The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1860-08-21 00:00:00

TIIIIR3D.IY.

At the morning sitting, the Stamp Duties (No. 2)
Bill, the Excise Duties Bill, the Customs (No. 2) Bill,
and the Defence of the Realm Bill were read a third
tune and passed, after some explanations with refer-
ence to the two first•named Bills.
The House having resolved itself into a Committee of '
Supply,
Mr. WALPOLE moved the British Museum Estimate,
as trustee, with the usual prefatory statement, which
gave rise to a lung discwisioa.
The vote having Wen at length agreed to, the Com-
mittee proceeded to the consideration of the indinary
I Civil liervice Estimates.
In the evening,
The House went into Committee of Supply upon the
Education (Ireland) Estimate, when
Mr. CARDWELL moved a resolution granting • sum Of
£270,722 for the public education of Cie people of
Ireland.
Mr. Msortax disputed the claim put forward in
favour of the mixed system of education, which, he
insisted, was a failure and a sham. There was a call for
a separate or denominational system of education in
England; and was there, he asked, such a radical dif-
ference between the two countries that such a systemn
was unfit for Ireland? He showed what was the work-
ing of the denominational system in England, and
desired, he said, to see the same system applied to
Ireland. . . .

Mr. DEASY replied with some warmth to the charges
brought by Mr. Maguire against the Commissioners,
and read the rules they laid down for instruction in
mixed schools, contending that they had never in prac-
tice deviated from them. . .

Mr. O'Fgagatt complained that Mr. Deasy had
caluniinated the prelates of the Church to which he be-
longed, who had admitted that the State hail a right to
control the expenditure of the money granted by Parlia-
ment. He had, he said, been an ardent supporter of
the National system at the beginning; but the changes
made in it had altered its character and poisoned the
boon of education.
Mr. BRADT contended that the Roman Catholic
population of Ireland were not favourable to the
National system.
Mr. C. Fuirrgsctm said he was surprised to hear the
National system attacked by Irish members—a system
which had had the happy effect of converting Ireland
from one of the worst educated to one of the best
educated countries in Europe. The result of adopting
the proposed change would be to substitute two or three
I bad schools instead of one good one, and to give an
impulse to the mischievous action of proselytism.
Mr. HENSEWO observed that the National system
was opposed not only by the Irish lloinau Catholics, but
by the great majority of the Protestant Wallops of
Ireland. The separate system had been tried in Ireland
with success.
Lord FERNOT was glad that Mr. Cardwell and Mr.
Deasy had spoken out, as it was important to the well-
being of Ireland that there should be no mistake as to
the views of the Uovernment upon th s subject.
Although the Homan Catholic hierarchy of Ireland
were opposed to the National system, it was, he said,
deceiving the House aud the country to pretend that a
majority of the Roman Catholic laity, of the middle and
educated classes, were not in favour of the mixed
. . . . . .

Eli:abeili Wed-send, 30, was charged with feloniously
attempting to drown her child, Mary Anne Weekste,
with intent to murder her.
Mr. Li'ley conducted the prosecution.
This case was one of • very dreadful character. It
appeared that the prisoner was an Irishwoman, and
that she was • soldier's widow, and received a pension,
and that the child in question was an illegitimate one,
five months old. On the fith of July the prisoner re-
ceived her pension, and she went home to her residence
in Hismer-street, Westminster.road, in a mad state of
drunkenness, and behaved very violently to several
people who were in the house, and also threw the child
about in her own room. After this the child got into
the yard at the hack of the house, and it began to cry,
and the prisoner exclaimed, " You bastard, I'll do
for you." and jumped out of • window into the yard,
and took up the child and threw it with great violence
upon the ground. A young man, named Patrick Wall,
who lived next door, ran and picked up the child.
Before she throw it down the prisoner struck the child
a blow with her clinched fist on the head, and when
Wall had taken the infant from her she asked him to
give it to her, and said she would take it indoors. He
gave her the child, and the moment the prisoner heed
possession of it, site ran to the waterhutt that was in the
yard, and in which there were about three feet in depth
of water, and threw the child in, lamed foremost, and
walked away. The child was recovered immediately by
the witness Wall, and the prisoner exclaimed, "Bring
the young in; I'll do for it on the quiet." The
prisoner then fastened herself in her own room, and it
was broken open by a female neighbour, who found
her lying on the ground with her hair all about her
face, and upon her inquiring what she had been doing
to the poor child the prisoner rushed at her and stabbed
her in the face with a knife. Evidence WAS also given
that when the prisoner was delivered of this unfortu-
nate child she said that she only wished it was dead,
and she appeared to be afraid that her having the child
would be the means of causing her to 100 her
pension. The infant, it appeared, hail int suffered any
material injury fron, the brutal conduct of the prisoner,
and it WAS stated that it was thriving and doing well.
The witnesses for the prosecution admitted, in answer to
questions put by the prisoner, that they had not seen
lier in any way ill-use the child before this occurrence,
and that she generally treated it kindly. The officer
who apprehended the prisoner said that she acted very
violently, and appeared like a mad woman. He took the
child to Mr. Waptaffe, a surgeon, mid observed that
FRIDAY. there was a lump on its head as large us a lien's egg.
The House, at the morning sitting, having resolved The prisoner when before the magistrates made a
itself into a Committee of Was and Means, statement to the effect that she did not know what she
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER moved the fol- was about on the day in question, and she now put in a
lowing resolutions :--1. That the Conimbisioners of written paper in her defence, in which she stated that
Her Majesty s Treasury be authorised to raise any sum she was the widow of a soldier who lost his life in the
not exceeding £2,000,000, by the issue ot Exchequer- Crimea, sod that the received • pension from the

system. If there were faults of detail in the system,
the rational course was to correct them, not to subvert
the principle. In the exceptional state in which
Ireland was, a change of the mixed system would range
the population in two hostile camps.
Lord PALMS/ANTON considered that the speech of Mr.
Deasy ought to be conclusive to Roman Catholic mem-
bers, and thought he had been most unjustly accused
(by Mr. Moused) of vituperating the Roman Catholic
prelates. Ile agreed with Lord Fenno that there
ought to be no mistake in this matter, and it should be
well understood that the Government would not feel it
their duty to propose a vote upon any other principle
than that of mixed education._

Atter 301110 re:narks by edlonel DICKBOII the cote
was agreed to. and ordered to be reported.
The reniaining orders were then proceeded with, and
the House adjourned at 25 minutes to 4 o'clock.

Government as his widow. The child in question, she
said, belonged to another soldier who had promised to
marry her, and would lIATe done so If his regiment had
It been ordered to India. With regard to the offence
of which she was accused she said that she went with
some other soldiers' widows to get her pension, and they
inditcesl her to drink Wine Spilith to which she was un-
,,,,,tonied, and she because mad drunk, and did not
know what she did.
31r. Justice Williams summed up, and the jury re-
turned a verdict of guilty, but recommended the prisoner
I, mercy on account of her previous kind treatment of
the child.
The learned judge, in passing sentence, said that it
was a most melancholy Case. The prisoner appeared by
drink to have tnuisfortned herself front a kind neither
to a wild beast, and, notwithstanding the recoinmenda-
tion to mercy of the jury, lie felt compelled to pass •
severe sentence, and to direct that she should be kept in
penal servitude for the spate of three years.
The prisoner, when the sentence was pronounced,
commenced screaming and howling, and wanted to know
whether her " dear child" would be allowed to be with
her, and she was forced out of the duck by the gaolers in
attendance.