The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

were the successful competitors, and the regular
service would commence in February next. The
route selected is from Southampton to Alexandria,
thence overland to Suez, and onward by sea by way
of Aden, Point de Galle, and St. George's Sound, to
Melbourne and Sydney. The time to be occupied is
thirty-nine days from Suez to Melbourne, and thirty-
five days from Melbourne to Suez. The contracting
company has been rapidly completing its arrange-
meets, purchasing some ships and chartering others
pending the building of a fleet of their own, which is
to combine the requisite qualities of speed and
strength for a voyage of such length, and which they
are under heavy penalties to perform in a given period.
The first vessel, the Oneida, is advertised to sail to-
morrow morning, carrying a very large mail ; the
object being to enable her to make the voyage out to
Melbourne and Sydney, and return to Suez in time
to take up her station as what is called an outside
vessel, that is, plying regularly between Suez and
Australia. The vessel in question is a magnificent
screw steamer, built fifteen months ago at Greenock
by the Messrs. Scott fur the Canadian trade, but im-
mediately atter her being launched she was taken up
by the French Government for the transport service
to the Crimea. Nothing can be better adapted for
the purposes for which she has been selected tban
this vessel. Her size, peculiarly square auxiliary rig,
and powerful machinery, render her in every way
equal to the severe service she will be called on to
perform; while her accommodations for passengers,
whether as regards her spacious and lofty saloons
and roomy berths, are not surpassed by those of any
vessel. It is intended that she shall take only first-
class passengers, and of these she can accommodate
170. The directors of the company invited a large
party on Tuesday to visit the ship, and it was intended
that she should make a trial trip in the course of the
afternoon, hut in consequence of the necessity for
expediting her coaling, and of some alteration re
quired by the Government surveyors in her rudder,
that part of the day's programme was laid aside, and
the entertainments, beyond the examination of the
ship, were confined to a dejeuner on board. The
chair was taken by the chairman of the company, Mr.
Ewing, of Glasgow ; the Mayor of Southampton,
and about a hundred other gentlemen, were present.
The usual toasts on such an occasion were pro-
posed and drunk with the usual enthusiasm, and
everything seems to promise success to the attempt.
Mr. ROWLAND Hir.i., in replying to the toast of
" Her Majesty's Government," stated that the Go-
vernment, in entering into this contract for the con•
veyance of mails to Australia, desired to consult only
the best interests of the people of this country and
the colonies. Their only wish was to obtain the
speediest and most regular transmission of the mails
between the two countries :

Something had been lately said to him about the estab-
lishment of the ocean penny postage, the idea of which
emanated from a friend of his, Elihu Burritt ; and some
remarks had been made on the fact that an ocean penny
postage had been already established between the United
Suites and Australia. But the fact was that, although only
a penny was paid for the transmission of a letter by sea, it
was still subject to an inland rate of lid. in the United
States and another of 4d. in the colonies, making 81d. for
the entire transmission; whereas by the mail now about
to be established from this country, the whole charge would
be only 6d. per letter, so that we in this country had in
reality approached nearer to an ocean pency postage than
the United States.

Sir Henry Barkley, we believe, will leave for Mel-
bourne in the Oneida.

RAILWAYS AND REVOLVERS IN GEORGIA.
A MOST extraordinary narrative of duels and murders
in a railway train in Georgia is given in Wednesday's
Times by " An Eye-witness" according to the signa-
ture, but only an ear-witness according to fact. The
incidents are said to have occurred in the train between
Macon and Augusta (both in Georgia.) It appears that
among the passengers in the car were A and B, two
young men who had been rivals in love with a young
woman who was travelling by the same train. The
young men quarrelled, and a passenger called C
proposed that they should fight at once : this they
declined. A general discussion on duelling followed ;
two passengers, strangers to the other quarrel, dis-
puted, and leaving the train fought a duel. The
train went on, and at the next station the "Eye-
witness" heard by telegraph that one of them, an old
man, was killed. This stimulated C again to propose
a duel between the two original disputants, but this
proposal resulted in a quarrel between one of them,
B, and the intermeddler, C:—

The cars were stopped, and B and his second and C
and his companion got out. This time the conductor
waited the result of the duel. B was killed; his second

SATURDAY)

and the two companions came back and got into the cars,
but whether the body of B was left behind, or was put in
the luggage car, Ido not know. It moat likely was put in
there, Sur B's father was with him.

C then offered to fight B's father, but the father
declined :

C then stood on the platform, and holding the door of
the passenger car open, addressed the passengers collec-
tively in a set speech, pleading his own justification, and
praising what he called the noble and honourable institu-
tion of duelling, and challenging any one or every one
who said aught against him. He then ended by saying—.
As for that young woman, the blood that had been shed
lay on her head ; that he had never seen her before, did
not know her or care to know her, that her conduct
showed her to be no better than a common strumpet, and
that as such he should denounce her whenever and
wherever he might afterwards meet her, and offered to
fight any one who had some pretensions to respectability
who would take her part and defend her character; he
then retired into the smoking car, but not before the
young woman had replied in most violent language, telling
him she would not rest until she found some one to
kill him.

She appealed to the passengers for some one to
fight C, but they all declined, while C continued to
abuse her, and to defy any one to take her part :

Shortly after this we arrived at a station where there
were refreshments, and nearly all the passengers got out.
Here, before the train started again, a young man of
twenty-five or under, who all the way from Macon had
been seated in the smoking car, came into the passenger
car, and as he entered he recognised and accosted the
young woman ; and, after being made acquainted by her
with the insult and defiance to her, he at once offered to
take her part, and was joyfully accepted. This young
man's father was also in the cars. No sooner, then, were
the cars fairly under way than she sent the young man
into the smoking car, and the duel between him and Q
was speedily arranged; but as the train was much behind
time the conductor refused to stop, and it was therefore
agreed to fight in the smoking car. They fought with
Monte Christo pistols, or pistols that make no report,
for, after a few momenta of breathless silence, nothing
was heard but the young man's death cry. About this
time the little boy, son of the old man who was first killed,
awoke, and the young woman took him wish her into
the private room that is in the corner of all pa,senger
cars in that country upon a long line, and there she
divulged to him the secret of his father's death, and
pointed out C as having killed him. Being on the seat
next the room, with my head against the wooden parti-
tion, I heard enough of her story to know what she told
him. The cries and lamentations of the child were most
distressing, and in the midst of them he kept calling C
the murderer of his father and also of his mother, who
he said would die, and declaring that he would denounce
him when he got to Augusta, and would tell his parent.
who, he was sure, would avenge his father's death. This
continued so long that it roused the anger of C, who sent.
his companion to undeceive and quiet the boy ; he went,
therefore, to the boy, and endeavoured to explain to him
that C had nothing to do with his father's death, but that
the woman herself was the cause of it. He told his story
fairly, but did not pacify the child, who either did not un-
derstand him or did not believe him, for he redoubled his
cries and repeated he threats, whereupon the man took
the boy from the woman, and carried him upon the plat-
form of the car, and there be threatened to kill him if he
did not hash and keep quiet. It was thought he did this
to frighten the boy, but the woman, who could see them
from her position, cried out in a tone of alarm that the
man was in earnest, for the boy would not cease. At
length came a cry from the child of " Save me, save me !"
when a tall, middle-aged man, who till this time had
remained still and had not spoken, rose up, and throwing
off his cloak, saying, " I will save the child," stepped forward
to the platform, where, in an impressive tone and speech, he
expostulated with the man and prevailed upon him to deliver
up the boy. He then took the boy, and carried him back,
and gave him to the woman in the small room. For a
short time there was silence, but soon the cries and
threats of the boy were recommenced, then C's com-
panion, who had retired into the smoking car, came out,
went into the small room, snatched the boy from the
woman. carried him on to the platform, deliberately mur-
dered him, and threw the body off from the car ; the sudden
silence of the child, the sound of his body falling down,
had such effect upon me that, so soon as my mind could
realise the murder as a fact, I became unconscious ; in
which state I remained, perhaps, ten minutes; for when I
returned to a clear perception of things I found the cars
were stopped, and, on inquiry, I learnt that B's father and
the stranger who had saved the child at first had
challenged and gone out to fight with C and Ins
.com-
panion, and that the conductor had stopped the tram for
that purpose, and was waiting the result. C and his com-
panion alone came back ; the other two were killed.
C was finally seized and shut up in a car by himself.
The " Eye witness " who sends this account
adds:—

I know none of the parties by name, nor any of my
fellow•passengers, and this is not surprising, for family
names are seldom used when travelling in that country.
Neither have I seen any account of this affair in the
Gorgia papers, so that I am ignorant of what became of
C, who was secured, or of his companion who was left
behind; but, if I may judge from the silence of the
papers, I should say they were not brought to justice. In
Augusta I heard a person say that these were not un-
common incidents, and that scarcely a week passed with-
out some fatal encounter on that road.

OCTOBER 18, 1856.

THE BISHOPS OF LICHFIELD AND SODOR
AND MAN UPON EDUCATION.
AN influential meeting was held at Lichfield on Tues-
day, in support of the National Society for the edu-
cation of the poor in the principles of the Established
Church.

The Bishop of LICHFIELD, in opening the pro-
ceedings, referred to the origin of the National
Societe, now established forty five years, as the first
step in favour of public education upon sound
principles :
It could not be denied that there was a great need of an
establishment for imparting sound and liberal instruction
to the poorer classes, because it had been proved by expe-
rience that even the most provident and prudent of the
lower classes of society were unable to educate their chil-
dren without assistance. In rendering that assistance he
thought it was highly necessary that the education imparted
should be conducted upon principles clearly laid down and
defined. Indeed he believed that no education could rest
upon a good foundation which was conducted in any other
,de. There might. be the communication of a certain
amount of knowledge upon a certain number of subjects,
but all experience had shown that, if that knowledge were
not communicated upon fixed principles and with definite
objects, it was, in point of fact, no education at all. As a
Churchman he believed that the principles of the Church
were sound, that her doctrine was evangelical, her order
primitive and apostolical, and therefore he believed that
the National Society acted wisely in bringing up the chil-
dren intrusted to its care in the principles of the Estab-
lished Church. There was nothing uncharitable or illiberal
in such a course. Other persons could educate their chil-
dren as they liked, and he did not grudge them the liberty
t which they were fairly entitled. All that he asked was
t tat the national Church should have the means of edu-
e ding her children in her own principles, because he be-
lieved that those principles were sound, and would be
highly advantageous when carried into the practice of
daily life.
The Bishop of SODOR AND MAN next addressed the
meeting. The right rev. prelate having laid down
as essential principles of success in such an under-
taking, unity, submission to authority, and faith, pro-
ceeded to make a few practical observations upon the
question of education :
In the first place, he could not help remarking that, up
to the present moment, education, whatever it was in prin-
ciple, had been a question more of discord than of unity.
Indeed, as they went ou in their struggle to educate the
people, it appeared to him that the greater their efforts
were the more apparent was the danger of disunion in the
general cause. As an example, he would take the society
which was now before the meeting. For forty-five years
the National Society had existed as a means of educating
the people, and it had done its best to expend its money in
the erection of schools, in which certain principles were
taught. All who had accepted its aid had pledged themselves
to teach the children committed to their care the principles
of the Established Church, and the clergy who superin-
tended the schools were bound by their ordination vows to
teach the principles of religion according to the formularies
of that church. It might be thought that in so simple a
case all strife and controversy would have been avoided,
but even within the fold of the Church herself a controversy
had arisen as to the mode and manner in which the princi-
ples of the National Society should be carried out in con-
nection with the formularies of the Established Church.
Indeed, it appeared to be a question whether they ought
not to open their arms to all, and whether, forgetting that
they were the representatives of the Established Church,
they ought not to abandon their principles for the sake of
drawing in those who belonged to other communions.

For his own part, he believed that their formularies
were in thamselves evangelical because they were
scriptural, and he saw no necessity for departing
from the principles exhibited in those formularies in
order to please those who dissented from them :

He believed that the demand had been a demand not of
religious principle, but merely a political demand set up in
order to cause trouble in the work of education. From
past experience he was enabled to tell the meeting that
this very question of the necessity of abandoning the
Church formularies in order to attract the children of Dis-
senters into their schools had been thoroughly tested years
ago in &district much agitated by'politi cal discussions as well
as by religious strife. Years ago he remembered having a
discussion with a very sincere and sound member of the
Church as to the expediency of abandoning the Church
formularies and the catechism for the sake of drawing in
those who dissented from their communion. They sat up
discussing the question nearly all night, and at length went
to bed, both corivinced that they were right. On the fol-
lowing suantiog he (the Bishop of Sodor and Man)
decided upon trying use experiment in his own school,
which was situated in a large manufacturing district sur-
rounded entirely by Dissenters. The mode which he
adopted for testing the question was to decline to admit
the children of Dissenters unless the parents personally re-
:rested their children to be taught the Church catechism.
The experiment was entirely successful, Whenever there
was an impediment placed in the way it was human nature
to try and get over it, and it had been so in this case.
TheDissentera finding that their children would only be
received on certain conditions finally accepted the condi-
tions, and sfter trying the experiment for three months he
found that the proportion of children admitted into the
school at the request of Dissenters was nine out of ten.
He therefore thought he was justified in saying from ex-
perience, that an education based upon the principles of
the Church of England might be so conducted as to attract