There is another famous Flemish garden
about which I cannot walk, but am obliged
to swim from bed to bed. But we have had
enough garden-walking for once; should you
like another stroll before the summer is gone,
we will take a turn together on a future
oc-casion; whether in mid-air, or through the
water, time and the editorial nod will decide.
And so, quoting Cymbeline, more or less
exactly:

Here's a few flowers; but about next month, more.

MORE GRIST TO THE MILL.

A BOY aged fifteen was killed the other
day in a cotton-mill in this manner: — Two
persons were mending a strap that turned
the dressing-frames, and ran upon a
horizontal shaft, four feet from the ceiling. He
took hold of the strap to help them, and was
instantly pulled up, and carried round the
main line shaft (seven feet from the floor).
When taken down, both his legs were off
at the knees, and an arm was fractured.
He died shortly afterwards. It was stated
at the inquest that this boy was to blame—
that he ought not to have touched the
strap, and had frequently been cautioned by
the firm, as it was observed (the reprobate!)
that he was too much disposed to assist
others.

A youth aged twenty-two was smashed
the other day in a cotton-factory. We
find the facts recorded in the Manchester
Guardian of the fifth of July last past.
The case preceding it was recorded in
the Manchester Examiner and Times of the
same day.  In the instance of the second
victim, the machine being in motion, it was
the poor fellow's duty to throw one end of a
strap over a pulley eight feet from the floor
and near the ceiling.  The pulley worked on
a horizontal shaft, unfenced in defiance of
the law; and alighting by accident on the
shaft, began to wrap round it. The youth
when he threw the strap had (as people out
of factories almost invariably do when they
throw a rope) given one end a turn round
his hand to prevent the chance of its
slipping from his hold.  By that end he was
suddenly drawn up, and squeezed so tightly
against a beam in the ceiling that it was very
difficult to extricate his body.  His head
was scalped; his left arm was torn out by
the socket—so was one leg; the other arm
and leg were broken, and the body was much
crushed.  An enlightened jury, finding that
the youth had held the strap so that he was
unable to let go in an instant, determined
that, "under these circumstances, the jury
were of opinion that no one but the deceased
himself was to blame in the matter, and
that the occurrence was accidental." Blame
was accordingly cast upon the mangled body
of the victim ; and the gentlemen who, in
open defiance of the law, refuse to protect
life against such accidents by fencing their
machinery, are supposed to have no more to
do with the affair than the archangel
Gabriel.

But, the factory inspectors will proceed for
penalties? Certainly they will; and then,
if these gentlemen be members of the
National Association of Factory Occupiers,
they will have their case defended for
them and their fine immediately paid.

It is only because such an association has
been formed that we revert to this distressing
topic. If factory occupiers organise a strike
against the law — which is an expression
of the righteous will of civilised society
—they have to be opposed; and, to that
end, what they do shall be done openly,
so far as we can cause it to be done
so. They are now actively engaged among
themselves in raising money. The papers
which they circulate among themselves are
in our hands, and contain matter to this
effect: That they will labour to procure a
repeal of the inspector's power of examining
operatives privately, that they may speak
without fear of the wrath of their
employers. That they will get rid, if they can,
of the chief office of factory inspectors in
London. That they will put a stop, if
possible, to the right vested in inspectors, of
instructing wounded operatives how they
may proceed for damages against employers,
by whose wilful negligence they have been
maimed. That the certifying surgeon shall,
if they can manage it, be got into the power
of the petty sessions of his district, and not
remain responsible to the inspector for his
conduct. That no shafts more than seven feet
from the floor shall require fencing.  That
nothing else shall be fenced, if arbitrators
overthrow the opinion of the inspector that
it ought to be fenced; and that no such
protection of operatives shall be held necessary
in the case of adult males; but only in the case
of women, young persons, and children. That
the clause in the Factory Act which excludes
a millowner from deciding upon points closely
affecting his own money-interests, in dealings
with the operatives, ought to be repealed, in
dicating as it does " an unwarrantable
suspicion upon the honourable conduct of that
portion of the magistracy who are engaged in
manufactures." Human nature is purely
disinterested in the north, — witness the
existence of this very National Association,
by which the unwarrantable suspicion is,
among other measures for the taking care of
Number One, cunningly spurned! Finally,
the representatives of this body — who would
seem to go so far as to oppose everything
that might tend to save an operative's life,
for they "beg to caution the trade against
the adoption of any compromise, whether of
hooks or otherwise," — these gentlemen have
arrived at the following conclusion: " With
these views, the deputation are of opinion
that a fund of not less than five thousand