There have been recently issued on the part of the British 
Government several statistical papers—the Board of Trade 
returns for the first quarter of 1858," a comparative statement of 
Pauperism for January, 1857 and 1858,” and lastly, the half-yearly 
reports of the Inspectors of Factories. The Board of Trade 
returns, as was to be expected, show a considerable falling off in 
exports as well as imports during the first three months of 1858, if 
compared with the same quarter of the previous year. The total 
declared value of all articles exported, which during the latter 
period amounted to £28,827,493, had fallen for the first three 
months of this year to £23,510,290, so that the aggregate decrease 
in British exports may be rated at about 19 per cent. The table of 
the values of the principal articles of import, given only up to the 
end of February, shows a decline, as compared with the first two 
months of 1857, from £14,694,806 to £10,117,920, the downward 
movement in imports being thus more marked still than that in 
exports. The comparative state of the export trade from the 
United Kingdom to the United States during the first three 
months of 1857 and 1858 may be ascertained from the following 
extract: | 

Exports from the United Kingdom 
to the United States. 

Quantities Declared Val. 
1857 1858 1857 1858 
Beer and Ale (bbls.) ............ 9,504 6,581 £40,893 £29,269 
Coal and Culm (tuns) .......... 19,972 44,299 11,975 24,818 
Cottons (yards) .... eee 61,198,140 35,371,538 1,128,453 618,540 
Hardw’s & Cutlery (cwt.) .... 44,096 14,623 301,275 104,668 
Linens (yards) ....... eee 18,373,022 8,757,750 527,076 265,536 
Iron, Pig (tuns) oe 10,172 6,569 39,927 20,344 
Iron, Bar (tuns) ................008 70,877 6,417 610,124 54,602 
Iron, Cast (tums) .............066. 207 2,362 4,659 14,475 
Wrought of all sorts ............ 12,578 2,097 151,602 29,218 
Steel, unwrought ............... ~ 3,607 1,118 128,178 43,666 
Copper (CWL.) .....ceeeeeeeeeeees 11,075 1,954 69,286 10,595 
Lead (tuns) ........c.ccecccceseeeveee 94} 60 21,793 1,324 
Oil Seed (gals.) oe 400,200 42,790 62,576 5,768 
Sale (ins) 2syceoAnsieehl as 66,022 35,205 33,169 16,990 
Silk manufactures (Ib) ......... 66,973 22,920 82,280 25,212 
Woolens, Cloth (pieces) ....... 106,519 30,624 351,911 110,096 
Woolens, mixed stuffs (ps).. 9,030,643 6,368,551 401,249 232,202 
Worsted stuffs (pieces) ........ 212,763 80,601 249,013 106,913 
Earthenware & Porcel’n ...... ae eas 155,700 70,998 
Haberdashery & Millin’y ..... ae fas 614,825 288,752 
Tin Plates .............ccccceeee cee eees ae ae 273,409 105,8472 

With some trifling exceptions, this list exhibits a general and 
heavy falling off; but what strikes us is that in most instances the 
decline in the value of exports hardly keeps pace with the 
diminution in their quantity. The United States proves in this 
respect a far better market than other countries whence the 
Britishers for an increased quantity fetched in return a smaller 
value. Thus, for instance, of wool there were exported to Holland, 
in 1858, 277,342 lbs. against 254,593 Ibs. in 1857; but the former 
realized but a value of £24,949, while the latter had brought 
£25,563; and for 1,505,621 Ibs. exported to France in 1858, as 
against 1,445,322 Ibs. exported in 1857, the value returned 
amounts but to £103,235, while for the smaller export of 1857 it 
reached the sum of £108,412. Moreover, if we compare the 

returns for the whole of the first quarter of 1858 with those for 
the month of March, a tendency to recovery in the British export 
trade to the United States will be discovered. Thus, in worsted 
stuffs the falling off between March, 1857, and March, 1858, is 
only from £66,617 to £54,376, while on the whole quarter it is 
from £249,013 to £106,913. The only country, however, which 
forms an exception to the general rule, and shows a considerably 
increased instead of diminished absorption of British manufac- 
tures, is India, as will appear from the following figures: 

Quantities. Declared Val. 
1857 1858 1857 1858 
Beer and ale, bbls................ 24,817 51,913 £77,845 £166,567 
Cotton, yards .......... cee 120,092,475 151,463,533 1,385,888 1,787,943 
Hardw’s & Cut’ry, cwt. ........ 10,642 16,776 42,849 67,287 
Cotton yarn, yards ............. 5,145,044 10,609,434 276,469 531,567 
Iron bar, tuns ............:.000ecee 20,674 26,266 191,528 217,539 
Cop’r sh’ts & rails, cwt. ....... 18,503 23,313 115,927 132,156 
Woolens, cloth .............0.c0006. 12,123 19,571 63,846 90,584 
Earthware & porcel’n .......... dey ee 9,989 19,631 
Haberd’y & millinery .......... se - 21,350 31,427 
Steam Engines ....... cee es ae 31,408 36,019 

The increase in the British exports to India may, for some 
items, woolens for instance, be accounted for by the war demand. 
Generally, however, the rationale of that ascending movement is 
not to be sought in that direction. The case is simply this, that the 
insurrection for some months had shut up the Indian market 
altogether, thus causing the commodities floating in the market to 
be absorbed and creating a vacuum now again filled up. With 
respect to Australia, the returns show also considerable increase in 
some articles of British export, but the letters received from 
Sidney and Melbourne leave no doubt as to the merely speculative 
character of those shipments which, instead of selling at their 
declared value, will have to be disposed of at a heavy discount. 

The comparative statement of Paupers in England and Wales,”*? 
who received official relief in the fifth week of January, 1857 and 
1858, shows their number, from 920,608, to which it amounted in 
the former period, to have increased to 976,773 in the latter one, 
thus exhibiting an aggregate increase of 6.10 per cent. For the 
North Midland, North-Western and York divisions, however, that 
is, for the industrial districts, the increase in the percentage of 
paupers rose respectively by 20.52, 44.87, and 23.13 per cent. 
Besides, it must be kept in view that a very considerable portion of 

the working classes stubbornly prefer starvation to enrollment in 
the workhouses. The following extract from the official returns is 
curious, because it proves how small a percentage even in England 
the strictly manufacturing population bears to the aggregate 
people: 
Industrial Statistics. 
Ratio per cent of persons 
aged 20 years and upward, 
occupied in 

No. of per- 

Mechan- 

Mining 

sons aged ical Arts, © Agri- Manu- and Mine- 
Divisions. 20 years ‘Trade and — cul- fac- ral Works. 
and upward. Domestic ture. tures. 
Service. 

1. The Metropolis ............. 1,394,963 47.6 1.1 6.0 3.5 
2. South-Eastern ............... 887,13-4 30.7 20.8 2.5 2.4 
3. South Midland .............. 660,775 28.8 25.4 7.1 2.4 
A. Fastérit gc csitecdittes ances 603,720 27.4 26.5 4.0 2.3 
5. South-Western .............. 978,025 28.6 23.3 4.6 5.6 
6. West Midland ................ 1,160,387 29.1 15.5 5.2 12.6 
7. North Midland .............. 654.679 31.8 21.7 6.4 5.3 
8. North-Western .............. 1,351,830 29.8 8.3 21.5 5.4 
9. Yorkshire sian dhiedenGis 961,945 25.2 14.3 17.5 7.5 
10. Northern .......0...00c.ceeeeeee 521,460 27.7 16.1 4.2 12.4 
Td. Welsh oo. cccccccceeeceeeeee 641,680 21.8 25.7 2.5 12.4 
England and Wales... 9,816,597 31.0 16.1 8.4 6.3 

The reports of the Inspectors of Factories, extending only to the 
end of October, 1857, are deprived of their usual interest, 
because, as the Inspectors unanimously state, the closing of mills, 
the working of short time, the numerous bankruptcies among 
mill-owners, and the general depression of trade, which set in at 
the very time when they drew up their returns, prevented them 
from collecting that reliable information, which on former 
occasions allowed them to prepare a statement of the number of 
new factories, of factories that had added to their motive power, 
and of those which had ceased to work. The industrial statistics, 
therefore, illustrating the effects of the crisis, must be looked for 
in their next reports. The only new feature exhibited in the 
present publication is limited to some revelations as to the 
treatment of children and young persons in printing works. It was 
not until 1845 that the British Legislature extended their 
interference from textile fabrics to print-works. The Print-Works 

act follows the provisions of the Factory acts in all those details 
relating to powers of inspectors, the mode of their dealing with 
offenders, and the various difficulties which might arise in the 
administration of the law, which are to be found in the Factory 
acts." It provides, in the same manner as in factories, for the 
registration of the persons employed: for the examination by 
certifying surgeons of the younger hands prior to their permanent 
employment; and for insuring regularity in the observance of the 
times of beginning and ending daily labor by a public clock. It 
adopts also the nomenclature of the Factory acts in the division of 
the hands into classes, but differs widely from those acts in the 
definition of what persons shall constitute each class, and, 
consequently, in the amount of protection afforded by the 
restrictions upon labor. 

The three classes under the Factory acts are: 1. Males over 18 
years of age, whose labor is unrestricted; 2. Males between 13 and 
18 years of age, and females above 13 years of age, whose labor is 
restricted; 3. Children between 8 and 13 years of age, whose labor 
is restricted, and who are required to attend school daily. 

The corresponding classes in print-works are: 1. Males above 13 
years of age, whose labor is unrestricted; 2. Females above 13 
years of age, whose hours of labor are restricted; 3. Children of 
both sexes, between the ages of 8 and 13, whose labor is restricted, 
and who are required to attend school periodically. The Print- 
Works act differs essentially from the Factory acts, in containing 
no provisions of any kind for either of the following purposes: For 
setting apart times for meals; for the Saturday holiday; for the 
cessation from work on Christmas day and Good Friday; for 
periodical half-holidays; for the secure fencing of dangerous 
machinery; for the reporting of accidents, and compensation of 
injured persons; for the periodical lime-washing of the premises. 
The hours of labor in factories are now assimilated to the ordinary 
hours of work of mechanics and general laborers, i.e., from 
6 a. m. to 6 p. m., with intervals of one hour and a half for meals. 
The hours of labor in print-works may practically be considered to 
be unrestricted, notwithstanding the existence of statutory limita- 
uion. The only restriction upon labor is contained in §22 of the 
Print-Works act (8 and 9 Vict., 29), which enacts that no child 
between the ages of 8 and 13 years, and no female, shall be 

employed during the night, which is defined to be between 
10 p. m. and 6 a. m. of the following morning. Children, there- 
fore, of the age of 8 years, may be and are lawfully employed in a 
labor analogous in many respects to factory labor, mostly in rooms 
in which the temperature is oppressive, continuously and without 
any cessation from work for rest or refreshment, from 6 a. m. till 
10 p. m.; and a boy, having attained the-age of 13, may, and is 
often, lawfully employed day and night for any number of hours, 
without any restriction whatever. The school attendance of 
children employed in print-works is thus provided for: Every 
child, before being employed in a print-work, must have attended 
school for at least thirty days and not less than one hundred any 
fifty hours during the six months immediately preceding such first 
day of employment, and during the continuance of its employ- 
ment in the print-work must attend for a like period of thirty days 
and one hundred and fifty hours during every successive period 
of six months. The attendance at school must be between 8 a. m. 
and 6 p. m. No attendance of less than two hours and a half nor 
more than five hours, on any one day, shall be reckoned as part of 
the one hundred and fifty hours. The philanthropy of the 
master-printers -shines peculiarly in the method of executing these 
regulations. Sometimes a child would attend school for the 
number of hours required by law at one period of the day, 
sometimes at another period, but never regularly; for instance, the 
attendance on one day might be from 8 a.m. to 1] a.m., on 
another day from 1 p.m. to 4 p. m., and the child might not 
appear at school again for several days, when it would attend 
perhaps from 3 p. m. to 6 p. m.; then it might attend for three or 
four days consecutively or for a week; then it would not appear in 
school for three weeks or a month after that, upon some odd days 
at some odd hours when the employer chose to spare it. Thus the 
child is as it were buffeted from school to work, and from work to 
school, until the tale of one hundred and fifty hours is told. 

Written on April 30, 1858 Reproduced from the newspaper 

Daily Tribune, No. 5329, May 20, 1858