The Press. — London, England, 1855-11-03 00:00:00

NOVEMBMI 3, 1855. Cold aull lastion. The Court has remained at Windsor during the week. Her Majesty and the Royal Family have en joyed their usual walks and drives as far as the in clement weather of the week would permit. His Royal Highness Prince Albert, on Saturday last, presided at the opening of the new Commercial Traveller's Schools, Pinner. The Lord Mayor, the sheriffs, and a numerous assembly were present to meet the Prince, who arrived shortly after half-past one, attended by Colonels Grey and Seymour. An address having been read explaining the charitable object of the institution, by which from two to three hundred young orphan children between the ages of seven and fifteen are now being educated by the association, Nis Royal Highness made a brief and appropriate reply, and, having declared the building opened, Dr. Vaughan, head-master of Barrow, offered up a prayer, after which a collection was made in the presence of the Prince, and as soon as his Royal Highness had taken lunch and left, about 450 ladies and gentlemen sat down to the usual repast which inaugurates all such proceedings in England. A list of subscriptions was then read, and the contents of the purses announced, the whole amounting to nearly 2,0001. One of the largest donations was from Mrs. Cuffiey, of Birmingham, whose purses exceeded 2001. The remaining toasts on the chairman's list were then disposed of, and the company separated. The musical arrangements were under the direction of Mr. F. Mori, and Mr. Harker was the toast-master. His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge has been on a visit at Windsor Castle. Their Royal Highnesses the Duchess and Princess Mary of Cambridge, and the Duke of Cambridge, took leave of her Majesty and left the Castle on 'Thursday. The Earl and Countess of Clarendon and Lord Panmure also took leave. Major-General the Hon. Charles Grey and Captain Du Plat have succeeded Major-General Buckley and Col. Seymour as Equerries in Waiting to the Queen and Prince. His Excellency the French Ambassador has been also on a visit to her Majesty atWindsor. His Excel lency returned to town on Thursday. The Duke of Newcastle is daily expected home from the Continent. His grace has extended his travels into the heart of Circassia. Lieut.-General Sir de Lacy Evans, M.P., is staying at the Pavilion Hotel, Folkstone ; the gallant gene ral's health appears much improved since his return from the seat of war. Lord John Russell has consented to deliver a lec ture at Exeter-ball, on the evening of Tuesday, November 13, on the subject of "The obstacles which have retarded moral and intellectual progress." The Duke of Rutland and Lord John Manners .have arrived at the Clarendon from Newmarket. The Bishop of London has experienced an attack of ;paralysis this week. The following bulletin was .issued on Fiiday morning : The Bishop has made as much progress as can reason 'ably be expected, and is going on satn,factorily. Mr. Headlam has not been appointed to the vacant 'Commissionship of Charities. We believe Mr. 'Campbell, Q.C. has been offered the post. Lord Raglan arrived in town a few days since from Hanover. The noble lord, it is said, has resigned ;the appointment he held at the Court of the King of aianover. Madame Lind Goldschmidt (in reply to an appli tattier' addressed to herby Mrs. S. C. Hall) has ex pressed an intention to visit London, for the special purpose of giving a concert in aid of the proposed Nightingale Fund. Sir Thomas Troubridge was married on Thursday, at Norwich, to the daughter of Mr. Gurney, the banker. THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL'S RETURNS. 'Tae mortality in London last week is much below the usual average rate which prevails within its limits. The deaths of 903 persons were registered in the week that ended on Saturday, 27th October ; while the corrected average of the corresponding weeks of the previous ten years was 1,079. The weekly deaths would amount to 836 in London, if the annual rate of mortality did not exceed the natural rate of 17 deaths in 1,000 ; so in the present week 67 deaths by unnatural causes have been recorded. Of the 903 persons who died, 437 were under 20 years of age, 129 were 20 and under 40, 155 were 40 to 00, 158 were 60 to 80, and 21 were 80 years and up wards. Two hundred and nineteen persons died of zymotic diseases, including 7 by cholera, 10 by small pox, 58 by scarlatina, 49 by typhus or by ti:e various forms of fever. The death of the late Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Belgrave sub-district, at the age of 45, is referred to " gastric fever and low peritonitis." The ravages of scarlatina in St. Pancras, where it has caused 13 deaths, require in vestigation. Three of the deaths from cholera were in the Millbank Prison. The deaths from diarrhoea THE PRESS. have fallen from 154 weekly in August to 51, 44, 41 in October, and in the last week to 27. Eighteen persons died of cancer, 118 of consumption, 51 of apoplexy and paralysis, 35 of disease of heart, and 19 of dropsy, 105 of bronchitis and pneumonia; women died in childbirth. Twenty-seven violent deaths were registered. In the week the births of 737 boys and 790 girls, in all 1,527 children, were registered in London. In the ten corresponding weeks of the years 1845-54 the average number was 1,411. THE QUARTERLY RETURN. The Registrar-General issued a return on Tuesday last comprising the births and deaths registered in England during the summer quarter that ended on September 30, 1855 ; and the marriages in the quarter that ended June 30, 1855. The returns of deaths (says the Registrar-General) exhibit as their general result a favorable state of the health of the country in summer, and a striking improvement on the returns of the summer quarter of the previous year. The diminution of the number of marriages indicates some pressure on the resources of the people from the high price of bread . but the low rate of mortality implies that under the English system of poor laws, imperfect as it is, the labouring classes suffer less distress than the workmen of the Continent, who have no legal right, under any cir• cumstances, to relief. MARRIAGES.-38,454 marriages were registered in the quarter that ended on June 30, or less by 1,935 than the number in the corresponding quarter of the previous year, when the number of marriages was' considerably above the average. BIRTHS.-154,834 births were registered in the quarter that ended September 30. This number only exceeds by 99 the number of births in the summer quarter of the year 1854, and indicates a rate of birth (3,265) above the average of the season (3.196 annually). INCREASE OF POPULATION.-154,834 births and 87,934 deaths were registered. The natural increase of the population of England and Wales in the three months is, therefore, 60,900, which makes the gain of people in nine months in this part of the empire 157,147. INCREASE IN PRICES.—Among the most impor tant circumstances that affect the number of births, deaths, and marriages, must be placed the state of trade, the prices of food, and the weather. The prices of Consols in the three quarters that ended in September, 1853, 1854, and 1855, were 97, 931, and 901 ; so the interest of money rose in the proportion of the reciprocals of these numbers. The prices of wheat in the same seasons were 51s. 10d., 635. 10d., and 765. ld. a quarter; of beef, by the carcase, in the London markets, 51d., 51d., and 51d. a pound. The prices of these articles of food, therefore, rose, iu the interval of two years, wheat 48 per cent., beef 15 per eery. Mutton, in the three summer quarters, was sold at 01d., Od., and 6d. a pound. Potatoes, by the Waterside-market, Southwark, were sold at 117 s. 6d., 80s., and 745. a ton. The fall of 37 per cent. in the price of an article of food which is consumed at the tables of all classes, and by persons of all ages and both sexes, is an important set-off against the rise in the price of wheat, and may partly account for the fact that the public health is better — the rate of mortality lower—than it was in the summer of 1853. The decrease of mortality in the quarter is ascribed by the Registrar to the improved sanitary arrangements generally adopted throughout the country—a measure, he observes, which will save more lives at home than have ever• been lost to us abroad in the years of our greatest losses in war. LORD GODERICH ON ADULT EDUCATION. AT the annual soiree of the RIPON Mechanics' Insti tution, on Friday evening last, Lord Goderich ad dressed the audience at some length I upon the sub ject of mechanics' institutes and their reference to education. His lordship commenced by observing that, although the difference of the state of public feeling at the commencement of this century and its present age is much in favour of 1855, yet we had not arrived at a time when we might rest satisfied with that which was done and doing in the matter of public education It is tnie that if one who had lived one hundred years ago was to return to existence now he would be astonished at the advance we have made in this matter of education, and think that he had awoke into some Utopian and almost impossible state of existence; nevertheless we, who live in the midst of this state of things, must at least feel that we have advanced in reality but a little way in the work which has been set us to do, and that we have but begun to solve that important question—one of the most impoi tant which the present age is called upon to solve—the question of spreading over every rank, from the highest to the lowest of the population, the blessings and benefits of education. After alluding to the origin of mechanics' institutes, and paying a high tribute to the worth and talents of the late Dr. Birkbeck, Lord Goderich observed that he thought such institutions were peculiarly adapted to 1055 the genius of the English people, although he was not prepared to admit that in their present state they were perfect for their object : I believe that mechanics' institutions have their peculiar dangers and their peculiar imperfections. It is a great advantage, doubtless, when they are combined, as here, with a series of classes. I perfectly agree with what fell from your chairman, when he said that the classes were the most important part of the mechanics' institution. ( Hear, hear.) I enter into no question as to what else you may add to those classes (though anything whatever that you add to them which will attract one man to attend to them is an advantage) ; but if you mean yourmechanies' institutions to be the colleges of the poorer classes—if you mean them to afford the source of sound education, the basis of those institutions must be the classes, otherwise you surround them with great danger, because you place before the members a library—it may be a large and ex- tensive library, such as that which belongs to this institu tion—which has necessarily been formed to a certain extent by accident, being the collections and donations of various persons, entertaining different views upon certain principles and questions—into a library thus formed you turn loose the members of your institution to seek for knowledge for themselves. After enforcing the necessity of establishing and maintaining classes as the basis of education, the noble lord alluded to the success with which Mr. Maurice has met in establishing a working man's college in London, but admitted that the scheme presented clink:46es which might prove too much at first for the well intentioned people at Ripon. Lord Goderich then alluded to the futility of the common objection against education as unfitting a man for his particular trade, by holding up the intelligence, and at the same time the bravery and courageous endu zance, of our soldiers in the present war as a direct proof to the contrary. Upon the question of State aid to education he freely expressed his belief that the State, from various cause, would do little or nothing We, who have been sitting in the House of Commons last session—Mr. Lascelles, Mr. Beckett, and myself— have come away with the conviction that you are not likely to get much aid to public education from the State, beyond that which ►s afforded at present, or an extension of the present system. We spent night after night in die cuss.ng and quarrelling over three educational bills brought in by three distinguished gentlemen—all leaders of large and important parties—but what was the result , I believe the house, as a body, was earnestly desirous to do whatever was possible in national education, but the result was precisely nothing. We wasted no time, but effected nothing; and, whatever may be my or any other person's I opinion upon the mighty question of State education, upon which it is not my business to speak to-night, 1 have arrived at this conclusion, that if we wait until we get more State for education we shall have to wait lung enough. (Hear, hear.) Glancing at the movement in favour of the ad vancement of merit to high office, Lord Goderich complimented the meeting on the steps taken by the Government on that point, and concluded his lengthened adslress by an appeal to all classes to endeavour to secure the education of the people, and not to rest or slacken in the work until that point be quite attained It is said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and it is true, fur you cannot stop the people from having knowledge. Knowledge of soma kind they will have, and it rests with you whether it shall be sound, valuable, and useful; whether it shall be a knowledge which shall make them good citizens of their country ; cr whether it shall be a knowledge which will render them liable to be led away by others, and to be deceived by every falsehood. What we are called upon to do is little compared with that which former generations had to do. We are apt to pass ourselves off as the most enlightened and the most public spirited people that the world has ever seen ; but when we look at that which we have done, and compare it with the work of past ages, we shall see how little we have really accomplished in the matter of education. Past ages built the universities and endowed them more largely than we have endowed mechanics' institutes. It was the piety of your ancestors which built that !Muster and raised thxt abbey which we all know so well, and if we would foil' w their steps, and emulate their virtues, we must build a temple far nobler than they built--a temple for the human mind. THE CONCORDAT BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND ROME has been much discussed at Venice and Milan, and double seem to be felt as to its ever being ratified ; much astonishment has been expressed at its ever having arrived at its present stage, considering the known anxiety of the Emperor to maintain his Government independent of all external power. A IzommisT CONSPIRACY is said to have been discovered in Paris, and the arrest in connection with it of a duke bearing one of the oldest names in France. It is said that the affair is identical with one reported in a legal journal the other day, a feature of which was the deposit of a sum of seven thousand francs in a country bank for the purpose of suborning workmen. - - THE DufzE AND DUCHESS Olr MONTPENSIER are now at the castle of Cornigliano, where the Countess of Neuilly, the widow of Louis Philippe, and the Duke and Duchess of Nemours, are staying. The Duke and Duchess of Aumale are expected at Genoa. ! ,4