The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-17 00:00:00

1020

As some tall cliff that lifts ICS awful form,
Swells from the Vila and midvray leaves the storm ;
Though roue I its breast the railing Meals ara spread,
Eternal satishi.le Bottles on its head.
his lordship sat down amid loud and prolonged
cheering.
On the second day the inaugural addresses to the
sections were delivered by the different chairmen.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL opened the proceedings with an
address upon Jurisprudence and the Amendment of
the Law. Lord John Russell advocated the appoint-
ment of a Minister of Justice, praised highly the
administration of justice in Scotland, and, glancing
slightly at the question how far legislation can be
permitted to interfere in social matters, pointed out
the different subjects, such as bankruptcy. Sze., in
which some amendment of the existing law was
clearly required.
Sir Joists PAKINGTON, M.P., delivered the next
address, upon National Education. The right lion.
gentleman said that he regarded it as a humiliating
consideration that hare in England, where we bad
attained a degree of knowledge, intellectual power,
civilisation, and refinement which ha I never been
reached before—in England, where we hail attained
such scientific pre eminence, and had given to man•
kind the wondrous steam-engine and the miraculous
telegraph—we were surrounded (and it was vain and
mischievous to deny it) by masses of the people in
our towns and rural districts steeped in ignorance,
vice, and crime than which scarcely anything worse
could be found in an uncivilised land, and the black-
ness and the shame of which are rendered darker
and more shameful by the civilisation which pre•
vailed around

He had no wish to exaggerate the state of aff;►ir;, or to
underrate the great exertions of the admirable educational
societies at present in existence; but in his judgment it
was clear to demonstration that the means now forth.
corning were not sufficient to cope with the extent of the
evil.

Advocating the active presence of the religious
element in a national system of education, Sir J.
Pakington touched upon the difficulties and defects
of the present system, and expressed his opinion—
"his own deep and sincere conviction "—that the
real remedy lay in an improvement by Government
of the " quality " of our schools:—
His hearers might depend upon it injnstice was done to
the working classes in this matter. Their social affections
were as strong as ours. They were net intlitlereat to the
welfare of their children, and we had no right to declare
that they preferred the child's earnings to the child's
interest until we had fairly tested that question by givin4
them schools which were tit to go to. When this was done
we should be able to say whether they would send their
children to school or not, and whether the Government
was called upon to a lopt a compulsory system.

He earnestly trusted that the result of their pro-
ceedings might be to extend information, to increase
public interest, and accelerate the arrival of that
time when Parliament would no longer hesitate to
legislate on this subject in a manner conducive to
the permanent welfare, the honour, and the interests
of this country.
Upon Sanitary Science, Lord STANLEY, M.P.,
delivered a most able and interesting address. Ob-
serving that the fundamental axiom which sanitarists
laid down was that, of epidemic diseases some might
be made, by proper appliances, to disappear altoge-
ther, while those that remained would exhibit a
milder and less distinctive type, while a knowledge
of physical laws would tend to a greatly improved
state of the public health in respect to diseases not
epidemic, lie proceeded to enforce the necessity of a
more general diffusion of knowledge upon these sub-
jects, and to argue that our destiny in these matters
was very much in our own hands. He then adduced
a variety of facts to prove that sanitary neglect
caused disease, and in order to show how vast a
sacrifice of human life went on unchecked and almost
unnoticed, though plainly within tlle power of society
to abate, he instanced the case of the British army—
not ot• regiments employed on foreign service or
quartered in unhealthy climates, but the case of
troops at home under the direct control of the
Executive
Taking the deaths which occurred among men within
the ages of military service we had a yearly average of
civilians resident in towns of 11.9 per 1,000; while for the
same ages among soldiers of the hoe there was an average
of 17 8 per 1,030; and among the Guards of 20.4 per
1,000. He need not stop to inquire to what extent
deficient ventilation, intemperate habits, or such causes
contributed to this result; but he proceeded to
statistics to show how far mortality varied according to
the salubrity or insalubrity of the district inhabited.
Taking the same ages—namely, 20 to 35—we had an
average of deaths per 1,004) as follows :—I n the least healthy
urban districts, Ix• 4 ; in the whole population of England
and Wales, 9.2 ; in the rural population exclusively, 7.7.
From a popular summary of facts which had been drawn
np by the Manchester Sanitary Association, comparing
deaths from pesti.ence with deaths from war, he found that
during the Revolntioeary war, in 22 years, from 1793 to
1415, there were killed 19 800 men, while in the single
year 1844-49 there died of cholera and other epidemics
72,180. In those 22 years of war the wouuded were
79,700, while in the one year of cholera those attacked