced, as their natural consequence, a dissatisfaction in the community generally, which repeatedly vented itself in attempts to bring about a restoration of the old order of things. Complaints were constantly made both to the parliament and to the convention, or meeting of delegates from the several towncouncils, held every year at Edinburgh. The committee of 1793 sum up the result of their inquiries, by stating that, from a very early period after the year 1469, "the administration of the affairs of the royal burghs appears to have been matter of great and frequent complaint in several of the royal burghs, as repeatedly declared by the parliament and by the executive government of Scotland, by the Claim of Rights, by supplications of individual burghs to the general convention, and by the acts of the general convention itself; that the principle of election introduced by that statute still continues to act universally, or almost universally, in the royal burghs, although with respect to the particular modifications of that principle, and the various ways in which it has been carried into effect, the modes of election in the burghs appear to be widely different, to depend on no certain or uniform authority, and to be maintained in direct contradiction to the clauses of election in a great majority of the charters; that taxes have been imposed without the authority of parliament, and greater sums levied in the name of, or together with the land-tax, than what is paid to government, and the expense of collecting taken together; and that the powers exercised by the town-councils, before the Union, of contracting debts, disposing of the common revenues, and alienating the common property and common lands of the burghs at their pleasure, remain unaltered and undiminished." of the office-bearers of the corporation were possessed, as trustees, of lands destined for charitable purposes, almost all of which appear to have been sold by order of the magistrates and council, not from any want of money on the part of these charities, but that the price might be lent to the treasurer, to supply the expensive speculations of the magistrates. All these office-bearers are now creditors of the town, to the amount of 68,1347. 178., for such charities as are under the sole control and management of the_magistrates and council, and to the amount of 12,3677. 78. 8d. for those of which they are only joint trustees. Mr. Hardie, the chamberlain, states, that there is not one charitable institution under the management of the town council, whose funds have not been lent to the treasurer, and involved in the town's insolvency; and these charities now receive only 4 per cent. interest, with but a distant prospect of being repaid the principal." The disgraceful transactions which were thus brought to light, excited throughout the country a feeling of no small alarm as well as of indignation; for, according to the law as it then stood, it was generally held, that in case of the magistrates being unable to fulfil their engagements from the property of the burgh, the burgesses, although without a voice in the management which had produced such a result, were liable to be called on to make good the deficiency. It has since, indeed, been declared by the act passed in 1822, that that liability shall no longer exist,-— although it is certain that the creditors of the burghs had very generally lent their money in the confidence of possessing such an ultimate security. The announcement of the insolvency of Aberdeen awakened the citizens of Edinburgh, in particular, to extreme apprehension respecting the financial concerns of that burgh, which had been for some time suspected to be not in the best condition. They were indeed in a state sufficiently awkward and alarming. In 1817, it appeared, according to accounts submitted to the committee of 1819 by the magistrates themselves, that the deficiency of the revenue, as compared with the expenditure, had been above 16,000. In 1818, the deficiency had been 18,2427. In 1819, the amount of debt owing by the burgh was 497,1017.; the total value of the then available property belonging to it, being, by the magistrates' own estimate, only 158,7657. Adding what might in course of time become available, but which could not be counted upon with any certainty, the total amount would only be 181,772. On the whole, after disposing of whatever could be sold to pay off so much of the debt, and paying interest for the remainder, it appeared that, by the most favourable calculation, there would remain to the city a net revenue of only about 11,000l., while the absolutely necessary expenditure amounted annually to above 14,000l. * No book," says the committee," exhibiting an account of the debts of the city, or of its property, or of its net revenue, or of the necessary annual charges on the revenue, or of the comparative amount of annual expenditure and reAn order was made in 1789 for an account of the revenue venue, has ever been kept; nor has there ever been any of each burgh for the preceding year. No returns to this attempt to make up an account of the state of the city's order were made by two of the burghs, Pittenween and West affairs, till, in December, 1817, the present Lord Provost Anstruther; but of the remaining sixty-four the gross re- thought fit to direct the statements which have been laid venue appeared to be somewhat above 47,000l. No more before your committee to be prepared by the accomptant, as recent account has fallen under our notice; but, notwith- it appears, for his private information. * * Neverstanding much waste and alienation which have since taken theless, the Lord Provost being asked by your committee place, there can be little doubt that the increased value of what he considered the state of the city of Edinburgh's property has now considerably augmented this amount of affairs? answered, Decidedly favourable; and it is certain annual income. In 1817 the net revenue of Edinburgh that he took no measures to diminish the expenditure; and alone had risen to 39,2007.; and that of Glasgow and of most that he never communicated that document to the town of the other large towns must also have greatly increased. council, or called their attention to the result. On the conWhile their resources have thus been improving, however, trary, when a motion was made by Deacon Paterson, in the so wretched has been the mismanagement resulting from the council, soon after Michaelmas, 1818, that a statement of close and irresponsible system on which the government of the funds of the city should be laid before the council, the these burghs has been hitherto conducted, that several of Lord Provost joined in opposing it, and the motion was lost them are now in a state of insolvency. The debt of the town by a majority of 21 or 22 to 3. It appears from the Lord of Aberdeen did not, in 1789, amount to 12,000l. In 1817 Provost's evidence that during the last eighteen months a the annual interest alone had risen nearly to that sum-the series of motions in succession, and protests in succession, debt itself being somewhat above 230,000l. In the month were made by Deacon Paterson and others; but no stateof February of that year the treasurer found himself obliged ment of the city's affairs was laid before the council; for to make a public declaration that the town was bankrupt. which the Lord Provost has in his evidence assigned as 'a This event, and the investigations with which it was ne- reason, that he did not consider it his duty merely to cessarily followed, led to some disclosures curiously illus-gratify Deacon Paterson.' trative of the conduct of self-elected town councils. As a To this curious exposition it only remains to be added, specimen we quote the following statement from the report that notwithstanding the "decidedly favourable" state in of the committee of the House of Commons, which sat in which, according to the Lord Provost, the city's affairs were 1819. "Previous to the insolvency of the burgh, several in 1817, the magistrates, we understand, have within these few months been deliberating whether they should not follow the example of Aberdeen, and make a declaration of insolvency. Now where has all this money gone? Here is a sum amounting to within a few pounds of half a million sterling, which has been borrowed, all probably in the course of the last fifty or sixty years by this single burgh, and expended in addition to its large ordinary revenue. Who have chiefly received the benefit of all this extravagance? A glance at the mode in which the successive town councils and officebearers of the corporation have been elected answers the question. The magistracy of one year has been regularly and unvaryingly the mere representative and locum-tenens of that of the preceding. The burgh has thus been all along in the hands of the same little knot of individuals or of families, who accordingly could hardly have been expected to look upon it in any other light than as a sort of private estate. Indeed they have exercised over its funds and revenues nearly all the rights which they could have exercised over their own property, and with fully as little responsibility. They have not only loaded the estate with an immense amount of debt, but they have sold and alienated such portions of it as they chose. And as to the expenditure of the income, they have merely applied it to any object they thought fit, without considering themselves accountable to anybody. allow him value at the end of the lease. When they reduced the rent 25 per cent., did they make any deduction from the allowance they made to him for planting?-None; they only draw from that land, now, thirty shillings an acre, while they continue to give him 47. an acre for the barren parts which have been planted. Are there any other instances?-There is another very strong instance which I have also here; Baillie Scotland is tenant of a considerable part of the town's lands; he subset them very soon after he took them, and in the year 1816, while he was deriving a considerable surplus revenue from the lands, on the very day that Baillie Beveridge applied for a reduction, Baillie Scotland made a verbal application for a reduction of his rent also; and the town-council, without any more consideration of the mat ter, granted him an abatement of 25 per cent.; at that time, by his own admission, he was deriving a considerable surplus from subsets. He was a member of council?—Yes. Was he likewise related to the Provost ?-He is married to the Provost's niece." Any thing of the kind richer than this is not to be desired. We have, however, to bring forward an instance of dexterity in the application of the principle of self-election which probably outdoes anything that has been attempted either by the Dunfermline town-council or by any other. Indeed it deserves rather to be described as an improvement of the machinery which has more than doubled its efficacy. Its conception is due to the inventive genius of the rulers of another burgh in Fife, a county which, although only one of thirtythree, and but of moderate dimensions, contains no fewer than thirteen, or about a fifth of the whole number of burghs, and may therefore claim to be designated the Cornwall of Scotland. The burgh in question is Cupar; and we will give from the evidence appended to the report of the Committee of 1820, the description of the very curious mode in which the annual election of the magistrates and council was then wont to be conducted : The following extract from the evidence appended to the report of the committee of 1819, affords an exemplification, too good to be omitted, of the way in which the individuals who have been fortunate enough to be connected with this system have been wont to secure to themselves a share in the good things accruing from it. The witness is speaking of the burgh of Dunfermline in Fife:-"From what sources is the income of the town derived?-From the rents of land, coal, and the common good of the burgh. Have those properties been let by public or by private sale, and the utmost income derived from them by competition?—I believe all "The old council, consisting of thirteen, meet on the the properties have been let by public sale; but many in- Wednesday after Michaelmas, to elect the new council of a stances have occurred where persons in the council have like number. If one or more of the thirteen are absent, taken these at public sale, who have afterwards induced the those who appear proceed to fill up the vacancy by open town council to depart from the conditions of the sale, much vote, the magistrate last in office, or the councillor who has to the disadvantage of the town. Can you state any parti- been longest in the council, being in the chair, and having cular instances where, by such interference of the council, a vote and the casting vote. The thirteen old council the funds of the burgh have been injured or lost?-I can being thus full, they proceed to elect the new council thus, state one very strong instance: the farm of Bellycomur and not by vote, but by beginning at the person whose name Preylands was let by public roup to Baillie David Beveridge, stands first on the roll of the thirteen old councillors, and at a rent of 2617. in 1808. By the articles of roup the asking him to nominate a councillor to succeed him for tenant was allowed to expend to the extent of 6307. in erect- the ensuing year. This he does by naming whom he ing a new steading, and that steading he was bound to chooses. The town clerk then opens the town-house winerect within three years; he was allowed to retain one-half dow, and calls the person's name so elected over the window, of his rent yearly, until that sum should be repaid to him; and desires him to come up to the council-room and take Baillie David Beveridge persuaded the council to depart his seat. This he does; and in the same manner it profrom the articles of the roup; got the town-council to build ceeds, until the whole thirteen have each named one." The the steading themselves; and instead of building one to the two individuals, one of whom thus nominates the other as amount of 6301., they built him a steading which cost nearly his successor, go by the name of joint or neighbour coun1700. For how many years was that lease granted?-cillors; and A electing B one year, B in turn elects A the Nineteen years. Was Baillie Beveridge a member of the next. council at the time?-He was a member of council, and the leader of the party. He also prevailed upon the council to lower his rent for the year 1815, and during the currency of the lease, to 2. per acre (the former rent being 27. 188.), and to grant him a temporary abatement, for the last three years, of 25 per cent.; these two abatements amount annually to 1197. 138. 4d. They have also planted seven acres, one rood, thirty-one falls and seven ells of the farm, for which they allow him at the rate of 47. per acre, which amounts to 297. 16s. Counting the interest on the cost of the steading at 7 per cent., which amounts to 1267. 178. 10d., and the insurance of the steading 1. 5s., the town lose by this lease 167. 2s. 2d., annually, besides deriving no rent whatever from that farm. By the statement which I have made, the town will lose by the end of the lease, in consequence of having departed from the original agreement with Baillie Beveridge, 41902. 16s. 7d.; and if the abatement of 25 per cent., which is only temporarily given, be continued to the end of the lease, and which is by no means unlikely, a further sum of 4191. 6s. 8d. will be lost, besides the interest of the latter sum. Is Baillie Beveridge a relative of the present chief magistrate ?-He is. What profession is he?-He is a farmer. Will you deliver that statement in to the committee?-Yes; the town council have also allowed the Baillie to build a farm servants' house upon the property, for which they have agreed to For some time the committee could not be made exactly to comprehend this singular process, by which the council was in fact divided into thirteen parts, each entirely independent of the rest. It appeared to them that although it might be customary to allow each individual in this manner to nominate or rather to suggest the person who was to succeed him, the thing could only be managed by an understanding upon the part of the majority, that when it came to the vote, they were to support each other's choice. The town-clerk accordingly was asked what happened in case of the council not ratifying any individual member's nomina tion of his successor? The old man, who had spent the greater part of a long life in intimate connection with the system, and to whom its workings must have been all as familiar as any of the most ordinary processes of nature, seems to have been struck with no little surprise at the question. The notion of any member's choice being in the slightest degree interfered with by the rest, he scouted as a mere folly and absurdity, as something inconsistent with the very constitution of things; "They do not ratify it at all;" he replied with contemptuous asperity; "they have no business with it." The pertinacity with which these compacts seem to have been adhered to is very remarkable, and may be taken as another illustration of Milton's assertion as to the "firm concord" of persons engaged in common pursuits which are and that he never knew the council to gain a suit except once. not of the most creditable description. One witness states that he knows only of two instances within the last hundred years in which the practice of joint councillors has been de- Now, is not all this as bad as can be, and do not the facts parted from. According to the Cupar code of honour no we have stated make out a perfectly irresistible argument baseness seems to have been accounted comparable to that for the total abolition of a system of which such have been of breaking through this arrangement on any pretence, or the results? It is impossible to conceive grosser misgofor any reason whatever. If two individuals, who had been vernment than that which these burghs have almost unithus leagued, became personal enemies, they still continued versally exhibited. Generally speaking, there is no part of united as neighbour councillors. It not unfrequently hap- their trust which the magistrates have not abused-no power pened that they were even the leaders or followers of the they have been permitted to exercise which they have not, two opposite parties in the council; but still each usually as far as possible, turned to their own advantage, without considered himself bound to call up his opponent to be his any regard whatever to that of the community. But there successor when he was himself obliged to resign his seat. is nothing in all this at which we are entitled to be surprised. One instance in particular is mentioned, which occurred a When has power, exercised without responsibility, been few years ago, of a member, at a critical moment, when the exercised otherwise than selfishly and mischievously? This continuance of the ascendency of himself and his party, of is the root of the whole evil, and must be put an end to which he was the head, depended upon a single vote, never-before any minor or more partial corrective can be usefully theless holding by the established usage, and nominating to applied. the new council a man who was not only one of the most zealous partisans of the adverse faction, but his personal enemy besides, to whom he had not spoken for ten years. In another case, also of recent occurrence, a challenge which would have led to a duel between the parties if the peace officers had not taken them into custody on the field, is stated to have been the immediate result of a breach of the family compact on the part of one of them. For, so far was the thing wont to be carried, that when either party died, it was considered that his son stept, as a matter of course, into his place in the confederacy, and inherited all his rights and obligations. When there was no son, the dead man's representative was found in any more distant relation, whom it was agreed upon to put forward. Nothing evidently could go beyond this system in its tendency to secure a perpetuity of office to one set of people and their descendants. One of the witnesses examined by the committee, states that his own ancestors or those of his wife had, he believed, sat in the town-council for two hundred years. The effects of the system were such as might have been expected-a thick growth of abuses of all descriptions. The funds of the burgh, in the first place, appear to have been managed in the usual way. One witness, who had been for a short time a member of the council, says--" I moved that an abstract of the income and expenditure of the funds of the burgh should be made out for ten or twelve years; that motion I carried unanimously, and was empowered to employ a clerk to make out the statement; and I also moved that it should be printed and circulated to the inhabitants. I employed a clerk for the purpose, and gave him all the necessary documents for that purpose; but one way or another he was kept back from doing so; one councillor came and took away one book; another councillor came and took away another book, and I fought for the whole of the two years I was in council to get that accomplished, but till this day it never was done." No; they were not such fools as to permit anything of the kind. Print and circulate an account of the income and expenditure of the burgh! They would have thought it as reasonable and proper to submit to the public an account of their yearly gains in their several private capacities. Places so snug as these were accounted of some value, and bore their price in the market. From evidence which was laid before the committee, it appears that a seat in the Town Council of Cupar sold for from thirty to a hundred guineas. Various instances of the completion of the bargain are given, with the names of the parties, and all other particulars. We content ourselves with quoting the judgment of the committee:-"A specific allegation," they say, having been made, that seats in the council of that burgh had frequently been bought and sold, your committee lament to report, that the evidence has fully confirmed this allegation; that these proceedings, so gross and iniquitous in their nature, and so injurious in their effects, have been fully established; nay, even admitted to be true, by the very persons themselves who took part in them, and who were in fact the principal delinquents." The bill brought in by the Lord Advocate to alter and amend the laws for the election of the magistrates and councils of the Scotch royal burghs, restores to those burghs the full amount of that ancient free constitution of which the act of 1469 deprived them. After declaring, by way of preamble, that the right of election " appears to have been originally in certain large classes of the inhabitants of such burghs; by the abrogation of which ancient and wholesome usage, much loss, inconvenience, and discontent have been occasioned," it goes on to enact that in future the electors of the town councils in all such burghs shall be all who are entitled to vote at the election of the member of parliament for the burgh; or, in other words, all the householders within the limits of the burgh who occupy houses rented as high as ten pounds a year. This is the governing provision of the measure; but the bill of course contains many other enactments, regulating the particular manner in which the new principle of election is to be applied. Into a detail of these, however, we cannot at present attempt to enter. The second of the two bills brought in by the learned Lord is intended to meet the case of those burghs and towns of Scotland which, since the passing of the Reform Act, return, or contribute to return, members to parliament, and are not royal burghs. In regard to them, the same principle is adopted as in the case of the others; in all of them the ten pound householders are to elect the town-council. We may give a summary of the other provisions of these two acts when they shall have been passed into laws. FACTORIES INQUIRY. ap THE Central Board of his Majesty's Commissioners The Central Board first states the mode in which the inquiry was conducted : "Four districts were traced out, comprehending the seats of each of the principal branches of manufacture in which any large proportion of infant labour is employed. Two civil commissioners and one medical commissioner were appointed to each district." As a sample of the benefits which the town has been accustomed to derive from being ruled in this way, we may refer to the evidence of one of the witnesses who had been "In relation to the regular hours of labour, it appears an inhabitant of Cupar for twenty-two years. He states, from the evidence, that in Scotland there are two or three that for many years past the town has been engaged in law-factories in which the regular hours of labour do not exceed suits, both before the inferior, and also before the superior from ten to eleven daily, but that in general they are from courts that these lawsuits have generally been occasioned twelve to twelve hours and a half, while in several districts by differences that took place with the people in the town- they are not less than thirteen, The abstract of the evidence first refers to the duration of labour: "It is customary to leave off work on the Saturdays, in | some places one and in others two hours earlier than on the other days; but the time thus lost on Saturday is sometimes made up by working a quarter of an hour later on the other days. "In England, in the north-eastern district, in a few factories, the regular hours of labour do not exceed eleven In general, both at Leicester and Nottingham, they are not less than twelve. Eleven hours is called a day at Leeds; but it is seldom that in this district the hours are really less than twelve, while occasionally they are thirteen. In Manchester the regular hours of work are twelve. There are many places in the western district, as at Coventry and Birmingham, in which the regular hours of labour do not exceed ten; while it appears that some of the work-people labour upon an average not more than nine hours daily. In these towns, indeed, there is no factory labour, properly so called; for the operatives, with few exceptions, work at their own houses. But in some of the factories in the great clothing district the hours of labour are the same, seldom if ever exceeding ten. In general, however, they are somewhat longer; both in the carpet and in the clothing factories they are seldom less than eleven, and scarcely ever more than twelve. * * "In some factories, in the several districts, there is no intermission of the work, day or night. In such cases, two sets of work-people are employed, each set commonly working twelve hours; occasionally there are three sets, and then each set works eight hours. "It appears that the time allowed for meals differs considerably in different districts, and in the same district in different factories. In one or two factories in Scotland, the meal hours are one hour for breakfast, and one hour and a half for dinner. In a few others, three quarters of an hour is allowed for each of these meals; but in the great majority of cases the time allowed is half an hour for breakfast and half an hour for dinner, with no stoppage for tea, or drinking, as it is termed. In the north-eastern district, the practice in some factories, as at Leicester and Nottingham, is to stop half an hour for breakfast, one hour for dinner, and half an hour for tea; but in others only a quarter of an hour is allowed for breakfast, and half an hour for dinner; sometimes there is no stoppage either for breakfast or tea, but only for dinner-in some factories for an hour, in others and this is the more general rule, for half an hour. At Leeds they sometimes stop half an hour for breakfast, one hour for dinner, and half an hour for drinking, but this is very unusual. It is seldom that they stop more than forty minutes for dinner, and often not at all either for breakfast or drinking. There is, however, much difference in this respect in different factories; and in some it is pretty evident that practices have been resorted to, to cheat the work-people of a portion of their meal hours, which cannot be too strongly reprobated. * * * only without grudging, but with thankfulness, looking * ** * The The general state of the factories, as connected with the well-being of the work-people, is thus noticed :"The present inquiry has led to a very complete exposition of the nature of the labour in which children are employed in the different factories of the kingdom. present inquiry has likewise brought together a large body of evidence relative to those various circumstances connected with the state of factories, which concur with the nature of the employment in exerting an important influence on the health of the work-people, whether children or adults, but which more especially affect the health of the former. Such concurrent circumstances are, the situation of the factory, the state of the drainage about the building, the size and height of the work-rooms, the perfect or imperfect ventilation, the degree of temperature, the nature and quantity of the effluvia evolved, whether necessarily or not necessarily in the different processes of manufacture, the conveniences afforded to the work-people for washing and changing their clothes on leaving the factory, and the habitual state both of the factory and of the operatives as to cleanliness. Details, which place in a striking point of view, on the one hand, the conservative influence of careful and judicious attention to such concurrent causes in the general arrangements of the establishment, and on the other, the pernicious consequences that result from inattention to them, will be found in the account given of the state of individual factories in most of the reports. "While not a few signal examples are recorded of a beneficent care exercised over the work-people, yet it must be admitted that there are too many instances in which an utter disregard is shown, not only to their convenience and comfort, but even to circumstances which must influence, in no inconsiderable degree, their moral feelings and habits." The treatment of the children by those to whose authority they are committed-the most important branch of the inquiry-is detailed as follows: * * * "It will appear from the evidence annexed to this report, that the commissioners have everywhere investigated, with the utmost care, the treatment to which children are subjected while engaged in the labour of the factory. These inquiries have been obtained from the children themselves, from their parents, from operatives, overlookers, proprietors, medical practitioners, and magistrates * "It appears in evidence that in Scotland, and in the eastern district of England, where the harshest treatment of children has taken place, the greatest number of bad cases occur in the small obscure mills belonging to the smallest proprietors, and that the bad treatment is inflicted by violent and dissipated workmen, often the very men who raise the loudest outcry about the cruelties to which children are subject in factories. * * * "In many factories it is not an unusual practice for the work people to stop during a part of the dinner-hour to clean the machinery; this sometimes occupies them half their dinner-hour, at other times not more than ten minutes. The children commonly stop to clean their own work. In some factories care is taken on the part of the proprietors to secure to the work-people the whole of the time allotted to meals; while in others this time is encroached upon without scruple. "In considering the statements of the severe and cruel Occasionally, but not often, the work continues without treatment of children, it would be injustice not to bear in intermission during the whole of the meal-hours; the en-mind that it is established by the most abundant evidence, gine never stopping excepting about ten minutes to be oiled, and the work-people eating how they can.' * "In order to regain the time lost by stoppages, whether from the breakage of machinery, from the want of a due supply of water, or from holydays, it is the custom for the people to work sometimes half an hour, at other times an hour, and occasionally even as much as two hours daily, until the whole of the lost time be made up. When the children do not clean the machinery out of the hours allotted for their meals, they clean it at extra hours. * "For additional labour to make up lost time from stoppages, with scarcely a single exception, no additional wages are paid, and the work-people, young and old, perform this labour with reluctance. * "On the other hand, when from any cause there is a press of work requiring extra hours of labour, for which extra wages are paid, there seems to be no limit to the period for which the people will continue at their employment; sometimes, indeed, reluctantly, but more often, not that in Scotland, at least, the small mill is the only factory in which such treatment ever takes place in the present day, and that there are many, even of the smallest mills in that country, honourably distinguished for a kinder treatment of their workers; but the greater mass of the people employed in factories, and especially the young, are in establishments of which such descriptions as the following are given :We reached Catrine, the great manufacturing establishment of Messrs. James Finlay and Company, yesterday morning. I had great pleasure in walking through the eighteen apartments of the spinning-mills and power-loom weaving establishment, and witnessing the admirable order of the works, and the apparent happiness of the people employed, which is quite as remarkable and as obvious as at any of the other great factories situated in country districts. The windows open from the top; the rooms are thoroughly ventilated; there is a clock and a thermometer in every room; no unpleasant smell in any part of the work; the utmost cleanness and neatness prevail throughout; the |