The Press.
London, England, 1856-11-08 00:00:00

LtlttroDolitan.

Mn. SPURGEON, on Sunday forenoon, resumed the
occupancy of his own pulpit in Park-street Chapel,
Southwark. A great many persons were admitted by
tickets 1)k-fore the doors opened to the public, and
when the preacher entered every nook and corner, as
well in the body of the chapel as in the galleries,
was densely crowded by an eager auditory. Mr.
Spurgeon was conducted to the pulpit by the deacons
of his chapel. He appeared quite recovered from
his recent indisposition. After the usual service,
Mr. Spurgeon referred to the accident at the Surrey-
gardens :

It might not have arisen so much from the malice of
men as from some simply wicked intention to disturb the
congregation. I cannot entertain for a moment the
thought that there was any intention to murder those
fellow•ereatures whose lives were sacrificed on that melan•
choly occasion. God forgive the instigators of that horrid
scene. They have my forgiveness from the depths of my
soul. Tt shall not, however, stop us ; I shall preach there
again yet—( suppresed sounds of approval )—and God shall
give us souls. Satan's empire shall tremble yet more and
more. God is with us. Who shall be against us ? Under
the circumstances I have mentioned I have chosen for my
testa highly comforting and consoling passageof the Scrip.
tares, and one which alone enables me to appear here
before you this morning, and which has brought comfort
and consolation to my still oppressed spirit. It is selected
from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, chap. ii., v. 0,
10, 11.

Mr. Spurgeon gave an eloquent exposition of the text
for more than half an hour. The discourse was
almost entirely free from the strange metaphors
which have rendered this gentleman's preaching so
notorious.

THE I,IW AMF.NDMENT SOCIETY held the first
general meeting of the fourteenth session on Tuesday
last. Mr. Collier, Q.C., M.P., occupied the chair.
The report of the council was read. It merely
indicated the various questions connected with law
reform likely to occupy the Attention of the society
during the ensuing session. The questions of judi-
cial statistics, legal education, the appointment of a
minister of justice and a public prosecutor, the state
of the criminal law, and the consolidation of the
statute law, were earnestly impressed upon the
attention of the society.

THE QUARTERLY RETURN OF THE REGISTRAR-
GENERAL up to September 30th shows a low average
of deaths and marriages, hut a high average of
births. 77,431 marriages took place, 1,801 less than
in the spring : 157,033 children were regis-
tered as born alive—the greatest number of births
ever registered before in the corresponding quarter
of the year, and exceeding by 2,700 the births of
the same period in 1855. The deaths amounted to
91,330, leaving an increase to the population of
66,303. The emigrants amounted to 50,228, of
whom 19,225 were English. The Registrar-General
in concluding his report dwells forcibly upon the
general insalubrity of country villages. He ob-
serves :

The germs of insalubrity are scattered about in every
village : for the rational laws of health are violated alike
in the cottage and in the farmhouse. The dwelling•hou6es
sometimes rest on damp undrained ground; they lie ofteu

SATURDAY,

at the bottom of pitlike depressions of the earth, insterd
of standing on the sides of the higher grounds, from which
the water flows away naturally, end the decaying “rganic
emanations are dispersed and decomposed by the %%Inds.
The farmhouse is often close to the farms •1 on a low
part of the farm, and is surrounded by buildings, ricks,
and trees. In the yard, or near it, the refuse of the house
and of all the animals is kept month after month under.
going fermentation, and giving off noxious vapours. Into
the pond out of which the cattle drink the ammoniacal
liquor falls that should find its way over the land. And it
happens that if the air is stagnant for some days, if the
temperature is high, if some sick person or diseased
animal enters the place which is surrounded by salubrious
fields, the farm becomes a scene of suffering, the cattle
perish by pleuro-pneumonias, the children are attacked
bZ scorlatinas, the wife has low fever, or the farmer himself
dies, and his name, at a premature age, is enrolled in the
registers of deaths. About 6,426 English farmers die in a
year, and of them many are young ; 2,605 are under sixty-
live years of age.

Alluding to the general cleanliness of farmers in the
interior of their houses, he continues :
They have only to render the air which they breathe
about their houses pure to become, with those around
thew, the halest people in the world. To place any of the
new farmhouses and cottages to be built on certain eleva•
tions is the first point; to carry out and to cover with earth
all the refuse of the house and yards daily would prevent
the escape of the ammonia, the most precious part of the
manure, and at the same time rid the atmosphere of
the fatal malaria that surrounds the farmhouses and
cottages of the country. These matters well deserve the
attention of English landed proprietors, as they are gene-
rally much better informed in sanitary matters than their
agents, and can at once give effect to improvements beyond
the reach of the small proprietors of other countries.
In conclusion he observes:—

What we want must now be distinctly understood ; we
want pure air and pure water about our dwellings, and the
refuse, which infects the air, and makes man poison man,
to be restored directly to the soil.
THE CAST IRON PAVEMENT, constructed after an
American patent, and laid down some months since
in Leadenhall-street, opposite the Church of St.
Katherine Cree, having exhibited certain unmis.
takeable symptoms of looseness end want of tenacity
and endurance, owing to the bad foundation,
has recently been taken up, preparatory to being
relaid.

THE HEADS of all the medical corporations of
England, Scotland, and Ireland have, it is said,
at last agreed upon the terms of a new Medical
Reform Bill.

A NEW FIRE-ESCAPE, on the telescope principle,
was tested with great success in Black;riars on Mon-
day. The escape is raised and lowered with great
rapidity in almost every direction, and at any distance
from the burning premises. The operation of
reaching a window forty five feet high can be per-
fumed ten times in less than two minutes. Several
persons, including a female, were ntised and lowered
to and from the top of a house with perfect safety.

THE METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS DEPUTATION
had an interview with Sir Benjamin Hall on Wed-
nesday for the purpose of submitting the Main
Drainage Scheme to his notice. Mr. BazAlgette
having entered into lengthy explanations, Sir Ben-
jamin Hall promised to give the question his best
attention. On the deputation submitting to Sir Ben-
jamin Hall the Covent•garden improvement plans,
the President of the Board of Works complained of
the delay which had occurred in the preparation of
this and the plans for the Southwark improvements.
On the Bth March the board received the plans,
and a final reply, involving an outlay of 300,0001.
was only returned on the sth November, thus leaving
only five days to decide upon the proposal.
THE LORD MAYOR ELECT WM duly presented on
Monday to the Lord Chancellor for her Majesty's
approval. The Recorder entered into the usual de-
tail of the Lord Mayor's rise and success in business,
and the Lord Chancellor replied expressing approval
of the selection by the aldermen on behalf of the
Queen.
A LAUGHABLY EXPERT ROBBERY at the house of
the Assistant Judge was effected last evening week.
In the course of the evening, a man presented an
official looking letter at the residence of Mr. Pash-
ley, Q.C., the Assistant• Judge, in Manchester•square,
and said he was to wait for an answer. As the bell
rang, the footman was bringing the tea service down-
stairs, and he placed it on a table in the hall while
he went to the door. He took the letter up to Mr.
Pashley and when he came down the man was gone;
so were the teaspoons, the sugar-tongs, tea-pot, and
sugar-basin, and an umbrella. The thief got clear
away.
SIR CULLING EARDLEY, and a deputation from the
neighbourhood of Erith, waited upon Sir Benjamin
Hall on Thursday, to protest against the proposed
drainage outfall being at Erith. Sir Culling Eardley
pointed out that the proposed outfall was only seven-
eights of a mile from the metropolitan boundary.
Sir B. Hall promised to give the matter his most
anxious consideration.

MISS FLORENCE NIORTINOLT.E was on Thursday
unanimously elected by the committee to an
honorary life governorship of Middlesex Hospital.

NOVEMBER 83 1856.

Vrobintial.

TAP WAKEFIELD MECHANICS' INSTITUTION held its
annual meeting last week. Mr. M. Milnes, M.P., the
Dean of Ripon, Colonel Smyth, and about 1,200
persons, were present in the Corn Exchange.
The Dean of RIPON, after the reading of the
report, warmly congratulated the institution on its
progress. He believed that out of the Church me-
chanics' institutions were the best for promoting the
welfare of the people. Having ridiculed the use of
the term " soirée" in place of the plain English
term "tea-drinking," the venerable dean observed
that two classes of the community looked at such
institutions with anxious eyes :

The first class consisted of parties in high position, who
supported such institutions because they thought good
came out of them. Such persons would only stand by
them so long as they were doing good, for they gave their
money to do good. But there was another class lower in
the scale of life—the people who were not in a condition
to do good, but to get good. These were the two classes
who supported mechanics' institutions : the people who
wished to do, and those who wished to get good. They
must conciliate both parties Education in this country
was now everything. He believed in the next generation
it would be impossible to govern an uneducated people.
They must take all means to bring the intellect of the
people to come in contact with the government of the
country. They had universities for the higher class, and
national schools and other educational establishments for
the lower; but still there was a large class left out—
namely, the middle classes. There was no provision for
the education of that class. There was no institution
but that of the mechanics, which had met the wants of
the middle classes. He believed, however, that some of
these institutions were doing nothing. He did not ask
them whether they had got a good news-room ; he did pat
care twopence for a news-room. A news-room could be
supported without the aid of a mechanics' institution.
Any town or body could do that; but their mission was to
educate the people.

Mr. MONCKTON MUSES, in the course of a brief
address, said :
There was an old man in that wonderful country—
Greece—named Aristotle, who said that everything per.
taining to the soul of man was of a political nature ; and
in that spirit he approached political subjects in connec•
tion with that institution. When he heard people say
there was great danger in educating the people, and when
be heard others decrying a wholesale State education, he
believed both parties were wrong. Educating the people
by any and all means was the great object, and he called
upon all the friends of these institutions to give their
assistance. The middle class of England was the
great mass of the people ; and if other institutions had—
as he believed they had—caused these classes to feel very
much interested in them, they had been the means of
doing great good. He hoped the middle classes would do
all they could to take advantage of them. He was desirous
that these institutions should take an eminently practical
turn. He wished them to become the public schools of
the artisan of England.

THE WENLOCIE FaintEns' Cum held their annual
meeting on Monday. The proceedings of the day
commenced with ploughing, hedging, and ditching
matches, after which the usual distribution of prizes
took place, and a dinner concluded the day's pro-
ceedings. Jobn Pritchard, Esq., M.P., presided, and
was supported by the Hon. Colonel Forrester, ➢I.P.,
J. M. Gaskill, Esq., M.P., and G. Benson, Esq. The
president, in proposing the toast of the evening, con-
gratulated the company upon the very prosperous
state of the Wenlock Club, and, after some allusion
to the improvement in agriculture, came to the
question of agricultural statistics. He approved of
the bill of last session :

I consider a system of statistics advisable, in the first
place, to the farmer, to give him an idea of the value of
his produce. In the next place, to the merchant, the
capitalist, who has to look to supplying the difference be-
tween production and consumption, and to the Govern-
ment, which is responsible fur food being supplied to the
people. With respect to this, I believe that no very great
diversity of opinion exists, but on one point of the bill
there exists a great variety of opinion, and that is, whether
statistics should be obtained by a voluntary or a compul-
sory process. I admit, if they could be obtained by a
voluntary process that would be much the most desirable;
but, in my opinion, after the experiment that was tried two
years ago, Ido not think they can be so obtained. As you
all know, in 1854 an attempt was made to obtain statistics
by voluntary means, and in this union I happened to he
chai•man of a meeting at which the subject was brought
forward. Most of the agriculturists present at that meet•
ing, and, I believe, the great majority of the agriculturists
in this neighbourhood, furnished with the greatest readi-
ness the information required. But a certain number did
not approve of the measure, and they—either from not ap-
proving of it, or from neglecting the affair altogether—did
not furnish any returns whatever. The consequence was
the returns given by the majority were entirely nugatory,
and what applied to this union applied to all the counties
in which statistics were endeavoured to be obtained.
Therefore, the attempt altogether failed, and it is on this
account, I believe if they are to be obtained, they must
be obtained by a compulsory enactment.

Colonel Forrester and Mr. Gaskill replied briefly as
the borough members,