Note 410 — INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO CHAPTER IX

Great complaints were being made of the cruelty of the Jamaica planters to their negro apprentices, and Brougham had put himself at the head of an agitation in favour of immediate emancipation. Accordingly the Government introduced a Bill regulating the hours of labour, erecting arbitration tribunals for appraising the value of apprentices desiring a discharge, and forbidding the whipping or cutting the hair of female apprentices, or their being placed on a treadmill, or in the chair of a penal gang.