advance of wages; this we admit to be in part true, but not absolutely so. Two years ago, when our employers demanded a reduction of ten hanks, they affirmed, that the state of the market imperiously called for such reduction; but when the markets would admit of an advance, they would willingly give it. We depended on their honour, and continued to labour for more than 12 months at the reduction proposed. About 10 months since, on comparing the price of cotton and yarn, we found that the markets would allow our employers to fulfil their promise; we therefore solicited them to that purpose, and only wished to be re-instated in the same prices we worked at previously to that reduction. Some declared they could not give it; others they would not; but the greater part, that they would, if others did, but they should not like to be the first. Thus we continued working and soliciting for the last eight months, though the demand for yarn has been unprecedented, and the consequent rise in twist great; they have still refused our just request; and in order to cause a belief that trade was in a declining state, gave notice, that their mills should only work three days in the week, which appeared so extremely ridiculous, that the very children employed in factories laughed at it.

"It is asserted, that our average wages amount to 30s. or 40s. per week it is evident, that this statement was made by some individual either ignorant or interested. In 1816, the average

clear wages of the spinners in Manchester was about 24s., they were then reduced from 20 to 25 per cent, and have ever since laboured under that reduction. And it is to be remarked, that spinners relieve their own sick, as well as subscribe to other casualties; therefore, when their hours of labour, which are from 5 in the morning until 7 in the evening (and in some mills longer) of unremitting toil, in rooms heated from 70 to 90 degrees, are taken into consideration, we believe the public will say with us, that no body of workmen receive so inadequate a compensation for their labour.

"The next thing we would advert to is, our employers have asserted, that if they submit to our present request (which they admit is reasonable) it would not be long before we demanded another advance of ten hanks more: whatever some individuals may have said, we know nothing of, but the great majority of spinners have never said or intended any such thing. And we hereby declare, That we are willing to enter into a treaty with our em 'ployers on fair and honourable ' terms.'

"We believe there is no species of labour so fraught with the want of natural comforts as that the spinners have to contend with; deprived of fresh air, and subjected to long confinement in the impure atmosphere of crowded rooms, continually inhaling the particles of metallic or vegetable dust, his physical powers become debilitated, his animal strength dwindles away, and few survive the meridian of life, and the

grave is often the welcome asylum of his woes. His children!—but let us draw a veil over the scene, our streets exhibit their cadaveous and decrepit forms, and any attempt to describe them would be impossible.

"Let it not be understood that we attach blame to our employers as applied to these calamities; they are, perhaps, inseparable from the very nature of the employment, and our masters may lament, but cannot redress them. All we ask is a fair and candid investigation into the grounds of our complaints, and we are confident that both justice and humanity will decide in our favour.

"We solemnly declare as men, as fathers, as loyal subjects, and well-wishers to a constitution the spirit and letter of which will not countenance any thing like slavery and oppression, that we cannot obtain with the greatest possible industry the common comforts and necessaries of life, at the present low prices; to labour hard is not an easy task, but to labour hard and want is impossible. Let Our masters consult their own hearts, and as the seat of justice and humanity, they will not long hesitate to grant our just request."

Letters from Riga state, that by an unanimous resolution of the Nobility of Livonia, the servitude of the peasants is abolished in that province, after the example previously given by the Nobility

of Esthonia and Courland. This resolution will be laid before the Emperor Alexander for his approbation.

12. Dresden.-According to

an annual ordinance, the execution of which has lately been desired by the merchants of Leipsic, the Jewish merchants frequenting the fairs were prohibited from having open warehouses in the principal streets and quarters of the city. The revival of this ordinance having excited complaints, the King ordered the superior Chamber of Commerce to inquire into this subject. The result has been a decision of his Majesty to suppress this ancient ordinance, as not suitable to the present state of things, so that the Jewish merchants frequenting the fairs at Leipsic shall henceforward be allowed to hire and keep warehouses in whatever part of the city they shall think fit, and to sell there during the fairs, both wholesale and retail.

13. Brussels.-A very severe ordinance has just been issued at Milan, relative to the press. The following are the principal articles: -No book can appear without the permission of the Censure; even catalogues must be examined; a special commission must be obtained to reprint books already published in the Austrian monarchy. Dedications cannot be admitted to the Censure, unless they are provided with the authorization of the persons to whom the books are dedicated. No subject of his Majesty the Emperor and King can have a book printed in a foreign country, without having submitted it

to the Austrian Censure.

13. Madrid. The Pope has granted a Bull, a long time solicited by our Ambassador at the Court of Rome, on the sub

ject

ject of the revenues of the clergy. The filling of vacant ecclesiastical dignities and bene. fices is suspended for two years; the revenues will be received into the public treasury to assist the payment of the public debt and its interest. His Holiness, touched with the representations of his Catholic Majesty, has been pleased to authorize this measure, which has not yet improved the state of our public funds, for our non-consolidated Royal vales constantly lose 84 per cent, the consolidated 40 per cent, and the vales ordinaires, that is to say, those that have not been presented for consolidation, 75 per cent; such is the state of our public credit.

They are slowly employed at Cadiz in the repairs of some vessels; the poorness of our treasury does not allow that activity to be bestowed on our labours which circumstances would require.

(From Wheeler's Manchester Chronicle of Saturday, August 15.)

"We are sorry to observe that the question respecting wages, which has been so long pending between the masters and the operative spinners, still remains unsettled; and that the same spirit of hostility continues to be shown to those men who are dis posed to return to their lawful employment, which has so repeatedly and daringly been offered in the course of this alarming contest. We have also noticed the various papers which have been circulated, and placarded upon our walls, to mislead the public, and to excite the men to

.

continue in their illegal combina tion; and we deem it necessary that the public should be correctly informed, and that statements void of truth should not remain uncontradicted. We have therefore taken some pains to procure correct information, and we can pledge ourselves that the facts we now state are authentic.

66

During the greatest part of the years 1816 and 1817 the weavers, and almost every other class of manufacturers and labourers in Lancashire, excepting spinners, suffered excessively from low wages and want of employment. The spinners full and constant work, and high wages during the whole of the time. No class of people have had such constant and uniform employment for the last twentyeight years as they have had; and this advantage the spinner enjoys at the risk and expense of his employer: for such is the nature of the trade, that when once a cotton-mill is completed, and fully set to work, it cannot be `stopped, or even interrupted, without great loss to the proprietor. The interest of his sunk capital, his rent, insurance, salaries of principal servants, decay of machinery, &c., are nearly the same whether his mill be standing or going; and these amount to so heavy a loss, and he frequently finds himself in such a situation, that he must continue to employ all his people at full work, and for many months together, although he cannot sell to a profit.

"The working spinners have not only enjoyed this constant employment, but they have had much higher wages than any

other

other numerous class of manufacturers. At the time they turned-out for an advance, they were receiving the same wages that had regularly been paid them for nine months previous to that period; and we have ascertained that the net average of weekly wages paid to men spinners from the 1st of January last to the middle of June, when they turned out, was upwards of 31s.; and for boys and girls, spinners, upwards of 17s.; clear of all charges and deductions what

soever.

"Contests of this kind, which have for their object an advance of wages, have generally defeated the end for which they were entered into; and where the operators have usurped the control of their employers, or where insubordination has prevailed, to the frequent interruption of business, those particular branches which have been thus exposed, and which in our several manufacturing districts have been localized, have gradually declined -the occupations by which thousands gained a comfortable subsistence have been lost to them. The present depressed state of the manufactures in which the hatters, the hosiers, silk weavers, &c. were employed, and which had by ingenuity, in dustry, and perseverance, been raised to a pitch of great national importance, is chiefly owing to that kind of overbearing influence which is now most unjustly and illegally employed to deprive the master-spinners of the control of their own concerns, and must ultimately, if not successfully resisted, add another to the

melancholy catalogues of events most distressing and ruinous in their consequences."

15. Guernsey-Monday last the Bishop of Salisbury embarked for Alderney, on board Governor Le Messurier's yacht. Above 300 persons received confirmation in that small island. His Lordship was accompanied by Monsieur the Dean and Monsieur Arnold, who went to Alderney to inquire into the truth of complaints made for a long time by the inhabitants of that island against the Rev. John C. Ubilé. After having heard both parties, the Dean thought it his duty to suspend the Rev. Mons. Ubilé from his ecclesiastical functions. The Bishop returned on Wednesday, and embarked yesterday for England. His Lordship, on going on board the Tiber frigate, was received under a salute of thirteen guns.

16. Dover.-Yesterday evening, at half-past five, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, attended by Baron Hardenbrook, arrived at the York Hotel from London, and in ten minutes afterwards his Highness embarked in the barge of the Royal Sovereign yacht, which was waiting in the roads to convey him to France. The guns at the heights fired a salute, both on the arrival and departure of the Prince, and an immense assemblage of persons cheered him from the inn to the beach. The yacht returns to morrow for their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

The Committee of Physicians appointed on the 25th March last, to watch the further progress of the epidemic, have made

"Since the appointment of your Committee more than 4 months have elapsed, and though in that interval the progress of the epidemic might have justified your Committee in convening the profession at a much earlier period, they were reluctant to adopt that step, until the efficacy of the measures, then relied upon by the Constituted Authorities, and by the public, for the suppression of Fever, had had a fair trial.

"These measures have now been in full operation during the last ten months, and yet there is no decline of the epidemic; on the contrary, after sustaining a very trivial reduction in the number of sufferers during the months of March and April, it has advanced with such rapid strides, that in the last month more patients by one-half were admitted under the fever into the Cork-street and House of Industry Hospitals, than in February, when the fever of the winter season was at its height. The mortality of the epidemic has, no doubt, abated; but a mortality, however great, constitutes a very small part of the many pernicious consequences flowing from the influence of a wide-spread epidemic upon the lower orders. The following tabular view, the correctness of which may be relied on, exhibits, in a distinct manner, the progress of this contagious epidemic, from the date

of its probable commencement in Dublin, to the present period."

Here follows the table, in which the total amount of admissions into the Fever Hospitals of the House of Industry and Corkstreet, from the 31st August, 1817, to the 1st August, 1818, is stated at 14,660. The report then proceeds to lament the inefficacy of the measures pursued, and adds

"But the physicians of Dublin did not condemn one plan as inefficient without suggesting another as more likely to succeed, for they did, most strongly, recommend to the attention of the government and of the public, the measures detailed in the Second Report of the Sub-Committee of Health, 'as alone competent to check the further 'progress of this formidable epidemic, and as measures which, if 'perseveringly executed, were, in their judgment, likely to subdue 'it within a reasonable time.' Unfortunately for this city, and for the wretched sufferers from disease, the warning voice of those the most competent to judge on such a subject was disregarded, and Dublin has thereby to deplore a great increase of distress and poverty among her inhabitants, without any immediate prospect of checking the evil consequences flowing from a perseverance in measures at once expensive and inefficient."

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, accompanied by Prince William and Prince Fre derick of Hesse Cassel, left town for Dover, on their way, to Hanover. They set off about 9 o'clock.

18. Manheim,