Clause agreed to. Clause 3, which provides that the provisions of the Act should not apply to the sale of any medicine, drug, or article for medicinal purposes. MR. T. DUNCOMBE moved to insert after the words "medicine, drug, or other article for medicinal purposes, "nor to the exercising of any work of necessity, or charity, or in cases of sickness or sudden emergency." Those words stood in the Bill which the House of Lords sent down, and he could not understand why they were omitted. MR. G. BUTT said, the words proposed to be introduced excepted something which did not fall within the Act. THE MARQUESS OF BLANDFORD thought this clause altogether objectionable, as inviting inferentially the infringement of existing Acts of Parliament, by excepting many things the sale of which on Sundays was now prohibited. He recommended that the clause should be left out, and another clause afterwards brought up, specifically legalising the sale of those articles clearly necessary to be sold to the public. had drawn the Bill, if he found the Bill did not really carry out the wishes of the hon. Member for Finsbury he would propose words to that effect upon the Report. Mr. T. DUNCOMBE said, he was so completely at issue with those who drew the Bill that he would not trust anything to them. He held some of those parties in the highest contempt. It appeared that there had been some 1,4001. subscribed in four months-nice pickings for the gentlemen who had got up the greatly exaggerated statements which had been put forth. As for consulting with them, surely the House was competent to decide for itself. As the proposition of the hon. and learned Member for Greenwich (Mr. M. Chambers) would meet his object, he was willing to withdraw his Amendment, and substitute the addition of the words proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman. Amendment withdrawn, and the words, "or in cases of emergency or of charity were added to the clause. On the next provision, that the Act should not extend nor apply to "the selling, hawking, crying, offering, or exposing for sale of any milk or cream before the hour of nine o'clock in the morning, or after the hour of one in the afternoon.' LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR pro SIR GEORGE GREY said, the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. T. Duncombe) was quite right in saying the words he proposed to insert were in the Lords' Bill, but he believed it happened in this way-posed to strike out the words "hawking that Bill prohibited work, and therefore or crying." excepted works of charity, but, when the part prohibiting work was struck out, the exception, by an oversight, was allowed to remain. MR. MAGUIRE said, he thought it important that the words proposed should be inserted.. LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR said, he made no objection to the proposition, but thought it was undesirable to incumber the Bill with unnecessary provisions. MR. MONTAGU CHAMBERS said, he thought the best way would be to read the clause thus-"That the provisions of the Bill should not extend nor apply to the selling, offering, or exposing for sale of any medicines, drugs, or any article for medicinal purposes, or in cases of emergeney or of charity." MR. MILES said, he would suggest that the addition of the words "charitable or" after the word "article" would meet the difficulty. LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR said, if the Committee would pass by the clause and allow him to confer with those who SIR GEORGE PECHELL said, he wished to know whether the Bill would interfere with an Act passed in 1836, whereby bakers were authorised to bake and sell bread up to half-past one in the afternoon of Sunday? LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR said, the Bill would not interfere with the Act of 1836, although the provisions of that Act were not exactly as the hon. and gallant Member had described them. MR. T. DUNCOMBE said, that, under the Act of Charles II., milk and cream were allowed to be sold during the whole day, as also was mackerel. LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR said, mackerel could be sold till nine o'clock in the morning. MR. T. DUNCOMBE said, if the sale of fish was restricted to nine o'clock, all the fish left unsold at that hour, or which might arrive later, would be stinking on Monday. SIR GEORGE PECHELL said, he must make an appeal to the Committee on behalf of the oyster interest; he hoped {COMMONS} there was to be no further restriction imposed upon the trade. MR. MAGUIRE said, he thought it would be better to retain the words "hawking or crying." LORD JOHN MANNERS said, he wished to know why nine o'clock was the limit for the sale of milk, and ten o'clock for newspapers? MR. WILKINSON said, he should move that all the words after the word "cream" should be left out.' Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 12, to leave out the words "before the hour of nine in the morning, or after the hour of one in the afternoon." SIR JOHN SHELLEY said, that milk now came up by railway, and in some cases, might not reach London until after nine o'clock. MR. MONTAGU CHAMBERS said, the object of the Bill was to relieve the poorer classes from excessive labour, and if milk was to be allowed to be sold during the whole day, persons would be kept the whole day to carry it out, and other persons would be sent out to fetch it. He could not see that the emergencies were so important as to require alteration in the hour. LORD JOHN MANNERS said, he could not see why milk and cream should not be sold after nine o'clock. The Committee divided:-Ayes 107; Noes 100: Majority 7. THE CHAIRMAN said, the next exception from the operation of the Bill was in these words" Nor to the selling, offering, or exposing for sale any newspaper or other periodical paper before ten o'clock in the morning.' Nothing could be more absurd than such a description of legislation; and he should give it his most strenuous opposition. MR. CRAUFURD said, he would beg to point out the great inconvenience which might result from the clause as now worded. Supposing a second edition should be published after ten o'clock, announcing some important news from the East, such, for instance, as the successes of the allied squadron in the Sea of Azoff, were the public to be debarred from receiving that intelligence until Monday morning? MR. W. J. FOX said, the effect of the clause would be to deprive a vast number of persons of the pleasure and advantage of reading Sunday newspapers altogether, and the clause would in effect amount to a total prohibition of the sale of newspapers on a Sunday. SIR JOHN SHELLEY said, that Sunday was almost the only leisure day which the working classes had for reading the newspapers, and he should at the proper time move the omission of the words "before ten o'clock in the morning." MR. SPOONER said, he had all along intended to propose the rejection of all that part of the clause which referred to newspapers, and as there appeared to be a difficulty in doing so now he should move his Amendment on bringing up the Report. A newspaper was not an article of "necessity," and he considered that the public could well do without it on the Sabbath. LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR said, that there was not a single newspaper actually published on a Sunday. There were two issued on that day, but they were second editions only. MR. T. DUNCOMBE said, he thought that the argument of the noble Lord against the sale of newspapers, if worth anything, would equally apply to the working of railways and to the employment of steamboats on a Sunday. But it was clear to him that the observance of the Sunday was not the primary object of this Bill. Its provisions would still leave the clubs at the West end untouched. The Bill, in fact, was meant to affect only those who were not fairly represented in that House. SIR GEORGE GREY said, he thought it very undesirable to make the Bill too stringent in its operation. The House must take care what they were doing, otherwise they would most certainly defeat themselves. MR. T. DUNCOMBE said, he wished to know whether it was intended to make it illegal for a person who was going by a railway at half-past ten o'clock to purchase a newspaper, although if the train started MR. HUTCHINS said, if the suggesat ten o'clock he might legally do so?tion of the hon. Member for North War wickshire (Mr. Spooner) were adopted, and the paragraph which excepted the sale of newspapers before ten o'clock on a Sunday was left out, the effect would be to prohibit the sale of newspapers on Sunday altogether. MR. MAGUIRE said, he assumed that one object which the promoters of this Bill had in view was to prevent the humbler classes from resorting to publichouses on a Sunday. Now, it was a well-known fact that the people went to publichouses chiefly for the purpose of reading the newspapers. The way, then, to prevent their going to publichouses appeared to him to be to afford every facility for the sale of newspapers. Question put, "That the word ten stand part of the clause.' The Committee divided:-Ayes 169; Noes 53: Majority 116. MR. T. DUNCOMBE said, that by the division just come to it had been decided that the sale of newspapers should be excepted from the operation of the Bill up to ten o'clock in the morning; he would now beg to move that the words "in the morning be left out, and the words in the afternoon" be substituted. Amendment proposed, in the same line, to leave out the words "in the morning, and insert the words "in the afternoon." Question put, "That the words in the morning' stand part of the Clause.' The Committee divided :-Ayes 154; Noes 61: Majority 93. MR. CRAUFURD said, he had a further Amendment to propose, the effect of which would be to enlarge the time during which newspapers might be sold. At a time like the present, when people were going mad after news from the Crimea, he thought it would prove too great a restriction to prohibit the sale of newspapers all day, after ten in the morning. He would move, therefore, that it be permitted to sell newspapers also" after two o'clock in the morning.' LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR said, he must deprecate any further opposition to the clause, after the unequivocal demonstration that had just taken place. SIR GEORGE GREY said, he would recommend the postponement of all further Amendments until the bringing up of the Report. Question put there inserted." The Committee divided :-Ayes 62; Noes 140: Majority 78. "That those words be House resumed; Committee report progress. OFFICE OF SPEAKER. MR. WALPOLE said, he would beg to move that a Select Committee be appointed to consider and Report to the House whether any and what improvement might be made in the providing for the execution of the office of Speaker, in the event of the Speaker's unavoidable absence by reason of illness or other cause. LORD HOTHAM said, he wished, before acceding to the Motion, to know what was the particular signification to be attached to the words "other cause. He viewed with the greatest apprehension any alteration that might have the effect of diminishing the importance of the office now so satisfactorily filled. MR. WALPOLE, in explanation, said, it might refer to absence caused by the death of a near relative, as was the case with Mr. Manners Sutton while occupying the Chair, who lost his father during that time. Motion agreed to. Select Committee appointed "To consider and Report to the House whether any and what improvement may be made in the providing for the execution of the Office of Speaker, in the event of the Speaker's unavoidable absence by reason of illness or of other cause." The House adjourned at one minute before Six o'clock. HOUSE OF LORDS, Thursday, June 14, 1855. MINUTES.] PUBLIC BILLS.-1a Validity of Proceedings (House of Commons); Measurement of Merchant Steamers. 2a Gold Finger Rings. Reported - Administration of Oaths Abroad; County Palatine of Lancaster Trials. 3a Cambridge University Bill; Brighton Incorporation; Ecclesiastical Courts. THE RELIGIOUS WORSHIP BILL-QUES TION. THE EARL OF DERBY said, that, although the Bill of his noble Friend the Earl of Shaftesbury had been carried at the last stage which it had yet reached by the smallest possible majority, and the only stage at which any discussion had taken place upon it, either in their Lordships' House or in the other House of Parliament, he had no desire to ask the Still NEEDLEWOMEN, LIMITATION OF HOURS noble Earl to abandon the measure. He THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY rose to move that the Bill for the Limitation of the Working Hours of Needlewomen be referred to a Select Committee. In doing so, he said he would take the opportunity of addressing a very few observations to their Lordships, when he hoped to be able to satisfy them that the objects of the Bill were among the most helpless and oppressed of Her Majesty's subjects. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY said, was perfectly aware of the ridicule that athe could not concur in the suggestion of tached to a Motion of this kind; but could the noble Earl. The Bill involved a very only say he was quite willing to submit simple proposition, and having regard to to this, provided he received in exchange the public feeling, and the notions now some modification of the wrongs to which prevalent on the subject of religious li- this unfortunate class of persons was exberty, he did not think it possible to re- posed. Some of the greatest statesmen of tain on the statute book any law which, this country had taken up the cause of the if enforced, would impose an intolerable black man, and he could not see why an limitation on the free action, not only of inferior statesman like himself should not members of the Church of England, but of also advocate the cause of the white wothe whole body of Nonconformists. The man. The question of the condition of the existing law had been obsolete for a num-needlewomen and dressmakers had repeatber of years, and had only been revived edly been discussed and agitated in the sufficiently often to show that there existed public papers, and had been brought under a power of revival. It had almost been the notice of Parliament; but nothing was a dead letter, and from that fact nothing done till 1842, when a Commission was but good had resulted; and he could not appointed to inquire into the trades and see the necessity of instituting an inquiry employments in which children and young whether the law should be swept from the persons were usually_employed. That statute book or brought into daily opera- Commission made a Report, but no letion. The only argument urged the other gislative results followed. The latest evinight against the Bill was, that it might dence was contained in a Report of the interfere with the parochial system, and Royal Commission of 1843. Since that give one clergyman the power of intruding time a slight improvement of the hours of himself into the parish of another, so as to labour had taken place; but during the disturb the ecclesiastical order of things. last year and a half there had been strong Now, though neither the existing law nor indications of a return to the old state of his Bill had any bearing on that point, things, and on that ground he was preyet, to remove all possibility of doubt, he pared to advocate the necessity of legisshould be prepared to introduce a clause lation. The evidence stated, first, that to the effect that nothing in the Bill con- there were two distinct classes employed tained should, in the slightest degree, af- in the business of millinery and dressmakfect the ecclesiastical submission due by ing-the indoor and outdoor workwomen. clergymen to their diocesan, or abridge in The former were the greatest sufferers, any way the authority of the diocesan over and it was to their case alone that he the clergy; so that, after the Bill passed, should allude. The same evil prevailed the authority of the bishop would remain to a great extent in almost all the large the same as at present. towns-in Nottingham, Manchester, BirTHE EARL OF DERBY said, that the mingham, Liverpool, Bath, Norwich, &c. proposal of the noble Earl did not meet his--but the Bill was confined to London objections; and he, therefore, gave notice that on the next stage of the Bill he should move an Amendment to refer the existing state of the law, and the expediency of relaxing or repealing the statutes bearing on the question to the consideration of a Select Committee. alone. In 1843 the statement made was, that there were in the metropolis 1,500 employers, who had six, ten, thirty, forty, and even fifty workwomen, but that each employed on an average ten hands, thus giving a total of 15,000 young persons engaged in that employment in the metro young 1942 polis. The age at which they began to "A delicate girl, about seventeen years of age, work was usually fourteen; they were then was brought to witness in consequence of total loss of vision. She had been an apprentice as apprenticed for two years, and at the age a dressmaker, and her health, before her vision of sixteen or seventeen they came up to was affected, was deranged by excessive work. London to complete their education in their The immediate cause of disease in eyes, continued respective departments. This was the and excessive application to making mourning. peShe stated that she had been compelled to remain riod of life when the greatest care was rewithout changing her dress for nine days and quired to be taken of the health and consti- nights consecutively; during this period she had tution, and yet this was the period when been permitted only occasionally to rest on a they were exposed to the most excessive la- mattress; her meals were placed at her side, cut bour, to insufficiency of food, and an impure up, so that as little time as possible should be atmosphere of sixteen or eighteen hours spent in their consumption." together, involving an amount of work and Dr. Devonald, a surgeon, said of these labour scarcely endured by our soldiers in needlewomen, "Their health and strength the trenches before Sebastopol. The tes- are gone; many are reduced to permanent timony was that, in what were well-regu- debility; many die, especially from conlated firms, the work was from fifteen to sumption." Dr. Shaw and Dr. Johnson eighteen hours a day. "In many," said stated that these women became unhealthy the Commission, "the hours of work dur- themselves, and, when married, consigned ing the season are unlimited-the disease to their offspring. A medical pracwomen never getting more than six, often titioner, long acquainted with the system, not more than four, sometimes only three, said, "No men work so long; it would be and occasionally two, for rest and sleep: impossible for any animal to work so confrequently they work all night." The tinuously with so little rest." This system work was often carried on till ten and prevailed in all large towns, and, indeed, eleven on Sunday morning, and frequently wherever there was sufficient wealth to over the whole of Sunday. One witness maintain a regular demand for dress. stated that she had worked without going The communication he had received, said, to bed from four o'clock on Thursday"It may be stated without exaggeration morning till half-past ten on Sunday that, in proportion to the numbers emmorning. The meal hours were stinted ployed, there are no occupations, with one and irregular; food was taken as quickly or two exceptions, such as needle-grinding, as possible—perhaps a quarter of an hour in which so much disease is produced as in being allowed for dinner; frequently not dressmaking." The Royal Commissioners, more than half an hour was allowed for in summing up their Report, said— the whole of the meals, and often they were not permitted to sit down. To this rule there were, no doubt, exceptions, but these were not numerous. The result was, according to the evidence of the medical men, that their health was ruined, and they fell victims to consumption, loss of sight, and distortions of every kind. Sir J. Clark, physician to the Queen, said "The mode of life of these poor girls is such as no constitution could long bear. A mode of life more completely calculated to destroy human health could scarcely be contrived. I have long been most anxious to rescue these unfortunate girls from the slavery to which they are subjected." Dr. Hamilton Roe and Dr. Hodgkin gave many distressing details, and Mr. Dalrymple, surgeon to the London Ophthalmic Hospital, showed that all forms of ocular disease were induced, from simple irritation to complete blindness. Mr. F. Tyrrell, surgeon to the Ophthalmic Hospital, gave sad accounts to the same effect, and added this illustration "Notwithstanding the most unfavourable character of this Report, it is proper to state that falls short of the truth. we have reason to know that, in some respects, it In the course of the in quiry we repeatedly noticed a great disinclination on the part of young persons to state what they knew, and this owing to a feeling of intimidation which was very prevalent.” Many of these young women abstained from making any statements in order that they might not give offence to their employers; and this was no matter of surprise when the position of these poor girls was considered. Many of them were or phans, or the daughters of half-pay officers, poor clergymen, and respectable but needy parents, who were wholly unable to help or defend them; they were at a great distance from their friends, and were completely at the mercy of their employers; they must either do the bidding of their employers, or expose themselves to the fearful alternative of being turned unprotected into the streets, and what would be the fate of such young women if they were reduced to that alternative? In 1844 a |