The children in English bricklields, the most oppressed caste among
English serfs, are likely to be protected this Session. Mr. Mundella's Bill placing them under the protection of the Factory Act and forbidding girls under sixteen from being engaged in the work has passed a second reading, and on Tuesday Lord Shaftes- bury carried an address praying for the same measures. In a speech in his best style, in which gritty facts are smelted by a -fire of genuine indignation, he showed that 30,000 children were employed from 14 to 10 hours a day in horrible labour, working up to their waists in wet mud, carrying lumps of clay ou their heads heavy enough for hodmen—a girl of 13, for instance, carries fifty pounds—and frequently walking 14 miles a day to and from work. Both sexes are huddled together in the works, there is no rest or recreation, there is a tradition of lewdness in the trade, and scenes occur constantly such as Lord Shaftesbury declined to describe and we cannot venture to quote. There is a chapter in the evidence of Mr. Smith, the philanthropic master briekmaker, without a parallel even in our factory history, and as Members have seen his statements, the Bill must pass this Session.
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