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fact and recommending the study of it as necessary to the ' understanding of the age in which we live , the Leader publishes the manifesto addressed to the Peoples on the organization of Democracy by Mazzini and Ledru R ollin , in the name of the Central Committee of European Democracy . « ' Finally , we find in the number we quote from , the important news of an alliance between the Chartists and the Social Reformers . "
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THE SWEATING SYSTEM . A few weeks ago we called attention to the condition of the operative tailors in the employment of Messrs . Nicoll , of Regent-street and Cornhill , and drew a contrast between their condition and that of the men who are forced to toil for little more than one-third of the wages paid by that firm . The facts with regard to the condition of Messrs . Nicoll's w orkmen were given upon the authority of the reporter of the Morning Chronicle , but it appears that they have been called in question , an d , as we learn from the Chronicle , a meeting was held , on Monday night , in St . Martin's-hall , Long-acre , at which Mr . Henry Mayhew presided , for the purpose of hearing statements in opposition .
Before entering upon the business of the meeting Mr . Mayhew entered into an explanation of his own p ersonal conduct in reference to his connection with the Morning Chronicle : •—" He was known to most of them as the special correspondent of that paper for the metropolitan districts ; but he might not be known to them also as the originator of the enquiry which had taken place concerning the condition of the working classes throughout England . He himself proposed the subject to the proprietors of that journal , and he felt that it was his greatest glory to have been the means , for the first time in the history of this country , of diving into the depths and sifting the
facts of the labour question . ( Hear , hear . ) He was now no longer the correspondent of that newspaper ; and the meeting of that night had taken place , not only to vindicate the tailors and make apparent the misrepresentations contaiued in the article referred to , but to give him the opportunity of vindicating his character , and to tell them that he was not its author , nor would he be its author for any sum of money that could be offered to him . ( Cheers . } When he first read the article , knowing what had really occurred , he confessed he could not understand it . It was beyond his comprehension . The lie had been given to everything he had previously written ; and either he was the basest creature that had
ever crawled upon the face of the earth , or the proprietors of the journal had some hidden object in view . ( Hear , hear . ) Upon seeing this letter , therefore , he wrote to the editor requesting him to state in his next number that he was not the writer of the article on Messrs . NicolPs establishment . And what was the answer he received ? No , he would do nothing of the kind . He ( Mr . Mayhew ) was no longer the * commissioner' of the Morning Chronicle , and he would tell them why . When he began his connection with that paper , he knew how fast it was wedded to the creed of the politico-economical men of the day , and he stipulated , therefore , thatnothing but the truth should be published ; that no tampering with
the truth should take place , and that what he penned should go in . ( Hear , hear . ) Its conductors gave him their word that it should appear . He meant to seek out the question , and so long as he stated facts connected with the state of the working men they were to be printed . Unfortunately he very soon began to find that anything which interfered with their notions as to what would benefit the working classes had the pen run through it ; and so glaring a case of this nature occurred when he was engaged in enquiring into the condition of the bootmakers of London , that he felt he could no longer submit to it . In this case two passages were omitted from a letter to the effect that one of the bootmakers , believing
that foreign boots interfered with his business , stated that he was prepared to compete with the French workman , provided taxes were removed from him ; that he looked upon duties charged upon foreign articles as the foreigner ' s contribution of his quota towards the expenses of the Government of this country ; he said , ' What would you think of admitting a Frenchman into this country , and , because he was a Frenchman , allowing him to work in a house built with untaxed bricks , lighted with untaxed light , whilst he smoked untaxed tobacco , and drank untaxed gin ? Why , then , am I to be loaded with , this burden of taxation , and called upon to compete with the untaxed foreigner ?' ( Loud cheers . ) Now , without entering at all into the question of Free Trade , he ( Mr . Mayhew ) thought this a very fair statement on the part of the and that it ri that it should
working man , was only ght go forth to the public . But the editor thought differently . He had told him ( Mr . Mayhew ) previously , that he considered the articles on the bootmakers were all against Free Trade , but his reply was , that he had nothing to do witli that , and that his business was simply to record facts . His letter to the editor then went on to state that he did not question the exercise of his office as editor , but that still , he ( Mr . Mayhew ) was bound to see that the trust confided in him to state the truth was not rendered subservient to the politics of the paper ; that if his facts were to be omitted because they were not thought to coincide with preconceived notions or a peculiar line of policy , he must decline continuing his services as the Chronicle correspondent , and he could not in honour continue to pursue his investigations until he had an assurance thai the paragraphs whose omission lie
comthe gentlemen that he wished to be quit of his engagement ; and he should have been quit of it had they not told him that if he went they would get somebody else to write the letters , and he certainly did not wish to father other person ' s articles . ( Hear , hear . ) At last they proposed to nim that he should describe the state of the workers in metals in two articles ; but feeling that he could not , in justice to the men and to himself , do so as an honest man , he replied , ' No ; I have done with it ;' and he then left , and two or three days after came out the article respecting Mr . Nicoll . " Mr . Mayhew then proceeded to discuss the evils of the sweating system , insisting , as he went on , that the mania for cheapness" lay at the root of it . There was a general desire for things at a cheap rate without regard to the manner in which they had been produced . The political economists contended that to produce with a greater amount of wealth with a lesser amount of labour , was a great blessing to the community . This might be the case if they could kill off the surplus labourers . But the labourers must be kept . They might be turned out of employment , but if they were not kept as honest workmen they would soon make their appearance as paupers or criminals . They must live in some way or other , and their means of living must be provided for by the rest of the community . ' A short time ago he went into Buckinghamshire to
look at the allotment system . And in one parish of 1800 acres he found that only a few years ago there were 17 farmers , who occupied upon the average 100 acres , and constantly employed six men a piece , or in the aggregate upwards of 100 hands . Now , however , the farmers in that parish occupied to the extent of 300 acres each , and only employed six men and a few extra hands at harvest time ; thus , the number of hands employed by this system was decreased one-half . He learned , moreover , from a cleravman there , who had resided in Wiltshire , that
the same thing was going on mac county , cnac small farms were giving way to large farms , and that half the labourers were displaced . The agricultural labourers were now supposed to be about 1 , 500 , 000 in number ; so that , if this system were generally carried out , they must have been formerly 3 , 000 , 000 . And what , he asked , were the 1 , 500 , 000 who had been displaced now doing ? Where were they gone to ? Had they remained at home preying upon their own people , or were they gone to other countries , or did they form a part of those bands of ruffians who were walking about the earth committing acts at which the soul revolted ? The working-classes of Great Britain were about 4 , 000 , 000 , out of a population of 18 , 500 , 000 . These were the producers of the country . And the estimated power of the mechanical labour of this country was 600 , 000 , 000 of men . No wonder , then , that we talked of over population , and that there was a difficulty for men to get a crust for their day ' s subsistence . The one crying difficulty of the time was what we should do with the men whose labour was displaced by the progress which had been made by science and mechanical skill ? ( Hear . ) They must wake up , then , to the actual reality of the state of things around them , and not continue to
follow men like Mr . Cobden and Mr . Bright—( Vehement and protracted cheering ) — who told them that they were happy , that they were well fed , that they had as much as they wanted , and that their wives and their children were not at that time starving . Let these men come with him ( Mr . Mayhew ) but one day , and he pledged himself to show them such scenes of horror and misery as should affright them—if they possessed souls—to their very souls . ( Renewed volleys of cheering . ) He had no creed as regarded the remedy as yet . He saw evils , but so many fresh ones were constantly presenting themselves in his pathway that , until all the facts were collected , it was impossible wouia inem
for him to ne tnougnt cure . Mr . Mayhew next treated the subject of ' illegitimate cheapness , ' which he described as procured through the employment of—first , unskilled labourers—as apprentices , women , improvers , Irishmen , and countrymen ; second , untrustworthy labourers—as the drunken , the idle , and the dishonest ; third , the inexpensive labourers , whoso subsistence was not included in their labour — as paupers , thieves , and prostitutes . ( Hear , hear , hear . ) All these competed , under the cheap system , with the honest , struggling , skilled these the who
workmen ; and were parties were employed by the cheap producers to drag down the industrious classes of the country . ( Cheers . ) Another mode was the indirect mode—that of cutting off the workshop , the lighting and firing , and placing them , as well as the tools , which tailors called ' trimmings , ' the workmen . Again , fines were imposed , and reductions in the price of food were made the pretence for reductions in wages . He observed that at the east end of the town many poor creatures had been reduced to such a state of misery as to be obliged , for subsistence , to
pawn the articles upon which they had been working . The papers teemed with cases of the sort . And he regretted to see that , instead of taking the poor creatures from the dock , and putting the employers into it , ihe magistrates were too ready to listen to any paltry Jew who might come , from Judas Jacobs , or any other Hebrew , to swear , by Barabbas or Iscariot , or any of the brutal race who were thus festering upon ua . ( Cheers . ) After some further observations , Mr , Mayhew summed
up the effects of the ' sweating , ' or * domestic system , as consisting —first , in its saving to the employer a considerable sum per annum in the shop ; second , in its saving to him the trimmings ; third , in the overcrowding of rooms ; fourth , in diseases among the workmen dangerous to the public—a source of fever and contagion ; fifth , in overwoik and underpay ; sixth , in Sunday labour ; and , seventh , in making criminals and deteriorating the race of Englishmen . ( Loud cheers . )"
Mr . Essery , a working tailor , here read a series of statements , m the form of evidence , furnished by persons said to have been in the employment of Messrs . Nicoll : — " That the facts produced by the correspondent of the Morning Chronicle , in his letter on the condition of the tailors of London , under the head of « Labour and the Poor , ' are undeniable , and that ' sweating , ' ' the domestic system / as it is now termed , is still the source of Sabbath breaking , vice , and domestic misery to the unfortunate persons employed under it ; and that every representation to the contrary is totally devoid of truth , interior
and put forth for the sole purpose of puffing articles into public notice , to the injury of the honest tradesman , and the destruction of the rights of labour . That the * sweating , ' * domestic system , ' is alike opposed to health , decency , and religion , from the evidence afforded by men and women working together in small and badly ventilated rooms , at all hours , Sundays as well & 3 working days—the same apartment being bedroom , hospital , workshop , and kitchen . The fact that children are reared in the metropolis of Christian
civilized England , not only in ignorance of all religious duties , but with the constrained example before them of the violation of the Sabbath day , and utter disregard of the decencies of civilized life , are circumstances that demand the serious attention of all who have an interest in the sanitary and moral condition of the people . Thus the most effectual check to these evils will be the withdrawal of the public patronage and support from all parties who carry on business under this most injurious and vicious system . "
The Morning Chronicle of Thursday denies the statement that Mr . Mayhew ' s letters were ever garbled , or that the conductors of that journal have ever denied or justified the atrocities of the sweating system . As a proof that they never exercised that partizan supervisorship of which he accuses them , they refer to the fact that the " Protection Tract , " No . 5 , is principally made up of extracts from the Letters on Labour and the Poor , representing bootmakers and shoemakers as complaining of foreign competition . As regards the controversy about trie condition and wages of the men in the employment of Messrs . Nicoll , the following letter appears in the Morning Chronicle : —¦ " TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE .
" Sir , —Finding that the truth of your remarks upon our establishment has been impugned in the columns of the Daily News and the Morning Herald , we beg to enclose the copy of a letter we have forwarded to each of those journals . " We are , Sir , your obedient servants , " Regent-street , Oct . 30 . " «* H . J . and D . Nicoll .
plained of should be inserted in his next letter , and that no matters of / act should be omitted in future . ( Cheers . ) After writing this note , his situation on the paper was not one of a very amicable nature . They were continually bickering , and he was as continually reminding
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" TO THE EDITOH OF THE DA . II 1 Y NEWS . " Sir , —Our notice has been called to your report of yesterday ' s proceedings at St . Martin ' s-hall , to meet which we have much pleasure in stating that our workmen are contented and happy , that their dwellings present more than the usual amount of comfort , of cleanliness , and decorum to be met with amongst mechanics generally . " The same may be said with regard to their earnings ; neither are the hours of labour longer , nor can they in any way be placed in an unfavourable comparison with any other class of workmen employed in any other kind
of trade in the metropolis . " You , Sir , or any one you may appoint , can , by calling at our counting-house , see our wages book , and afterwards , by visiting our workmen , cun hear and see evidence in support of these assertions , and of the general correctness of the article published by the Morning Chronicle on the 4 th of October , describing our establishment . " lie questing you will insert this letter , " We are , Sir . your obedient servants , " H . J . and D . Nicoi / l . " Regent-street , October 29 . "
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THE SLAVE FUGITIVE BILL . The excitement caused by the operation of the Fugitive Slaves Bill throughout the Northern States continues unabated ; the result seems likely to boar out the prediction of the Abolitionists when the bill was passing through Congress , that it would greatly spread and strengthen the feeling against slavery . Several further attempts have been made to capture a number of fugitive slaves , and the most serious results are likely to follow . The blustering Herald says it would not be surprised to hear a war of extermination between the two races throughout the whole of the free states .
" After an agitation of twenty years , " it says , " the slavery question has reached a crisis—the only crisis that could follow—and the scenes which the abolition fanatics laboured to produce in the south , between the black and white races there , are now in danger of being enacted in the free states . We shall look for later intelligence from Detroit with a great deal of interest . " A public meeting of the coloured population was
held at . Brooklyn , in reference to the bill , at which an appeal of the people of colour to the whites of the free states was unanimously adopted . At a public meeting in Hoston , Mr . Frederick Douglas said it had been reported that the hunters wore after him , but he could defy them . lie stood , free , not in consequence of the passage of any law , but by tho payment of 750 dollars in British gold , to the man who claimed to own his ( Frederick jbouglas ' sj body .
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Nov . 2 , 1850 . ] &t ) t VLetirte t * m ? 49
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 2, 1850, page 749, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1857/page/5/
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