562 
inquiry and “information on the 
subject. There are, without 
doubt, instances:of masters, who 
in some degree compensate 
to children for the estrangement 
which frequently takes place at a 
‘very early age from their parents, 
and from the nurses and women 
to whom they are accustomed in 
the Workhouses of London, and 
who pay due and proper attention 
to the health, education, and mo- 
ral and religious conduct of their 
apprentices ; but these exceptions 
to the too general rule, by no 
means shake the opinion of your 
Committee, as to the general im- 
policy of such a system. 
The consideration of the incon- 
venience and expense brought on 
parishes, by binding apprentices 
from a distance, is of no weight, 
when compared. with the more 
important one of the inhumanity 
of the practice: but it must not 
‘be kept out of sight, that the Ma- 
-gistrates of the West Riding of 
Yorkshire, or of Lancashire, who 
are of all others the most con- 
-versant with the subject, may in 
vain pass resolutions, as they have 
done, declaring the impolicy of 
binding parish apprentices in the 
manner in which they are usually 
‘bound, and attempting to make 
regulations with a view to their 
better treatment, if these whole- 
some regulations can be entirely 
done away by the act of two Ma- 
gistrates for Middlesex or Surrey, 
-who can, without any notice or 
-previous intimation, defeat these 
‘humane objects, by binding scores 
-or even hundreds of children: to 
‘manufacturers in a distant county, 
-and thus increase the very evil 
which it has been endeavoured to 
‘check or prevent. Indeed in so 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 
1815. 
slovenly and careless a manner is 
this duty frequently performed, 
and with so little attention to the 
future condition of the children 
bound, that in frequent instances 
the Magistrates have put their sig- 
natures to indentures not exe- 
cuted by the parties. Two of 
these indentures have been sub- 
mitted to the inspection of your 
Committee, purporting to bind a 
boy and a girl from a parish in 
Southwark, to a cotton Manufac- 
turer in Lancashire, and though 
signed by two Justices for the 
county of Surrey, neither dated 
nor executed by the parish offi- 
cers, nor by the master to whom 
the children were bound. Under 
these indentures, however, they 
served ;and on the failure of their 
master about two years after this 
binding was supposed to have 
taken place, these poor children, 
with some hundreds more, were 
turned adrift:on the world, one 
of them being at the age 
of nine, and the .other of ten 
years. 
It is obvious that these consi- 
derations apply equally to the as- 
signment of parish apprentices 
as to their original binding, and 
therefore the restriction of dis- 
tance, proposed inthe latter.ease, 
should be extended to all the pa- 
rish apprentices, who during the 
term of their apprenticeship are 
assigned to another master; nor 
should any master have power to 
remove his apprentice beyond the 
limited distance, as such power 
would have a direct and imme- 
diate tendency to defeat the ob- 
ject of these regulations. | 
Your Committee forbear to-en- — 
ter into many details connected 
with the subject of apprentice- 
