been placed at such intervals of distance as health and cleanliness required. The average mortality in the hospitals has been as 1 to 71⁄2, and in the poor-houses as 1 to 61, and more considerable among the women than the men. The mean duration of residence for patients has been a month and a half. It is to be remarked that where apartments of equal size were one above the other, the mortality has always been greatest in the upper ones. The Sisters of Charity and other religious associations, watch over the sick and poor, and it would be impossible to find other attendants equally zealous, indefatigable and compassionate. In 1814, 2700 women were delivered in the Lying-in Hopital: of these 2400 reported themselves unmarried. In the interval of the ten years between 1804 and 1814, there were received in the Foundling Hospital 23,458 boys and 22,463 girls a total of 45,921 children; of which number 4130 were supposed to be legitimate. In the School of Midwifery to which the departments of France send pupils annually, twelve hundren of these have been already instructed in the art. The great Intelligence Office for Nurses has furnished 58,000 in course of ten years. It undertakes to provide them for the inhabitants of Paris, and guarantees their health, morals, &c. In the official Report made to the General Council of Hospitals on the condition of the Hospitals, from which valuable work the above details are taken, much attention is given to the causes of the cases of insanity. Of the in sane there were, in general, more females than men. Among the younger women love was, for the most part, the cause; with the rest, jealousy or domestic dissentions. Among the men the premature developement of the pas sions, in the case of the youth; and in that of the older, the derangement of their affairs. The disasters of the revolution had led to the insanity of many. That of the men, where this happened; turned upon aristocratic notions, and the women were affected by ideas of equality and indepen dence. The average annual expense of the Hospitals, during the ten years (from 1804 to 1814) was about 2 millions 300,000 francs, and about 3 millions for the Poor Houses (Hospices.) During these ten years, 355,000 sick were received into the Hospitals, about 35,500 each year, and 59,000 poor were admitted into the Poor Houses. In the Hospitals, the average daily expense for each patient was 1 franc 65 centimes, and the average annual expense of each bed, 603 francs 56 cen times. The rates of similar expenses in the Poor Houses were less than one half. In the year 1804, 87,000 indi gent persons received succours at their own dwellings; in 1813, 103,000, and this last was about the average number for the 10 years. HISTORICAL ANECDOTE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. In the sitting of the French Chamber of Peers, of 11th Jan. 1816, M. De Sèze, a member and the celebrated advocate of Louis XVI, before the convention, made, on the occasion of voting general mourning for that monarch, the following interesting statement. "I will not, (said he,) let the occasion pass without revealing a fact known, perhaps, only to myself, and calculated to vindicate the French nation from the reproach of having participated in the murder of her excellent monarch. | jority for the object in the convention. On the 15th January they introduced and discussed the famous question, shall the sentence of the National Convention against Louis be submitted to the ratification of the people.' "During the discussion, the counsel of the monarch, and the monarch himself, hoped that the necessity of the people's ratification might be acknowledged. I was then instructed by him to prepare, during the night and at the very time they were telling the votes in the convention, a me "At the period when a knot of men unworthy of the name of Frenchmen, and of human nature, conceived the idea of this crime, they formed also the project of implicating in it the French peo-morial to be addressed to the priple. They durst not incur the odium of the whole guilt; they wished to divide it with the nation. They were not, however, sure of her assent. They would not venture to demand it formally and solemnty without being previously certain of success in the applica-clared themselves in favour of it, tion. "They sent commissaries into most of the departments, charged expressly with the business of sounding the dispositions of the public, and ascertaining the probable result of calling for the national suffrage. In some of the departments they devolved this investigation upon the municipal authorities of their own creation. Happily for the reputation of France, the answer was every where the same: It was reported to them from all parts of the vast territory, and for this I can vouch from having seen myself the authentic evidence, that if they did pronounce sentence of death on their monarch and ventured to convoke primary assemblies, in order to submit this sentence to them, it would never be ratified. Frustrated thus in the hope of corrupting the nation, they bent their attention to procuring a ma mary assemblies as soon as they should meet. I wrote it, but the next morning the vote was announced, and all France heard with astonishment that 424 members had rejected the intervention of the people, and only 284 had de although the matter of right was indisputable. Thus was the regicide perpetrated not only without the concurrence, but against the ascertained will of the nation." STATE OF THE CHILDREN EM PLOYED IN MANUFACTORIES. [Evidence taken before a Select Commit. tee of the British House of Commons.] MATTHEW BAILLIE, M. D. called in, and examined. You are by profession a physician?-I am. You have had much experience in your profession?—I have. Has your attention been directed to children?—Not perhaps so much to children as to grown people, except those that have arrived at some considerable age: in this country the health of children is more generally attended to by those gentlemen who attend women who are pregnant; and it does not very often happen that chil more liable to glandular swellings than children who are bred differ ently; and I think it likewise probable, that in particular manufactories at least, they would be more dren are brought under the attention of an ordinary physician, except in particular cases, until they are three or four years old; after that age, they very often come under the management of the gene-likely to be affected with diseases ral physicians of the country. At what age may children, without endangering their health, be admitted into factories, to be regularly employed 13 hours a day, allowing them one hour and a half to go and return from meals, and one hour for instruction?—I should say, that there was no age, no time of life whatever, where that kind of labour could be compatible, in most constitutions, with the full maintenance of health. Do you think that children from seven to ten years of age could be employed more than 10 hours per day, without injury to their constitution?-I think not; and if it was left to me to determine, I should say, that they ought to be employed fewer hours, for the full maintenance of health. What do you consider to be the effect upon the developement and growth of the bodies of children from six to ten years of age, of so many hours confinement per day? -I cannot say much from experience, not having attended children that have been labouring in manufactories; but I can say, what appears to me to be likely to arise out of so much labour, from general principles of the animal economy. I should say, in the first place, that the growth of those children would be stunted; that they would not arrive so rapidly at their full growth; that they would not have the same degree of general strength; that it is probable their digestion would not be so vigorous as in children who are more in the open air and less confined to labour; that they would probably be of the lungs. What would you consider to be the effect on the mental faculties of children so young, when, in ad dition to the facts already stated, the attention is constantly fixed and employed on one set of objects for days, months, and years?-I should think that they would ac quire more acuteness with regard to that particular employment; but that with regard to all general employments, and all general exercises of the mind, they would be inferior to what they would be, if their minds were directed to a greater number of objects either of curiosity or of study. Have you considered at what age children might be safely employed in factories? I can only answer this question by a kind of conjec ture, which is founded upon my acquaintance with the animal economy: I should say, that seven years old was perhaps the earliest age at which children should be so employed. How many hours would you recommend children of that tender age to be employed?—I should say, that at that age, probably, for the first year, they should not be employed more than four or five hours a-day; and for the two suc. ceeding years, they might be employed six or seven hours a-day; that afterwards they might be em ployed ten hours a-day, and beyond that in my opinion, there ought to be no increase of labour. Have you had any opportunities of knowing what has been the state of health in any manufactory?-I really must say I have not. The only manufactory of that kind I ever saw was at New Lanark, which Mr. Owen showed to me about two hours. Would not the state of the health of the persons employed depend most materially on the state of the atmosphere in which they were employed? I have no doubt it would have considerable influence, but I consider this as only one circumstance; if they are in a very cold atmosphere, or in a very hot one, they would be more liable to suffer than in a temperate atmosphere, certainly. Might not the children work in a proper temperature a greater number of hours than they could do, without injury, in either of the extremes of heat or cold?I think that they might. Are you acquainted with the work in which those children are generally employed?-I am very imperfectly acquainted with those works. In speaking of the injury to young persons arising from labour, do you mean to speak of labour which requires great bodily exertion?—I did not suppose that children at so early an age were employed in great bodily exertion, but I meant any bodily exertion in which they were confined in a given space, and their minds not allowed to wander into the various channels of thought, and their limbs allowed the sort of irregular exercise which takes place in children who are living in the usual manner. Is not the state of maturity of children very different in those brought up in the country, to those brought up in town?-With regard to children who are brought up in the country, they are more vigorous; and I have no doubt, in many instances, their progress to wards maturity may be more rapid than in children who are reared in a large town. And your experience has principally been in town?-Entirely, I may say. Have you been called to give any opinion, or to know the state of health, in different manufactories? -I have not. What is the state of heat, as ascertained by a thermometer, in which children might work without injury? I should say, that the temperature which is upon the whole most favourable is about 60 degrees of heat. In giving your opinion on this subject, do you take into your consideration the situation in which children would be placed, if, at an earlier period, they were not employed in such factories?—I do not know that the whole of this pressed on my mind, but certainly it was not absent from it; I drew the comparison between those children as employed in manufac tories, and the ordinary empleyment of children in the country. Would children of the age of ten be employed in the ordinary business of the country?-No; but they would be doing a good deal of work of various kinds, as going of errands, or weeding, and a thousand employments which I cannot at present call to my mind. That answer seems to refer more particularly to children in the country; as the manufactories are generally in towns, it does not apply to them; therefore the Committee wish to know whether you conceive, if children at an early period of life were prevented by Act of Parliament from working in factories, their situation would be better than it is?-I conceive it would be more favourable to health to be at large, although they might sometimes be not well nourished; and although sometimes they would be in hot rooms, they would have a great deal more time in which they could be playing about, and using their faculties of observation. brought out at Drury Lane, on the 22d ult. called Oberon's Oathwhich being received with disapprobation, affected him very much. The excess of his disappointment could not be equalled by his transports of joy, when, on the second representation, his production was honoured with universal applause. Thus plunged from one extreme to the other, he was taken alarm DIED, on Sunday, the 26th May, 1816, in Nelson square, Black friars, London, Benjamin Thompson, esq. the translator of the Germaningly ill on Saturday, and died the Theatre, and author of several other productions. The deceased fell a prey to his acute feelings. He was the author of a piece next day. He has left a wife and six children to mourn the loss of an affectionate husband and father. C t |
