The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-08 00:00:00

to industry, and sagacity, ana irui5......„, ..._
reWOEd, ,llot, converted into a common • remedy
mere destitution. We see at present in Irela
the results of a monster system of out-doo,
relief. If this relief is to be extended from usten-
ance and employ to grants of habitations arid
landed troperty, Ireland will certainly become en
El Dorado for the peasant, but, at the same time, it
will be rendered a purgatory or worse for every
other
Thelrish landlords require, at. present, as much
care as the Irish peasant. They are, we repeat, in
their rank and circumstances, almost as destitute, and
Monoporti to their rank, apparently as ignorant.
y is offered them, mud they know not how. to
use it; whilst to deal with the population under them;
to manage, employ, content, or feed it, they
thseeerm
to have lost or never known the art. They, e-
, fore, require to be aided, guided, and enlightened as
mach as the peasant. And if trodden upon, or rudely
treated, they are just as likely to turn against this
r country and the union, as the peasantry itself.
IYoung Ireland and Old Ireland unite now in address-
ing, not the peasantry, but the landlords. The cry
for an Irish parliament, little cared for by themasses,
is ronded to by the landed proprietors. re-
g.Mr-ea all the address of Lord BESSBOROC" to quash
Mr. O'CONNELL'S idea of a landlord Wittenagernot.
It is a very serious thing, now that Government is in
a fair way of being_ezclusive creator, and getting
into its hands, like PHARAOH, all the land of Ireland
as return for moneys lent, to superadd at the same
moment the plan of a completely new nursery of a
new race of Irish lauded proprietors.

A rmtvin and original writer could complain, a
few years back, that, amidst the jostle of partes and
the clamour of contending interests, " the condition-
of-England question" was not thought of. It
very
was
objected to him that the aggregate of those
I legislative matters which he treated so contemp-
tweedy., operating together, determined " the con -
don " question. But this complaint could malady
have occurred to the same writer at the present
time. In all quarters, among all ranks and all classes
of opinion, "the condition of England " in slide
shape or other is in hands or under discussion. We
have a government coming to its first parlia-
mentary session bent upon settling the greatest
social problems. Education, sanitary regula-
tions, prison discipline, Poor-law, pauper settle-
ment, are all branches of the samethe parent
stream. It seems as if the repeal of corn
and provision laws had quickened the living interest
in these questions; es though restriction had bin
like a huge dam across the channels of improvement,
which, once pierced, the waters have flowed forththe to
spread themselves with fertilizing effect over
haghts and the depths of society.
Of course, this interest in social questions is
marked by the appearance, in a new form,
at the universal spirit of cant. An intelligent
writer in the Spectator has set about an analysis
of this spirit, and its successive developments.
Theological and political cant, as he sensffily main-
' tains, have given ground to a new brother
anomalies,
" social
edit—the cant of social contrasts, social
add social generation.' It may be that modern
on deals largely in this, but the writer in the
Opatator is unjust in attributing the practice too
y. There are men whosework is to write on
=lllasubjects, to paint old wrongs and existing
Miseries, merely, it may be, to inflame our suscepti-
bilities, by depicting selfishness in exaggerated
forms, and throwing the saintly glory of martyrdom
with an indiscriminate canonization round the headcc-
of
poverty. But even such exaggeration does not
y imply a conscious cant. There are those,
and that not the truest, writers who relieve with the
pen more largely than with pence, loaf, or lancet.
But do we find that the disposition to write extrava-
gantly on these themes, and to talk clamorously and
hotly them, is attended with deadness in re-
action or indifference in the practice of relief ?
It may be that these subjects never were so popular,
but were they ever, in public estimation, so seriously
important? Is it an accident that Dr. SOUTHWOOD
Mr.
SMITH is the contemporary and friend of
DICKENS and Mr. JERROLD ? Has England ever qeen
such a practical protest, as of late years against intole-
rable injustices or tolerated atrocities of society and
law ? Dom the amelioration of our criminal code say
nothing for the society which demanded, and obtained
it ? Are our Health of Towns Associations—our so-
cieties for the reformation of juvenile offenders,' for
improving the dwellings of the poor, for foun
cant'di
public baths and wash-houses, the growth of
If this be louder and more irksome now than at other
times, it is because the real feeling, of which it is the
hollow and bodiless echo, is more active than at
any former period of our history.
But can the most saturnine of publicists, the most
distrustful of all progress, deny that the activity of
the social regenerator has assumed some of those
forms amongst us, in which cant finds least shelter?
Take the sanitary question, for example. Here the
reformer must deal with facts, or not deal at all. He
has private interests (in their own narrow notions of
the subject) arrayed against him ; legislators to stir
into activity ; facts of science to prove, and tests of
science to submit to. His work is one not less loath-
some than laborious. He must snatch his weapons
from the hand of Pestilence herself ; he must track
Death to his dwelling-place, and nerve his head
to observe where his heart tells him to relieve,
or failing that power, to shudder and fly. Have
we wanted men for these functions ? Is not
this work of sanitary regulation peculiarly and
above all a growth of our own times? Will any one
suspect Lord ASHLEY, or Mr. CHADWICK, or Dr.
SOUTHWOOD Simon, or their active fellow-labourers,
of being " canters themselves, or consciously the cauthe
se
of cant in others ?" It appears to us rather that
cant of this time differs from previous cants, in having
more smack ofreality about it. "Our glorious constitution
in Church and State " was a cant symbol, but it would
be difficult to find a meaning carried out, or to be
carried out by the party who paraded it. That educa-
tion is better than execution, that ignorance and filth
engender and perpetuate crime, are, in every sense,
better catchwords, and cries likelier to awake the
good angel that sleeps in all human hearts.
We have been led into these remarks from a juxta-
position of the Spectator's article with the report of
the Exeter meeting for the formation of a sanitary
committee in that city, in connexion with they ndon
'
Association, represented at the meeting Mr.
CHADWICK and Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH. We will
not dwell on the speeches, which could derive no
force from our comment. But we urge the perusal of
them on all who feel that the words " duty to my
neighbour" mean something even after we cease to
repeat the catechism.
The association has also circulated a paper of
queries, under the heads of sickness and disease,
sewers, cesspools and privies, &c., water, ventilation
and light, street cleansing, interments in towns,
smoke and gases, baths and washhouses. This step
will help to bring together information, wide enough
to serve as the basis of a legislative measure. Were
our voice as potent as our convictions on this point are
elamg and settled, we should not cease from pressing
on all those, who by education and intelligence are
leaders of the population amongst which they live,
the duty of seconding the Health of Towns Amocie-
tion in their work. We are neither Utopian nor
foolish enough to believe that, having sent the
children to school,. cleansed the streets, opened the
sewers, supplied the water, and sweetened the air of
our large towns, we have regenerated a community,
and may fold our arms to await the harvest of
our toil. Vice will still be vice when all this is
done, and poverty poverty. But much now passes
for vice, and is punished for vice, which is but
the inevitable result of ignorance, neglect, and
filth, and which will disappear when these,
its causes, are removed. Poverty, though it
may not cease from among us, may, by sound
sanitary regulations, be robbed of half its
squalor, and, with this, of much of its self-degra-
dation. In a word, we anticipate no golden age—
all we want is to see our iron one burnished and
scoured to its brightest.
Meanwhile, provided real work is done, we shall
not turn from cheering it onward to complain that
this literary labourer is preaching instead of digging,
or that political adventurer is thrusting his tongue
into his cheek even while bidding an ostentatious
God-speed to his willing and earnest comrades.

A cORRESPONDENT, whose letter will be found in
another column, communicates some interesting in-
formation respecting the parochial teachers of Scot-
lank new no doubt to many of our English

bim feel that lie 11l lluvwr— -ro
participation in thninanageltent.er ownal-airs as
from becominghim a mere dreamy book-
worm.
About the beginniog of. the Fluent century an act
was passed to authorise the" of fluid for the
-widows et 6o
he achoolmuters, by oontri-
butiens from the =embus of that body in proportion
to their salaries. The management of this fund
was entrusted to delegates annually elected by
the teachers of each Presbytery. The habit of
meeting every year in Edinburgh to inspecs
the accounts of the concern, and to' take. measure
for increasing and properly applyng the fond.
has developed a large amount of practical business
talent, and taught the parties concerned a practical
lesson of self-reliance. This, and the election of dele-
gates, has given a popular turn to their esprit de corps,
and stimulated them to keep pace with the advance of
the age. A number of these teachers have availed
themselves of the annual meetings to take council
with each other regarding improved methods of.
tuition, and one result has been the publication under
th,,ie auspices of a aeries of excellent elementary

school hooks.
While we agree with our correspondent in tracing
the fine spirit of intelligent zeal for their profession,
which is at present conspicuous in the body about
which he writes, in no small degree to the institution
of the widows' fund, we must observe at the
same time that the seed fell upon soil well pre-
wed. The parochial schoolmasters of Scotland' have
from the beginning been a superior class. hey
formed one body with the teachers of the grammar
and borough school'. The schoolmaster of the mast
sequestered parish was frequently an aspirant to the
clerical character, who sought to earn in this manner
wherewith to support himself at college, or to obtain
a livelihood until some church might become vacant.
Circumstances often occurred to defeat the hopes of
clerical promotion and keep, as schoolmasters for life,
men whose learning and respectability of character
qualified them for the office. These individuals were
at times promoted to a borough school —at times left to
drag out life in a rural parish. But, in point of con-
ventional rank, the teacher of a borough school.
where the classics, book-keeping, mensusation, nevi
gation, and pure mathematics were in request,
the future clergyman who officiated as teacher
pro temper., and the indoctrinator of the pea-
santry
in the mere elements of reading, writing,
and the catechism, were upon a footing. The
poorest pedagogue felt that he belonged to the
y
same class as the master of a seminary midwa ice-
tween a school and college, and aimed at attaining
acquirements worthy of this rank. Some of the
ablest and most accomplished professors of the Scotch
Universities have commenced life as mere parochial
schoolmasters. Before India and the colonies afforded
an opening for the cadets of the landed gentry, and
widened the conventional distance between the small'
" lairds" and the substantial burgesses of " landward
towns," the borough schoolmaster ranked in that clam;
and now the juster estimate formed of the teacher's
importance in this age is restoring him to his format
status, before the tradition of it has been lost. The
parochial schoolmaster of Scotland has from the be-.
Oiling been a gentleman, and, on the whole, treated
as such. But for this circumstance the effect of in-
truding their widows fund to the control of the
collective body might have been less fortunate.
Our correspondent writes under the impression
that ministers have abandoned all intention of submit-
ting any educational scheme to Parliament during the
ensuing session. Looking to the source where the
rumour to that effect originated, we are disposed to
lisps with a weekly ;contemporary that " the wish
was father to the thought." We do not, indeed, ex-
pect, neither do we wish, that Lord JOHN should come
down to Parliament next session with a national sys-
tem of education cut and dry. for its acceptance. But
deeply pledged as the Premier is, we do look for his
taking some decisive measure to augment the provi-
sion for general education which government has of
late years been beginning to make. We look for a
marked recognition at his hands of the principle that
it is the duty of the state to care for the education
of its citizens.
Already a committee of the Privy Council has been
entrusted with the affairs of education, as another
committee of that body has been entrustedwith those of
trade. Perhaps the most judicious move that ministers
co* make, would be to place a responsible minister
at the head of that committee, with an increased vote
for educational purposes at his disposal, and his whole
time devoted to their superintendence. To admit of
any public institution working well, it must be in
accordance with the pre-existent sentiments and
modes of action of the community. In England,
Scotland, and Ireland, much has already been done
by government to promote education, though not in
a sufficiently comprehensive or systematic spirit.
These beginnings are the foundations upon which a wise
minister of education will seek to build, the influences
he will seek to enlarge until they are co-extensive
with the wants of society. In each of the three king-
doms he will endeavour to improve the means of
education and render them more accessible, as far as
in his power, but be will rest contented with perfect-
ing in each that kind and mode of education to
which each has been accustomed. In Scotland he
will find that the peculiar constitution of the parochial
and borough schools, and the universities, has, in a
great measure, prepared the people for a complete eye-
' tem of national education. They are familiar with the
idea of local schools for limited districts. They are ac-
customed to see the local means of tuition made to
correspond with the social wants of the district—to
see one elementary teacher in poor and secluded
=4:three, four, or five teachers of different
of classical, scientific, and commercial know-
ledge in wealthy towns; professors of learning in the
universities. They have been accustomed see the able
and intelligent teacher of a poor parish school pro-
moted to a place in a grammar school, borough school,
or academy ; and to see the ranks of the university
professors recruited from the most distinguished
schoolmasters. Above all, they have been accustomed
to see full scope left to zealous and intelligent teachers
in the adoption of those modes of tuition, by which
experience has told them they could most successfully
communicate instruction. The teacher, it has been
taken for granted in Scotland, knows his own
trade best. The parochial and borough schoolmasters,
at least, have been elected by the heritors and kirk-
session, and by the magistrates ; the parties appoint-
ing.them have judged of their skill in teaching by
their success, without prescribing how they were to
teach ; and when they have proved insufficient
teachers, means have generally been contrived to get
rid of them. The nvalry, too, of private enter-
price has acted as a useful check upon the estah-
lished teachers. Here is a system of national
education almost made to the hand of the
legislature. Little more seems necessary than tel
make the elective body in rural parishes a more exact
representative of the heads of families; to declare
teachers of all sects eligible to the appointment of
local schoolmasters ; to increase their number in pro-
portion to the wants of the poulation ; and to define
the circumstances, under whipch and the forms by
which an inefficient or scandalous schoolmaster may
be deposed.

Ws publish to-day, under the head of " Kent,"
what appears to be a very flagrant case of oppression
and injustice exercised upon a poor man by the
police and town court of Dover. We trust that,
however humble the individual. his complaint will
attract the attention that it deserves, and that so
infamous a case of neglect and tyranny on the part of
the authorities of Dover will not be allowed to pass
unnoticed or unpunished.

VIENNA, Dec. 1.

To those who are acquainted with the trading ar-
rangements of the continental nations of Europe, it
can excite little surprise that an outcry should in all
be raised for government interference to increase the
circulating medium. So restricted is the scale on
which private credit is exerted to facilitate commer-
cial transactions in those states, that nearly every
transfer of goods takes place against payment in
coin or in the notes sanctioned and guaranteed by
the state. Not even amongst the bankers in the
great marts do we find a disposition to evade this
costly and rude mode of dealing. Cheques are un-
known. Their respective balances are sent about on
the shoulders of sturdy porters, when the sum is not
weighty enough to demand a track or a horse and
cart. Such a state of things had its origin in the
former bad communications. Many are still living
who tregnented the great lairs on horseback, attended

lulled, on one Mae, rnu pc.
edd into false security. On the other hand,
afforded no guarantee or indemnification to any
party when things wont wrong. The constant
variations in the tariffs formed another cause repres-
sive of industry. Old connexions were daily cut off,
and.riew branches of trade had to establish themselves
before they inspired confidence. The right assumed
by the governments of licensing all kinds of industrial
undertakings exposed bankers in one state to the
risk of not having their paper tolerated in another.
Private issues of notes were out of the question in all
countries, where, as in Prussia, the paper money con-'
fisted of Exchequer bills. With the improvement
in
the internal communications that the last thirty I
years have witnessed, trade increased ; production
improved; consumption kept pace with abundance.
A demand for new facilities to promote the exchange
of commodities was most naturaL The issues of
paper money by the governments of Prussia and
Austria were carried to the utmost stretch that
their credit would admit of. It was easy to
exhaust this source ions before the wants of the
trader were satisfied. h.oreover, this paper circula-
tion had no more elasti ity than metallic currency.
It was alternately a dru, in the hands of the holders,
or was sought as a limit d article, and purchased at a
ruinous premium. The late railway crisis has forced
both Austria and Prussia to adopt steps to save the
trading classes, if possible, from inevitable ruin.
Government alone could interfere in the antiquated
system still adhered to at Berlin and Vienna. Each
has, within a few weeks, tried its own experiment,l
which it would lead us too far to analyse here.
Prussia has made a considerable issue of notes,
which are only partly guaranteed by the state. The
Austrian government has oome forward as a pur-
chaser of all railway shares that are forced upon the
market by the necessities of the holders. In both
eases, however, the observer who has learnt to look
upon money as a mere tool or engine wherewith
traffic is facilitated, rather than as an end desirable in
itself, sees in this interference of the crown a re-
versal of all sound principles of currency. The
growth of private credit, that inestimable and, when
judiciously applied, inexhaustible source of wealth to
a country, is rather repressed than encouraged by
the issues of government paper. It is too onerous a
responsibility to charge on the servants of the crown
the chance of loos arising from mercantile trans-
actions. For governments are sure ultimately to
find that the credit and prosperity of state banks is
no less dependent upon the soundness of the trans-
actions they encourage, than that of private banks.
Private credit is the offspring of an exercise of the
most useful social virtues. Punctuality, order, strict
honesty, and a disposition to assist the deserving,
are all indispensable where private credit is
to flourish. There is great danger where
the credit of the state is substituted for that
of the individual. Not only is the spur want-
ing to the exercise of the virtues we have named, but
temptation is thrown in the way of many, which is
notoriously difficult to resist. Within the last year
numerous defalcations in public offices have occurred
inCiermany. According to the existing international
law; political changes do not interfere with private
transactions. Government obligations, on the con-
trary, are everywhere dissolved b 7 conquest. It
is, perhaps, at this moment, not possible for any con-
tinental government to raise a sum of 20,000,000/. on
'other than railway security. If, therefore, it be the
-serious wish of the continental states to increase their
trade, and to secure it from dangerous crises, they
will do well to refrain from direct interference, while
they devote all possible attention to the development
of the natural resources of the state, amongst which
private credit is the most important.
P.S. We do not believe here that Louis Philippe is an
accomplice in the Cracow delinquency ; for the simple rea-
son that the northern powers themselves did not believe the
thing to be feasible three months back. The resolution was
undoubtedly taken on the spur of annoyance at the Spanish
marriage.

FRANCE,—PREVENTION OP PREMATURE INTER-
mENT.—A trial, says one of the French papers, is about to be
made at the :cemetery
.of Mont-Parnasse, for the purpose of
preventing premature interment. A salle dpi morts is to be
established, in which all bodies are to remain, under the eyes
of a scientific commission, for 26 hours before they are

buried.
INUNDATIONS OF THE LOIRE.—The Val d'Orlettna
has narrowly escaped from a new inundation. The Journal
du Loiret says : •On Sunday, the 29th ult., the whole of
our valley was again a prey to fresh apprehensions. At four
in the afternoon the Loire had risen two metres, and by mid-
night it was half a metre higher. In the afternoon the
workmen on the embankment at Bandillon were ell absent
to receive their pay, but in consequence of the increase of
the river, the alarm was beaten to hasten their return. The
works were resumed, and continued till one in the meesisg.
At one time the water had risen so high that not men dna
half a metre of the breach was left uncovered. Rem hew-
ever, it stopped, and on Monday morning began to fall."
SUIT AGAINST THE QUEEN DOWAGER OF SPAIN.
—The Tribunal de Commerce was engaged a few days sines
with a cause, in which M. Lefebure, a merchant, in the Rue
de Clfry, summooed M. Lillo, the intendant of the property
in Prance belonging to Queen Christina, for the payment of
the sum of 11,184 fr., the %aloe of sundry samples of lace
delivered to him to forward to Madrid, for the inspection of
her Majesty Queen Christina, and the said samples not
having been duly returned, they were considered as duly
sold, and payment was claimed accordingly. consider
. Schayf,
counsel for M. Life, contested the competency of the Tri-
bunal of Commerce to take cognizance of the matter, on the
ground that M. Lillo could not be considered as a commer-
cial man. lie further admitted that M. Lino was ready to
deliver up the samples, and that the delay in doing so had
been occasioned by the time lost in the return of the Duke',
Montpensierdes from Madrid, by whom the Queen Dowager
had sent them back to Paris. The Tribunal declared itself
competent, and the cause will be tried on a future day.
SPAIN.—The following is the text of the letter
addressed by Don Henry to the Queen, dated Brussels, the
19th ult., published by the Madrid Gazette of the 29th ult.:
" Madam,—Desiring, on the one hand, that my conduct may
make to appear obesure, and on the other, to give to your
11tiesty, on the day of your fête, a testimony of respect and
attachment, et/patriotism and profound devotedness to the
eonstitutional will of your Majesty, and the decisions of the
legitimate representatives of the nation, I have resolved, of
my spontaneous will, free from all influence, and yielding
only to the impulse of my conacitnee, to annul solemnly my
protest signed at Ghent on the 9th September last, so that
it may at no time have force, or produce the least effect.
Deign, Madam, to receive with favour the expression of my
sentiments of devotedness, and the respectful homage of the
attachment and fidelity of your affectionate and submissive
cousin, who kisses the feet of your royal Majesty."
NETHERLANDS.—THE HAGUE, DEC. 2.-11.,
Batavia journals received by the Overland* mail bring the
following news: " Conformably to the treaty betweest the
Dutch government and that of Koctie, the only net** Ina
of the late Sultan suoceedshis father by the title of Melieseedl
Adil Ralipatoel Ifeeminin. During tee minority of the new
Sultan the government will be directed by a Council of
Recy consisting of three persons. the choice of wheal
haseen approved by the Governor-General of oar Indian
possessions.— On the 15th of August, 1816, a dreadful be
reduced to ashes one of the first and most populous Dosses,
in the district of Rengel, in the residency of Remburg. The
rice by the residency of Cheribon has hem very unit/our-
able this year, in consequence of the ravages committed
by insects. The situation of the farmert bin been severely
affected by reason of this failure. The government hastaken
various measures in their favour, and has given orders for
the cultivation of other agricultural products.
Den. I.—Great preparations are being made for
the celebration of his Majesty's birthday on Sunday next.
Since our last accounts, thirteen herring-boats have arrived
at Schenningen, with 1,043,000 herrings. The prime have
risen. Some of the owners have realised considerable sums,
and the fishing, which at the beginning was unfavourable,
has turned out very excellent. Of the fleet, which consisted
of 63 vessels, 27 are still absent
AMSTERDAM, DEC. 6.—From the table of the
receipts of the ways and means of the first 9 months of this
year, corresponding with that of the three preceding years, it
appears that there 3s an increase in some taxes of 803,70711.
63c., and a decrease in other taxes of 663,7376. 83c. ; so that
the total receipts for the first 9 months of this year exceed
that of the corresponding period in 1843 by 140,0566. 90c.
The official communication lately made to our go-
vernment by that of Belgium, respecting the importation of
fresh fish into Belgium, completely disproves what was be-
fore slimed against the treaty in many quarters. A fear was
expressed that the maximum of importation under favour-
able circumstances, would be greatly exceeded ; now, how-
ever, the facts show how groundless this fear was, since the
maximum of importation allowed amounting for the months
of September to December inclusive of this year, were—
Dutch pounds : via Antwerp 116,000, Ghent 16,500, Ostend
16,500, West Wesel 16,000. During the months of Septem-
ber and October, i. e., the half of the period granted, there
were only imported: via Antwerp 39,039, West Wesel
5,484, that is only a fifteenth part of what our govern-
' meat held out under more favourable circumstances. If we
further consider the results communicated by the directors of
the fisheries in their address of thanks to the Ministers of
Finance, the Interior, and the Colonies, we must acknow-
ledge with gratitude, that in this matter care has been liken
to secure the interests of the public in general and of the IMP
timid fisheries.
GERMANY. BERLIN, NOV. 29. Mr. Von
Kamptz has been commissioned to proceed immediately to
Vienna, there to regulate the commercial relations of Silesia
in reference to the incorporation of Cracow.