The Bishop of Londonpresented a petition from Bishopsgate-street in favour of the Bill for limiting the hours of the Employment of Children in Factories. He could answer for the respectability of 110 the petitioners, from his former connexion with the parish from which the petition proceeded. It so happened that he had himself witnessed many of the evils which it described, and he did hope there was a prospect of putting an end to them, for they had long been a reproach to the country, and they had the effect, as he was fully assured, to destroy, at an early stage of existence, those powers mental and physical, which the Almighty had been pleased to bestow upon human nature, and they also tended to blunt and extinguish every moral feeling in their victims. He understood it was the practice among masters (and he spoke more particularly with reference to one individual who carried on large works in the silk trade, because that case had been more particularly brought under his notice) to employ children of a tender age, from fourteen to sixteen hours a-day, during six days of the week, with the exception of a slight relaxation as to time, on the Saturday, and that, occasionally, they were compelled to work during the whole night. It was impossible, not to be convinced that the continuance of such a baleful, and inhuman practice, must lead to moral degradation, and to premature physical decay. He had made inquiries on this subject, in the neighbourhood from whence this petition proceeded, and from the facts that were brought under his notice, he could not employ any language too strong adequately to express his own feeling as to what must be the result as respected the moral principles and physical condition of these young and unfortunate creatures, whom it was their Lordships essential and imperative duty to protect. In this particular neighbourhood too, the evils were increased a hundred-fold, from the circumstance of the children being so long confined in a hot and tainted air, without the means of escape from it, even when their labours were concluded; and the consequence was, as exhausted nature required some stimulus, that it was found, as he was informed by a medical gentleman, who was also a Magistrate of the district, in drinking ardent spirits. He stated, that the children might be seen frequently running in numbers, on the closing of the factories, to the next gin-shops, and that the most loathsome intoxication prevailed amongst them. He trusted he had stated sufficient to induce their Lordships to extend their protection to those unfortunate objects, and 111 he felt assured they would give their sanction to any legislative measure intended for the amelioration of the condition of these unfortunate creatures.
Lord Suffieldsaid, he had also to present a petition from Maidenhead on the same subject, and he could not refrain from expressing his satisfaction at finding that the condition of children of tender age employed in factories, had at length attracted the attention of their Lordships. He must be permitted to say, that he had laboured for years to inculcate the same doctrines as those advanced by the promoters of this Bill without effect, and he was at a loss to know the motive for the new-born zeal which seemed on a sudden to inspire so many of those who had long remained deaf to all his entreaties.
The Bishop of Londonsaid, if the noble Lord applied the phrase new-born zeal to him, he was quite mistaken, as he had for years supported the same views which he now advanced, and he referred to the noble Lord himself to say, whether he had not, on more than one occasion, come down to second his propositions in favour of an alteration in the system of the employment of children in factories.
Lord Suffieldsaid, he certainly did not refer to the right reverend Prelate, but he alluded to other persons who for a long time opposed all such plans, and now came forward with a sudden zeal to legislate, perhaps too hastily, on a subject which required the most serious attention.
§ Petitions to lie on the Table.