The Press. — London, England, 1856-10-25 00:00:00

OCTOBER 25, 1856. papers which had been issued in reference to that matter, and it was one of those matters which had never been made the subject of a full parliamentary discussion ; but, Laving himself carefully read the papers, he must say that he rose from their perusal with the conviction that the Government had acted in a careless and precipitate way, and had very nearly embroiled us in a quarrel for which there was no occasion. He trusted it was not so, and it was not his intention to say that it was so with regard to Naples. While he did not put any great confidence in the present Government he was not prepared to prejudge the case. He hoped all would turn out well, but at the same time it was the duty of the country to maintain its internal relations as complete as possible. Whether they were engaged in war or not, they should take care "to keep their powder dry," and be prepared for whatever conse• quences might arise. The hen. baronet then urged the importance of a thorougly good administration of our civil and mili tary concerns in all the different departments, and expressed his entire confidence in the present Com mander-in-Chief, his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge. Sir Stafford Narthcote then addressed some obser vations to the meeting on the subject of our civil administration. He maintained that if we were to have good servants in the civil department we must have them contented with their condition ; that their present position was unjust, and that unless it were altered we could not expect to have them contented. He was for improving not only the position but the efficiency of the public servants, and getting as much work out of them as possible. At present the ar rangemanta were bad, one class baying comparatively high salaries and nothing to do, and another having lore salaries and being hard worked. What they wanted was a better system of promotion by merit, and to get rid of the system of regarding the higher positions in the service as so much patronage to be conferred upon young and favoured parties, and in troduce a system which would make everyone re sponsible to himself for his own rise and standing. He quite approved of competitive examination : The real question of talent and efficiency did not con sist so much in what a man knew, as in how much time was spent in his education. If a man had the qualification to gu at it " in one pursuit, he would have the same aptitude to "go at it" in any other pursuit which he might apply himself to. With regard to the question of social improvement a great deal remained to be done, and especially with regard to education. He thought that the time might come when an educational rate would form a part of the system of the education of the people. He bad voted against Lord John Russell's resolu tions because they did not go to the root of the evil ; they neglected that particular class of children which were the bane of large towns, and of country parishes too, which were utterly vagrant, unemployed, and neglected. The question of education was closely connected with the refoi illation of the criminals and the prevention of crime. We were doing a good deal by means of our reformatory schools, by which many were reclaimed, but what would be better would be to take the children before they became criminals, and so prevent them from becoming so ; for it was perfectly easy to see, and as easy to say of a boy, " That boy, if left alone, will become a criminal," as to say of another " That boy, when he grows up, will be tall or short in stature" : What they wanted was a system such as hat been intro duced in Scotland and some foreign countries—America, for instance—of taking boys when they were young, and instructing and educating them—no; merely au instruc tion such as was commonly imparted in schools, but to teach them their duty to God and man, and how to earn an honest livelihood. In further advocating the establishment of indus trial schools the speaker noticed that special assist ance was given by the Privy Council to such schools, over and above what was given to national schools. He then made some rem - arks on the bill intro duced in the last session for practically abolishing the town dues of Liverpool. He was satisfied that the dues which Liverpool collected on the iron and other products of that (Dudley) district were to a considerable extent injurious to the local trade. He could not have agreed to the bill introduced last year, but he thought it possible to arrive at some thing consistent with justice and consistent with the interests of the public. With regard to party politics, they were now almost disregarded : He thought the duty of the Conservative party was to rely on their principles urtil they saw that something really dear to them was attacked, which he conceived at present was not the case ; and that it was not necessary they should be continually active. That was a negative kind of Conservatism, which pr rhaps might not be satis ft. etory to some. If they w e r e d es i rous o f p reserv ing their institutions they should keep them in good repair, by Attending carefully to those questions of detail which affected the administrative efficiency of the country, and those several questions which kept the people contented, and preserved to us the blessings which our constitution gave us, and which he hoped might be preserved to us, by God's blessing, for a long period of time. THE PRESS. MR. DUNLOP, M.P., in an address to his consti tuents at Greenock last week, expressed some appre hension of the permanence of peace. Ha thought another campaign would have secured it : He did not think that the end had been attained. From a glance at Italy, Germany, and Spain, there they saw that freedom of conscience was denied, freedom of opinion was suppressed, and there can be little doubt that if retribution is to be made, that war must be the instru ment of such retribution. With respect t) the Neapolitian question,he donbted the policy of sanctioning the principles of interven tion in the internal affairs of other nations, and had great misgivings as to the part taken by England and France towards Naples. Nu. COBBETT, M.P., in an address to his consti tuents at Oldham on Wednesday, briefly reviewed the measures of last session, and in alluding to the reformation of our criminals forcibly pointed out the inconsistency of the severe treatment of the poor in the workhouse, and the care and comfort adminis tered to the criminal in the reformatory. He was opposed to a Government system of education. SIR H. F. DAVIE, M.P., met his constituents at Jedburgh, on Monday, and in the course of his remarks alluded to the Maynooth question : He had supported the abolition of the grant, though with great hesitation, as he thought many of the Tory party joinel in the cry with personal political motives, and he thought if Lord Derby were in power to-morrow, they should hear no more about Maynooth. He was disposed to give a qualified support to Lord Palmerston's Government, though he should only do so on the most in dependent grounds, as he was no slavish supporter of the Government. CRAUFIIRD, M.P., addressed! his constituents at Ayr last week. Mr. Craufurd approved of the peace, reviewed the few measures passed last session, and in a violent tirade against the Conservative party in connection with the Maynooth question, said : " Gentlemen, the Maynooth grant is one of the but- tresses of the establishment system which is falling year by year in this country ; it is the chief buttress of that incubus, the Irish Church." gattrogolitan. THE FATAL ACCIDENT AT THE SURREY GARDENS. ON Sunday night last some 10,000 persons were crammed in the galleries and body of the Music hall at the Surrey-gardens, for the purpose of hearing the Rev. Mr. Spurgeon, a well known Dis senting preacher, deliver his usual Sunday evening discourse, for the first time in that building. The service had commenced, a hymn had been sung, a chapter read from the Scriptures, and Mr. Spurgeon was about to open his discourse, when suddenly cries of " Fire ! " and " The galleries are falling !" struck the audience IN ith a panic. A few near the doors rushed out. "One fool makes many," says the old adage ; and in a moment the crowd, mad with fright, rushed, screaming and struggling, to the principal doorwa)s. The gallery staircases were soon clogged—frantic men dashed head foremost through glass windows—terrified women and scared children thug themselves over the balustrades— or fell helplessly senseless down the steps and were smothered as they lay ; others, tumbling over their bodies, choked up the exit—and then came a crush and struggle for escape such as few can realize to the mind. Bones were literally heard to crack and snap, as the poor sufferers were bent over the balus trades. Mr. Spurgeon during this frightful scene kept bis place, and endeavoured to calm the apprehensions of the crowd by singing a hymn, but this failing be delivered his text, " The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked," with such energy, that the few persons who had hitherto retained their self-posses sion were scared with terror, and tearing from their seats, either rushed to the side-doors, dashed them open, plu Iged through the glass windows, or added their fright and pressure to the seething, strug gling, maddened crowd in front. Suddenly the balustrades of the western gallery gave way some fourteen feet from the ground ; at the same moment those of the eastern gallery broke ofl, and in an instant hundreds of persons flung themselves down on the flags beneath : The cries of the frightened and wounded (says a witness of the scene) were now so loud and piercing, that they were beard not only all over the gardens, but fur a con siderable distance round the neighbourhoods of Waleorth and liebnington. Many of the inhabitants of these locali ties were themselves in the hall at the time; very many others had relatives or friends there, and, fearing the worst, their consternation was dreadful. Numbers rushed with out hats or bonnets into the gardens, calling for their children, brothel*. husbands, or *ire*, as the case might be, and were met by a confused mass of people, who thought that they would not be We so long as they re mained within the gardens, and were therefore flying at the top of their speed. Some ran into the lake. Everywhere wounded people were entreat►ng to be carried to the hospital. 1017 Persons ran about crying " Police ! " and "Are there any medical men here ?" and relatives went from place to place to see if those whom they sought were amongst the injured. The breaking of the balus trades and the efforts of the police after a short time checked the multitude, and at length the crowd was induced to hold back. In a few minutes they became convinced that no danger from fire or falling galleries existed, and many returned to their seats, when the service was resumed and concluded as if nothing had b a open ed. One correspondent writing to the Times, J. R., gives the following account :- 1 occupied one of the front seats in the second gallery, when, during the second prayer, the first symptoms of con fusion were manifested. This appeared to me to be oc casioned by an intentional rush of some person or persons who were at the side of the platform, causing in an instant a great deal of confusion, and inducing the congregation to rise from their seats in all parts of the building. A moment after, and the cry of " Fire ! " was raised by a voice in the body of the hall; added to which a cry of " The bells ! the belh ! " and in an instant, and in the greatest confusion, there was a simultanecus rush of the immense body of people for the doors and windows. Seeing the minister apparently but little moved and using his utmost efforts to induce the people to remain in their seats, both by voice and gesture, 1 jumped on my seat and called out "A false alarm," " Keep your seats; " but terror had so seized upon the major part of the congregation that an individual voice had but little chance of gaining a hearing. It was en deavoured to attract the attention and to calm the fears of the multitude by singing a verse of the hymn that had already been sung, but, unfortunately, only a few of those who were on the platform were able to join. I then made for the staircase, partly to see the cause of the confusion which had originated below, and partly, also, that it might be safer in case anything should prove to be wrong. Upon descending the staircase a horrible sight presented itself— the balustrade had already been thrown down and lay broken in fragments at the bottom ; a great number of people, men, women, and children, lay huddled in a heap on the second lauding, completely blocking up the stair case, and causing numbers who were still crowding down either to fall upon them, or in their fright to juLap down the opening caused by the broken balustrade. The police were unable for some minutes to ascend the staircase to render assistance, and were obliged to content themselves by calling to the people not to jump down; while a number of the congregation above were apparently undecided what to attempt. After dragging back by main force several who appeared determined to jump down, calling out at the same time to those who were still crowding to keep beck, we succeeded in opening a window close by ; desiring two or three to jump out, and two or three others to assist inside, we passed them into the open air—three quite dead to all appearance, and many others so severely injured that in some cases, no doubt, death was the result. Another correspondent, " W. 5.," narrowly escaped suffocation : When the alarm was given and the first rush took place I could not help being Lorne by the crowd towards the door; but a number of people (men and women) having fallen, I was knocked down over tbem, the crowd continu ing to pass over us and over those who fell upon us. I fortunately had a stout stick with me, which, having planted against the floor, close by the wall of the passage, enabled me with my right arm, my left resting on the floor, to keep from pressing too closely against the faces of two women who were under me, and who appeared already almost suffocated. The door near where se bad fallen having been got closed by the police, which stopped the crowd from pressing over us, we were in a short time relieved from our unfortunate position, and enabled to get up. From observations and inquiries made on the spot, it is beyond question that death in every case ensiled upon the circular stone staircase, leading from the first gallery to the ground-floor, in the north-western tower of the building. It is also an indisputable fact that every one of the persons killed, sat or stood during the service until the alarm was given in that first gallery, and the very individuals who came by this violent end were trecisely those nearest the place of exit, and who were the first to run for safety at the earliest manifestation of the panic. After the balustrade gave way to the pressure of the crowd, an example of female heroism and the force of maternal love occurred, and deserves a passing record : Susannah Heard, a young married woman, her husband, and their little boy, with many others, were jammed up on the stair and unable to make any progress one way or the other. She stood nearest the balustrade, and to save her little boy from suffocation she held him a considerable time over the hand nil by the neck above the well of the stairs. At that time a man—probably George Lane, now in Guy's Hospital with a comminuted fracture of the right arm—was wedged so forcibly against an iron pillar which supported the stairs, that she and her Lusband could distinctly hear the bones of his arm snap several times. When the balustrade gave way her husband put his arm round her and kept her from falling through the pp, she standing while be did so, on only one leg, with the other hanging over the edge of the stairs, and still holding her little boy over the gulf. By and by the pressure slackened, and she was relieved from this perilous position. The husband at this moment took hold of a woman standing near him in the crowd to prevent her from falling, and he found she was dead. It is remarkable, as showing bow gregarious a crowd is, that though the means of exit from the building are so many, the people in the first gallery, where the greater part of the re all the mischief was