The Press. — London, England, 1855-08-11 00:00:00

AUG. 11, 1853. lortign ant (to'nig 3nttlligtitte. FRANCE. It is again positively stated that the Empress of the French is enciente. This has been already reported many times, and as often turned out untrue. The fact has now, however, been communicated officially to their respective Governments by more than one diplomatist. General Canrobert is expected in France. His departure from the Crimea is ascribed to an old wound, which has opened, and causes him great pain. The Emperor ordered him to resign, and he has given up his division to M'ldahon. On Saturday the Paris tribunals condemned fifty five persons to imprisonment for five years and under, for belonging to secret republican societies. The interest of Treasury Bonds is fixed at 31 per cent. for bonds at from three to five months; at 4 per cent. for bonds at from six to eleven months ; and at 4i per cent. for bonds of a year. GERMANY Notwithstanding all official 'assertions to the con trary, the Austrian army of Italy is being considerably increased. The Opinione of Turin states that there are 44,000 men in Lombardy, and mare than that number in the Venetian provinces. The recruits who were under drill have been incorporated in the regiments of Italy, which have thus been increased by one-third. For some days past a great number of passports for France have been refused. The Hamburg Senate has refused to grant a char ter for the establishment of the new Bank of North Germany, according to the prospectus already pub lished. SPAIN. Religious difficulties have caused the marriage of Prince Adalbert of Bavaria to be put off. The Madrid Gazette publishes the budget f0r1855. In it the expenses of the State, ordinary and extra. ordinary, are set down at 1,498,240,373 reals (the real is worth five sous) ; the receipts, ordinary and extraordinary, at 1,335,921,300 reels ; and it is de clared that the deficit of 102,319,073 reels shall be provided for by a special law out of the proceeds of the sale of the national and ecclesiastical property. Rumours have lately been in circulation that Spain was about to join the alliance with France, England, and Turkey, against Russia. Both the Espana and the Epoca confirm the fact, and affirm that this step was decided on by the Ministers at an extraordinary Council held on the sth instant, subject of come to the approval of the Cortes, which, however, was con sidered doubtful ; but, should the Legislature give its sanction to the proposition, it was believed that an army of 15,000 men would immediately leave for the Crimea, the Western powers engaging to support the Spanish Government against all attempts that might he made to overturn it. The reorganisation of the National Guard at Bar celona has been affected without disturbance. TURKEY. The Sultan has presented Omer Pacha with three large domains situated in Roumelia and Anatolia; and he is, it is again affirmed, to assume the command of the two armies of Asia. Mehemet Kebresli Pacha, formerly Grand Vizier, has been named President of the Tanzima' Council; and Ismail Pacha and Sami Pacha members of that body. The Porte is about to apply to European companies for the construction of railways, making them con cessions of the ground and the privileges of working the lines. The Turkish Government has issued very compre hensive police regulations for cleansing and purifying the capital. Twenty-five fresh shocks of earthquake have been felt at Broussa. Ahd•el-Kader is ill. The Journal de Constantinople has been warned for having pointed out in one of its articles how easily the Russians might descend towards the Per sian Gulf, if they got possession of the plateau of Kurdistan. Accounts from Alexander of the 28th ult. state that the Viceroy had returned from his expedition against the Bedouins. who had mcide their submission. RUSSIA. It is positively s►ate(t that the coronation of the Emperor of Russia will take place at Moscow in the autumn. AUSTRALIA. Australian papers have arrived a fortnight later than those previously received. Their dates are : Melbourne, May 16; Adelaide, May 12; Port Philip, May 8; and Sydney, May 12. There is little news by this arrival. The death of the Emperor Nicholas had been made known, and created some sensation ; but the general opinion was that his decease would have no effect on the duration of the war. Black Douglas and his notorious gang of robbers, the terror of the whole district around New Bendigo, had been arrested by the diggers of Maryborough, and placed in safe custody. Their depredations would therefore be suspended for a time; but it was feared THE PRESS. that the evidence against them would fail, upon trial, in securing a conviction upon the more serious charges alleged against them. The irregularity of communication between Australia and England was much complained of as tending greatly to cripple commercial operations. The supply of labour at Mel bourne was fully equal to the demand. The greatest sufferers were the carpenters and bricklayers, all building being nearly at an end. The females were in great abundance, and a vast number were out of employ. Wages also had fallen, owing to the de pressed state of the times. The price of gold at Melbourne remained at 3/. 15s. per ounce. The gold-fields at Port Philip were yielding very satisfac tory results. At Adelaide everything was proceeding in much the usual way. At Sydney trade had improved, and imported articles bad advanced in price. THE HATFIELD FREE LIBRARY. ON Wednesday a public meeting was held in the riding-school at Hatfield house, the residence of the Marquis of Salisbury, at which Lord Stanley, M.P., delivered a lecture in support of the establishment of a people's library for the village of Hatfield and the surrounding districts. A numerous audience attended on the occasion, including all the principal gentry of the neighbourhood, amongst whom the object for which the meeting was convened is uni versally approved. The Marquis of Salisbury having briefly opened the proceedings, Lord Stanley deli- vered a long and eloquent address, in the course of which be said : Though Government may help in the work of educa tion, yet that work must in the main be carried out by private efforts. The Marquis of Salisbury, always mind. ful of the duties which property owes to society, has for some time past entertained the design of endeavouring to supply the educational requirements of this neighbour. hood on a scale and by an agency more extended and effective than had hitherto been employed. I mean by the establislim ent of a free, or nearly free, popular library. Now, such institutions are comparatively new to the rural districts of England. In Lancashire, however, and throughout the manufacturing districts, where the popu lation is at once dense, enterpris.ng, and wealthy, they have grown up and flourished to a great degree within the last few years. Yet it is, I fear, only too easy to show that, in regard of public libraries, England is far more backward than many countries whose state of civilisation is lower. I take the leading nations of Europe. Of libraries of the larger class, containing above 10,000 volumes each, and open with more or less freedom to the public:— France has 107, with 4,000,000 volumes. Austria .. 48 2,500,000 " Prussia .. 44 .... 2,500000 " Eughtial .. 33 .... 1,750,000 " of which 500,000 is in the single collection of the Museum. If I had included smaller collections of from 1,000 to 10,000 volumes, the result would have been much more unfavorable ; but of these it is almost impossible to obtain accurate returns. On the whole comparison, with regard to this particular kind of educational provision, we have just one eighth the accommodation of Saxony, one sixth that of Bavaria, one third that of Austria, and two fifths that of France. In the United States the population is scattered, distances are great, books are cheap, most per sons can afford to purchase on their own account, yet already there are more than 100 libraries of 0,000 volumes and upwards, and scarcely a village without something of the kind on a smaller scale. Some legislative steps have been taken in England of late years ; but for many years to come, in small and rural communities at least, the pro moters of such designs will have to appeal to voluntary exertions only. Now, what have those exertions done up to the present time ? Except as connected with mechanics' institutes, or institutions of a similar kind under different names, there are very few public libraries open to all classes. Of mechanics' institutes, there are in existence between B'lo and 900; but the existence of many is little more than nominal. Some do their work well and prosper; some more or less assume a party character, as is always likely to happen where lectures are delivered ; but the majority live from hand to mouth, have no consi derable stock of books, nor accumulated capital —are, therefore, obliged to lay themselves out for popularity, and, in so doing, though their existence is on the whole better than nothing, they do not adequately fulfil their functions of public instruction. That is, in few words, the state of adult education in Great Britain. It is not a satisfactory one, and it promises to you, and to all whc are minded to help in the work of reforming it, occupation for some con siderable period. That work will not be complete, the educational requirements of the nation will not be fully satisfied, until the literature of our language, the written thoughts and recorded acts of every great man who in fluences opinion at the present day shall have been brought within easy access—easy both as regards local proximity and pecuniary cost—of every man and of every woman who can read and write. I think we put education on a low and unworthy ground when we treat it, which many do, as a means of acquiring fortune or advancement in life. We must all feel, if we reflect upon it ( I am sure I do ) that a man's station in the world, the social position which he occupies, forms a very small part of his real and true existence. Society makes one man a peer, another a tradesman, a third • labourer; but God made us all men ; and what we mean, or ought to mean, by education, is the development of those common human faculties which we possess, and which, pos sessing them, we are bound to cultivate in our selves, and to help others to do the same. There 763 is no fear of pedantry becoming nationalised in England. The whole bent of our minds is the other way. There is a love of action, a devotion to business, an impatience of abstract pursuits, a dislike to occupations which do not bring some immediate visible retain, which is perhaps excessive, and certainly strong enough to counteract any tendency towards mere bookishness. That we all recognise and feel. But there is something more. Life, in the present day, is busier than ever before. 'lake all classes through, you find more work, less leisure. That state of things is not our fault ; ind►viduals are not to blame for it,, law cannot alter it. Custom and competition press on us all alike. With a very few exceptions we are all absorbed in our special pursuit. The lawyer who wants to lead his circuit, the politician who wants to lead the House of Commons, must be a lawyer or a politician exclusively. With the merchant, with the tradesman, with the artisan, it is the same. Most men—at least, most successful men—live for their work alone, and have few interests or ideas unconnected with it. The result of that state of things is—to put it in one sentence—that general develop ment is sacrificed to particular aptitude. The man ►s trained—l speak of all claases equally—not to be a com plete man, but to be a tool iu the most perfect state of effi ciency for the performance of a particular kind of work. That is an error ; and the best remedy for ►t —one no doubt imperfect, but still preferable to any other that we can find—is to counteract this partial and imperfect teach• ing by a large acquaintance with human life and thought in all its varieties—a kind of knowledge which, as regards the masa of men, can be given only through books. From whatever cause—partly from reserved and domestic habits—partly from that devotion to business which absorbs most of us, and creates an indifference to other matters—partly also from the great and rapid increase of population in these islands within the last half century, so rapid that the appliances of civilisation have not kept pace with our material development—there is a want in England of pursuits and pleasures which are common to all, of institutions open to all, of places which all may frequent for recreation or amusement. That is a serious social evil. Every park or garden which you throw open, every museum or picture-gallery to which you admit the public, is a clear gain to society, not only in the pleasure which it creates, and the consequent feeling of content which it causes, but also in the recognition which such an act involves of a common citizenship, and in the pledge which it seems to give on the part of the wealthy to the poorer sort, that the wealth which these see round them is used not selfishly, but that they also share in the conveniences and advantages which it can purchase. And so with these libraries. Apart from their educational value—apart from the pleasures which they will confer, they will hold out to every one who, though poor, aspires to rise, and, though untaught, desires to learn—and there is not in England a village but contains some such—they will hold out, I say, to every each person a practical and conclusive proof that those who have been more fortunate in the accidents of life, and who stand on a higher intel lectual level, are not withheld by selfish indifference, or by a still more unworthy jealousy, from aiding so far as they can his advance, and saving him from that most pain ful of all sufferings—the sense of undeveloped faculties, and the consciousness of unrecognised talent. In describing the nature of the works which the popular libraries should contain, Lord Stanley recom mended that they should be well stocked with the annals of the most important nations—the personal records of the most eminent men that have appeared upon the earth—the arguments used in those great controversies which have divided human thought in all ages—the elementary principles, at least, on which scientific and artistic labours are based—and those studies of life and character which poetry and fiction supply. The list of subscriptions for the establishment of such a library at Hatfield includes the Marquis of Salisbury, WO/. ; Lord Cranbourne, 201., and an annual subscription of five guineas; Lord Stanley, 251.; Earl Verulam, 10/. ; the Earl of Roseberry, 51. ; and members of the noble earl's family, 31. THE Conatitutionnel, quoting a new volume on the statistics of France, by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, observes that—" France is, par ex cellence, the country of middling and small proper ties. The cadastre shows us the soil split into 128,000 parcels, belonging to 11,053,000 proprietors. This refers to the mean year 1827. It results from the examination of the roles of the land tax token more recently. that the number of land portions was 11,511,000 in 1842, and that it has successively mounted to 13,122,000 in 1854." AN OFFER FOB CONTRACTS has just been issued by the Commissariat of St. Petersburg, which is parti cularly interesting at the present time, as giving us a not inaccurate notion of the number of Russian troops at present under arms. This contract is for girdles, with one of which every soldier is to be sup plied. The number for the Guards collectively is given at 60,500; for the corps of Grenadiers at 65,700 ; and for the regiments of the line 106,700. THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, says the Post Antpt Ga zette of Frankfort, has just made a present of two diamond rings of great value, one to M. Lindenberg, the editor of the Westp)talia Gazette, and the other to Dr. Hesekiel, one of the editors of the New Prus sian Gazette. SIXTY PERSONS have been arrested at Naples, for having joined the funeral procession of the ex-deputy Innocenzo de Cesare. Among them is the second sons of the Prince of Torells.