A Hundred Years Ago
" THE SPECTATOR," MARCH 30m, 1833. IN PARLIAMENT.
FACTORIES Bus..--41r. Green, on Monday, presented a petition from the master-manufacturers of Lancaster and the neighbourhood, praying for a commission to take evidence relative to the labour in factories before passing the Factories Bill. Sir C. Burrell said, that this would only procrastinate the bill. Mr. Mark Phillips said, that if the bill were to pass for two years, or even for one year, at the end of that time the trade would be driven from this country into the hands of foreigners. Lord Ashley would resist to the utmost any attempt to procrastinate the passage of this bill by any motion for a commission of inquiry. Mr. M. Attwood asked why the manu- facturers were so sensitive upon the subject, if there were no op- pression practised 1 The object of the bill was to put an end to oppression.
If.mor's LAST APPEARANCE.
Kean has often turned his retirement from the stage into a farce ; he must now make a serious business of it. If he ever appears on the boards again, it should be only for the purpose of really bidding his admirers a last adieu. For those two or three years past, his every performance has been growing weaker and weaker, like the impressions from a fine engraving which is wearing out. Our vivid recollections, too, of his best personations when he was in his prime, have been dulled, though not obliterated,. by the feebleness of his later efforts ; as water, thrown over the paintings on the walls of Pompeii, brought their colours out in momentary brightness, only to render them less and less apparent by each successive attempt to revivify them. He, too, must have been aware of this ; and noth- ing, probably, but his poverty has led him to follow this impolitic course. We were not among the number of those who railed at him for so doing ; admiration of his genius, and a surmise of the bitter necessity, prevented our joining in that cry. And, indeed, for our own sakes, we were oven glad to see him again ; with all his infirmity he was worth a score of inferior actors. He was " great in ruin." But his time is now come. His physical powers are worn out. He has at last broken down upon the boards of Covent Garden ; and he only waits a fair dismissal from the scene of his former triumphs. The veteran gladiator, the victor in the arena, bows under the weight of his armour ; his sword falls from his grasp, and he is borne off upon his shield.
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' The keeper of the toll-bar at the Park Street gate, Camden Town, was summoned on Tuesday for having taken double toll for two zebras, belonging to the Zoological Society. Plush said he did not consider zebras asses, but horses. A servant in the Society referred to Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, wherein a zebra was stated to be an ass. A witness on the part of the Society stated, that the animals in dispute were bred in Windsor Park, out of the common ass, by a zebra, the property of his Majesty. Mr. Hoskins said a zebra was undoubtedly an ass : the stripes indicated only a certain breed of the ass. He ordered the defendant to refund the overcharge, and pay tho costs.
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