history and geography of the or Portions of Greater Britain should 1 in every school, and it should be the rising generation that the poorer natives of Cornwall and Sutl Wel other at the further removed from each ning of this century than owing to cheap and rapid means of com tion. Her Majesty's subjects in Canada, or even in Australia and the Cape, are at present from their fellow-subjects in England or Sco If the above measures were taken. that socialistic agitators would soon be mad aware that a sad demoralisation had toke place amongst their followers: happy and contented population at hom would rejoice in the consciousness of th W k a as the int shores give them in i се THE CAUSE OF THE OVERWORKED SHOP-ASSISTANT. I. THE SHOP HOURS LEAGUE. Reprinted, by permission, from 'The Philanthropist' of January 1883. THE question of the legislative restriction of the hours of labour, irrespective of age or sex, is no new one. As long ago as 1848, the Earl of Shaftesbury, the veteran philanthropist, whose name can never be too highly honoured in an assembly of Englishmen, and who was then a comparatively young man, was in the chair when a lecture was delivered by Dr. Guy, which has since been published as the first of a series of Contributions to Sanitary Science,' in which, speaking of the long hours of labour of journeymen bakers, Dr. Guy said: tend, then, that without legislativ ce, your case is hopeless. The in urneyman cannot, as is absurdly contended by you the House, make his own bargain y of journeymen cannot bind on th whole body of masters to the side of human d stris have failed and will fall aga but temporary remedies. Bu can help you if it will, and it wil help you if you can succeed in enlisting sympathy in your behalf. To that object efforts ought to be directed. Let the public be onc fairly roused to a sense of the hardships under whic you suffer, and their awakened sympathy wi upon the House of Commons, and put a litt into their political economy. We shall then he: less about interference and more about humanit and justice: less about the difficulty of ing your places of work, and more about the ins hardships of you--the workmen; less about u favourable temperature and indifferent yeast, an more about excessive night toil and foul air. the principle till it applied to every trade and occupation in which abuses existed calling for legislative remedy. I believe that that system of inspection and reporting has done infinite good, and is yet destined to be carried further. At the time this gentleman spoke the hours of journeymen bakers were something too horrible to contemplate. The ordinary hours were from eleven at night till five, six, seven, and eight o'clock in the evening of the next day, making eighteen to twenty-one hours of continuous occupation, with irregular intervals of such rest as could be obtained by lying down on a hard board in the bakehouse, and in one case which came under the notice of Dr. Guy, and which we have no reason to suppose an isolated one, a journeyman baker began work on Thursday night at eleven o'clock, and continued without rest or sleep, till one o'clock on Sunday, beginning again on Sunday evening at eleven o'clock. This poor fellow worked no less than sixty-two R l of closures then made led to legislative ac g the labours of journeymen ha und eighteen years of age, and the to the terrible instances of overw e tion of bakehouses which lowed in consequence of these disclos led to an improvement in the hours of alt labour in the trade: but as legislation limited to minors it would appear mi Guy's prophecy has been verified in the bakers of London were ery WO unl rst p their of wo 1. a five w hs at much over ing practical it was said bad he effecn their heal ich lowered them morally and socially. d |