MISCELLANIES. 
ship of the poor, which, though 
in the highest degree interesting 
and worthy of the attention of 
the House, are yet in some mea- 
sure foreign to the immediate ob- 
ject of their inquiry. They can- 
not, however, avoid mentioning 
the very early age at which many 
of these children are bound ap- 
prentices. The evils of the sys- 
tem of these distant removals, 
at all times severe, and aggravat- 
ing the miseries of poverty, are 
yet felt more acutely, and with a 
greater degree of aggravation, in 
the case of children of six or 
seven years of age, who are re- 
‘moved from the care of their pa- 
rents and relations at that ten- 
der time of life; and are in many 
cases prematurely subjected to a 
laborious employment, frequently 
_very injurious to their health, 
and generally highly so to their 
‘morals, and from’ which they 
cannot hope to be set free under 
a period of fourteen or fifteen 
years, as, with the exception 
of two parishes only, in the 
metropolis, they invariably are 
bound to the age of twenty-one 
years. 
Without entering more at 
large into the inquiry, your 
Committee submit, that enough 
has been shewn to call the at- 
tention of the House to the prac- 
ticability of finding employment 
for parish apprentices, within 
a certain distance from their own 
homes, without the necessity of 
having recourse to a practice 
0 much at variance with hu- 
manity. 
563 
REPORT 
FROM THE COMMITTEE ON LAWS 
RELATING TO THE MANUFAC- 
TURE, SALE, AND ASSIZE OF 
BREAD. 
Ordered, by the House of Commons, 
to be printed, the 6th of June, 
18i5. 
THE COMMITTEE appointed to in- 
quire into the State of the ex- 
isting Laws which regulate the 
Manufacture and Sale of Bread, 
and whether it is expedient to 
continue the Assize thereon un- 
der any and what Regulations, 
and to report the Matterthereof 
as it should appear to them to 
the House, together with their 
Observations and Opinion there- 
upon ; and to whom the Peti- 
tion of several Bakers of the 
City and Suburbs of the City of 
Canterbury, was referred ;— 
Have proceeded in pursuance 
of the orders of the House to ex- 
amine and compare the sta~ 
tute called *¢ Assisa Panis et Cer- 
visi,’ made in the fifty-first year 
of Henry III. with the ordinances 
made in the reign of Edward I. 
the twelfth year of Henry VII. 
the thirty-fourth of Elizabeth, 
and the Book of Assize published 
by Order of Council in the year 
1638. 
Your Committee find, that the 
fifty-first of Henry IIL, was (at 
the petition of the Bakers of 
Coventry) an exemplification of 
certain ordinances of Assize made 
in the reign of King John, the 
puree of which appears to have 
202 
