The Express.
London, England, 1847-12-28 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 28, 1847.

TIM &unix EXHIBITIONS YESTERDAY.—The
British Mama was inspected ly 24,191 persons. The
National GsNary was visited during the day by 16,270 per-
sons; from dm numbers who continually thronged into the
gallery, the keepers were unable to enforce the regulation
permitting 300 only to be present at one time. The Tower
of London was inspected by about 3,000 persons. In conse-
quence of its having been stated in the papers that the Hun-
terian Museum at the College of Surgeons would be opened
to the public without tickets, the building was during the
day so crowded that upwards of 300 persons were reluctantly
denied admission by the officers of the museum.
AN ECCENTRICITY OF THE INFLUENZA.—In one of
the educational institutions in Edinburgh nearly all the
male teachers and boys were seised with infinensa, while not
one of the female teachers or pupils was taken ill.
UNIFORM Timg.—The Railway C7ironicle has the
following communication on this subject :—Thanks to the
leading railway companies, we have now (partially at least)
attained this great convenience to business people ; but, like
all other benefits conferred upon mankind, it has its oppo-
nents. One of the correspondents of a London journal ob-
jects to the change because it makes " the clock give the lie to
the sun." This learned Theban forgets (fee he cannot be
ignorant of the fact) that the clock never can agree with the
sun excepting on four days in the year ; at all other times it
is either preceding or following " his serene highnesa," the
maximum distance between them being about sixteen
minutes. Now, to the world at large, it is a matter of
no practical importance whether this differnce is sixteen
or sixty minutes; but, to the bulk of the community,
It is a vast advantage to know that their watchts, when
well regulated and is good order, will agree with every
clock they meet with in whatever part of the country they
may chance to be. It will prevent many .a passenger from
miming his train, and save thereby much inconvenience and
loss to the travelling public. It is much to be feared, how-
ever, that the various benefits of uniform time cannot be
fully obtained without legislative aid; and we might expect
the uaistances of the railway commissioners in this ease, did
we not know that that august body are too much occupied in
scheming impossible parliamentary bills, or interfering with
the executive functions of directors and officials, to attend to
anything of a practical and useful nature, lying within the
scope of their powers and duties. The thing required is a
short act of parliament, ordering that all the public clucks in
the kingdom shall be kept to one uniform time, to be fixed
by some government authority, and imposing a penalty for
wilful neglect of that regulation. It is to be hoped that some
member of the house will confer a boon upon us by taking
up this subject.—J. P. S.—Leeds, Dec. 20.
SILKEN SAILS AND CORDAGE FOR SHIPS OF
Wax.—A new discovery of great interest to the navy has
just been made known by a gentleman known as the Nee
Ctiatelu, but who it io reality the Marquis de Chssteux, one
of the most ancient titles in France. His father having died
in emigration, and leaving him no resource, the marquis
deemed it in better taste to drop the title for awhile, un-
til be had acquired fortune enough to support it with
honour. The discovery conger' in the employment of the
cocoons and refuse of silk for the manufacture of sails and
cordage. The material is lighter, cheaper, stronger, end
more elastic than hemp. The invention is already adopted
by the Minister of Marine, and the inventor has been ad-
mitted to an audience at the Tuileries.—Paris Correspond
era of the Atlas.
SEIZURE OF AN ILLICIT DISTILLERY.—Yesterday
morning, about eleven o'clock, Messrs. J. Lewins and John
Brentnall, officers of excise, from information they received,
proceeded to No. 6, Lion-street, New Kent-road, where they
discovered a private still in full operation, running off strong
spirits, about 20 gallons of spirits ready for sale, and 400
gallons of molasses wash in a state of fermentation, ready to
continue the working of the still. The place was fitted up
.'"
I wits •t.. 9 lanai &ppm= Ztirsf-.""d jp .-uution. A
man and woman were in the house attending to the still, who
were arrested by the officers. The trade of distillation, illi-
citly carried on, has been on the increase for some months, as
a ready market is found for the spirits at this season of the
year, a considerable portion of it, coloured, being palmed off
on the unwary as smuggled Cognac. A van having been
procured by the officers they conveyed their prise to the ex-
cise warehouses in Broad-street.
INQUEST, YEBT ERDA Y.—BODY OF A CHILD
youso is A RAILWAY CARRlAoll.—Before Mr. Payne, at
the vestry-room, 8:. John's, Horaelydown, on the body of a
female child found in a carriage of the Dover Railway. On
Friday, at one o'clock, the train from Folkestone and Dover
arrived at the London bridge station, and in a second clam
carriage a paper parcel was found under the seat without
address, which contained the body of a child.—Mr.
Pettigrew, of Tooley.street, surgeon, found a mark of a
string over the mouth and round the head. The lungs were
partially inflated, and the child had died of suffocation. The
breathing had been but trifling.—The Coroner said, perhaps
through the public press some one might come forward and
the party be brought to justice.—Adjourned till Monday.

EDUCATION IN WALES.
TO THE RIGHT HON. LORI) JOLLN RIISBELI,ec. 27 M.P.,,
1847. fro.
Temple, D
My Lord,—The Leeds Mercury of the 24th inst.
contains a letter addressed by Mr. Edward Baines, jun., to
your lordship, which contains some =instatement. on the
subject of the recent reports of the commissioners of inquiry
into the state of education in Wales, I feel it due to the in-
terests which that commissio,.. afficiea to oai r4nArki
t' your lUrt:Lip in reply to those comments in the letter of
Mr. Baines which refer to my report.
Under ordinary circumstances I should feel justified in
leaving the truth to the vindication which it seldom fails to
derive from free discussion. In the present state of feeling
on the subject I apprehend, however, that injury to the
cause of education might ensue from the dissemination
of the letter, to which I refer, if its statements go forth
unanswered—an impression which I trust will exonerate=
from the impropriety which would otherwise attend this lore
pus upon your lordship's attention.
I shall not dwell an the censure with which Mr. Mesa
Tints the reports of the commissioners, further than to re-
mark that the " want of justice, generosity, and considerate-
ness" which he imputes to them has escaped the notice of
the newspaper prima of Wales, whose conductors, posnessing
the means of judgment which Mr. Baines has uot, with
scarcely an exception have expressed an opposite opinion.
That it was possible to have produced reports more akin to
popular sympathies is indeed true, but that such a discharge
of the trust reposed in us would have been faithful, or of
equal benefit to Wales, I unhesitatingly deny. Even bad
the character of the people been such en to reduce us to the
alternative of glossing defects which it was our duty to
reveal, or of incurring universal odium by their disclosure,
I (or one should conscientiously rejoice that I bad chosen
the latter, as the only course consistent with that deep
interest in their moral elevation and ponsemat wel-
fare, with which the Welsh people hare tagisal we.
I am glad, however, to have revival inigie Ms&
mon), that we have not overrated that aerti ems,
innate strength of mind, and many excellent q in the
Welsh character, which enable and embolden men to look
their faults in the face, and to profit by that perfect know-
ledge of their defects which can alone ensure permanent im-
provement. lam assured that a very large majority of the
intelligence of Wales is of this opinion, and I have now ad-
ditional reason to subscribe to the opinion with which I ven-
tured to conclude a report, which Mr. Baines thinks it con-
sistent with truth to term " almost habitually sneering,"
namely, that " if the Welsh people were well educated, and
received the same attention and care which have been be-
dewed on others, they would in all probability assume a
high rank among civilised communities." To the attainment
of this object, I was all but universally informed by all sec%
and ranks of the Welsh people themselves that pecuniary
aid was needed and desired. It is the object of Mr.
Baines, of Leeds, to persuade your lordship that this is not
the fact.
Mr. Baines refers to the returns of day-seheoh obtained by
the committee of the late Earl Kerry in 1833, sad by Mr.
Brougham in 1818, on which he bases a comparhea of the
number of scholars at thou periods with that returned by
the late commission ; showing, by this means, an there= of
above 100 per cent. over the numbers in 1833, and of nearly
260 per cent. over these elated by the committee of Mr.
Brougham in 1818. Mr. Baines alto represents a large in-
crease to be similarly shown in the number of Sunday-school
scholars, and he thereupon infers that " the Welsh people are
able to provide for their. own education, and that they are
doing it with the utmost rapidity."
My lord, these premises and conclusions are strangely at
variance with the races.
The returns procured in 1818 and 1833 were notoriously
defective: nor were the meaty taken at either period to
obtain that exhaustive enumeration of the tamale for the
poor, which by the local and personal researches of their
active assistants the eonunisionere were enabled to carry
into every parish and hamlet of the principality in the late
inquiry. In many instances day-schools in obscure, and
likewise in populous, districts were discovered and scheduled
by my assistants, of which the existence wan unknown to the
parochial officers, to whom we applied for information.
Nothing short of tLe means placed at our disposition, could
effect any approach to a correct census of the poorer clue of
schools in Wales, where so large a proportion of them
are bald in private houses of the humblest description. Thos
returns made to Earl Kerry's committee were, asl have ob.
served, avowedly defective, and it must have escaped Mr.
Baines' notice that its report is prefaced witha memorandum I,
that the "printed copies of questions were circulated for the
use of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, so that in most
cases original returns, authenticated by their own signatures,
were received from them through the overseers (to whom they '
were exclusively entrusted), and have been relied on in the
formation of the abstract and summary," from which Mr.
Baines derives his data.
The lower clans of schools and dame schools were, I am
informed, frequently omitted in Earl Kerry's returns,
whereas they are nearly all, if not entirely, comprised in the
census we have endeavoured to make of the poorer classes of

the Welsh day scholars.
True it is that very noble efforts have been made to esta-
blish fresh schools for the poor in Wales. I am far from
desirous to underrate their number, or to depreciate the
cheering evidence they afford of the generous, but power-
less, impulses of a benevolence widely pervading the people,
to which their poverty has unhappily permitted them to give
only feeble and isolated development. Some instances I
found, and have invariably recorded, of new and flourishing
schools ; but for the most part, throughout my district, the
relative number of the scholars and dimensions of the school-
houses (where any existed) gave clear proof of the decadence
rather than the increase of education. In the total absence
of any possible means of giving a correct statistical statement
of the comparative numbers of children at school at any paid
period, even by means of a local inquiry, I have refrained
from the attempt which Mr. Baines undertakes to perform at
Leeds, on the basis of a report., which however fairly it may
represent the schools for the rich, affords no adequate return
of those for the poor, and is therefore utterly usWeas for the
purpose of his comparison.
I need scarcely dwell on the minor mistake of reckoning
that every child in the onereixtd whom I wawa attended

no common school therefore attend a superior school, and of
estimating the number accordingly. The fact is, that in my
district (to which my estimate exclusively applied) there
are very few schools in existence at all for children who do
not attend those of the labouring classes. The Sunday
schools Lave in some place% increased in number and effi-
ciency, but in a great degree the remarks I have just ven-
tured to address to •your lordship respecting Mr. Bainee's
I estimate of the increase of day schools apply to that of Sun-
I day schools. It was frequently stated to me that the same
pains had never been previously taken to ascertain their
number : a fact which, as it malts in an alleged increase
which Mr. Baines affirms to be marvellous, might have pro-
cured from a gentleman less determined to denounce our
labours some slight credit for impartiality, and a desire to
do justice to their meritorious efforts. Mr. Baines, however,
" scarcely ever sees (in our reports) an acknowledgment of
the great things which the people have done for themselves."
It would be difficult to acknowledge great things where none
existel, and where the whole people joined in pointing out
and deploring their own powerlessness. Of their noble ex-
ertions to the utmost extent of their wholly inadequate
means Mr. Baines will find in all the reports conspicuous
acknowledgments ; and he will find by the side of them the
spontaneous testimony of all classes, not only to the dearth
of all effective instruction, but to the utter inability of the
people to provide it from any local resources.
These, my lord, are " acknowledgments " which I appro.
hend will have their legitimate weight, though they are not
such as Mr. Baines has observed ; they nevertheless force
themselves upon the attention of all who have an opportu-
nites.y of ascertaining the real feeling of the people them-
Thatsel "re " invited the people to ask for public money," or
" were sent to make out a case for government interference"
are assertions which I may be pardoned for saying have no
other foundation than their temerity. A portion of the
dissenting body doubtless now object to public grants for
education. lam free to acknowledge that I sympathise in
their partiality for the achievement of the glorious work of
education by means of the free efforts of the people them-
selves, but I cannot wilfully blind myself to the impossibility of
their doing it, or wickedly sacrifice the only practicable means
of effecting the salvation of a noble people from mental dank-
ness and moral debasement. I am, therefore, reluctantly in
favour of giving the aid to Wales which I repeat that tier
people so vitally need, and, as far as my means of judging
went, all but unanimously desire.
Mr. Baines says:—'. That the value of education is in
proportion to its quantity and duration." It is scarcely pos-
sible to minister to a more mischievous fallacy than that of
encouraging the neglect of the quality and efficiency of edu-
cation. Every true friend to the Welsh people will avoid
the peril of sanctioning the notion that the number of scho-
lars m any index to the sufficiency of instruction.—l have tho
honour to be, my lord, your lordship's faithful servant,
Jaunosu C. Simons.