The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-17 00:00:00

Ate arrefOi.

MAILS.
The mails for Brinell North America, and the United States, will
be made up on the evening of the 17th October (this day).
Th.: overland mails for Gibraltar, Malta, Grvece, the lonian Wanda,
Aden, Ceylon, India, Ilona-Kong, and China, via Southampton,
will be made up on the morning of the 20:h October.
The overland closed mails, vie Maritilks, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt. Aden, Ceylon. India, liong.blcmg, Sm., will be made up on the
evening of the 24th October.
The mails for New South Wales, Van Dieman's land, will be made
up on the silt October.
The West India mails, including those for Mexico, onduras,
ilavana, will be made up on the morningof the 2nd NoHvember. and

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HIGH WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
Tun DST. —Morning, 0 min. Put 0; Afteroooll, 14 min. past 0.
To.3o3asow.—Morning, 32 mm. put 0 ; Afternoon, 30 mkt. post 0.

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCT. 17.
THERE could not be a more striking, pithy, yet
comprehensive survey of the shameful and ludi-
crous deficiencies in our system, or no-system, of
• public education, than that taken by Professor TAYLOR
in the opening lecture the other day at University
College, which was reported in our columns thefollow-
ing day. The marvel, and at the same time the stum-
bling-block, is to think how it happens, that with such
preposterous principles, such gross negligence, suck
null and defective machinery in the matter of educa-
tion, the English have yet contrived to grow up a
• moral, industrious, and enlightened people, who have
invented and perfected constitutional liberty, and
given immense impulse and development to the
human mind in every sphere of its activity.
We believe, however, that the ruder the state
. of society, and the more scattered the population,
• the less the want of any instruction is felt, beyond
what tradition and the first elements of religion con-
vey. It is in a more advanced and populous state,
where life is a struggle, in which fortune and conduct
lead to so many different paths and ends; where
temptations are so constant and rife ; where the cur-
rents of ideas and morals are so contrary and confused;
and where, independent of moral training altogether,
so much is required to be known in order to place the
individual on the common level of knowledge ;—it is
here that education becomes necessary to life. in a
great crowd, whoever falls is sure to be trampled to
death. In an advanced state of society, the ignorant
is sure to fall, and, in falling, to perish.
We see this in the prevalence of crimes and con-
victions, compared with their infrequency beside the
progress of real education. The subjection to brutal
passions and precipitate indulgencies is best com-
bated in the lower class by its means. But inde-
pendent of the necessity of erecting this barrier to
crime, and strengthening it more, the more a society
becomes dense and thickly sown with temptation
and distress, a most peremptory demand for educa-
tion arises from the irresistible force acquired by pub.
lie opinion ;of which public opinion every man's voice
forms an important unit. Democracy without intelli-
gence is the most fearful of governments; and
democracy gains ground daily, and mast continue to
gain ground, in despite of all that can be ruled or
done. In order that knowledge may keep some
proportion to this power, a system of what foreigners
call secondary education has become indispensable.
Abroad there is a department which is called that of
Superior Instruction, intended for the facilitation of
those studies which do not form part of the common
speculations of life, and the profession of which forms
a kind of priesthood of science and of letters. England
has made more apparent provision for this department
than for any of the inferior ones. It has furnished for it,
wealth, edifices, and honours ; at least academical ; al-
though such has been the perversion of all these, that
the greatest intellects and discoverers of our day have
germed not in the garden of a university, but in the
common soil of every-day life. The very name of
superior education is indeed perverted in England. It
means, in general, the peculiar education of an
aristocratic class ; as if ten thousand a year required a
different culture from ten hundred, and as if capacity
of intellect was proportioned to grades of society and
wealth.
Mr. TAYLOR gave a most vivid and most amusing
picture of "superior education" in the English sense
of the term ; that is, the education of the well-born
and well-provided. Strange it is to see how much
the education of an English aristocratic youth resem-
bles that of the savage, and how the extremes of civili-
sation and barbarism are thus made to meet. The
young Englishman, like the young Iroquois, gets
instilled into him by his mates, not his masters, the
essential virtues of unflinching courage, truth, and
manhood. Honour, and the esteem of his class, become
his religion ; the chase is his pleasure ; the steed his
pride; the knowledge of some songs and jingling
metres, his literature. Science he abandons to the
sorcerers of the tribe. He knows life, that is, his
fellows. He can live with them, compete with them,
struggle with them. So can the savage. One might
really think our universities and schools founded on
ROUSSEAU'S principle, that the more man approaches
the primitive state, the better and the greater he is.
This rude excellence and aboriginal majesty being
decidedly denied to the middle classes, it the more be-
hovesthem very seriously to direct their attention to the
more vulgar means of education ; to the becoming fa-
miliar with the wisdom and experiences of past ars, and
especially with that language which is the first best
study of logic, and noblest exercise of reason and of in-
tellect. These and the other necessary parts of "edu-
cation secondaire," are in our opinion best provided in
the Gymnasts of the German cities ; institutions far
superior to the German universities, and peculiarly
suited to the education of the civic and middle class
in all countries.
Mr. TAYLOR'S lecture was on the education of all
classes ; and was calculated to leave a strong persua-
sion that while, as matters stand at present, we succeed
in giving more of the elements of knowledge, with-
oat giving more of actual knowledge to the poor,—
we are certainly allowing the intellects of all classes
above the poor to stagnate and go astray in super-
annuated and inefficient modes of education, to
which sensible men might be excused for preferring
downright ignorance.

THE rationale of reward in this country wants its
Au kAt SMITH. It defies ordinary calculations and
baffles commonplace interpreters. The Minister has
at his command a certain sum, some 1,2001. per
annum, for the reward of distinguished merit :

literary, artistic, scientific, and we may now add,
patriotic. Naval and military, political and quasi-
political pensions, are not awarded from this
limited fund. These flow from a bater furnished
purse. National gratitude shows itself in tangible
and weighty forms to its defenders and diplomatists ;
to those who die, and those who lie, in the service of
their country. Our Generals stare their own colos-
susses in the face; our Admirals make signal
for action under the inspiring alternative, "a peerage
or Westminster Abbey." The well-dressed wily
attaché looks up from an ambassador's dirty work, to
the ambassadorial dignity in the future ; and dreams of
lucky speculations in the funds, and blue ribands to
come ; to say nothing of the pension list.
But our poets, our historians, our painters, our
chemists, our naturalists, our scientific discoverers,
our social reformers, if they venture to contemn
present pelf in the pursuit of the ideal, the abso-
lute, or the perfect, must bound their hopes of public
remuneration by the 1,2001. of the Premier's Fund.
Either a poor man has no business to be poet, painter,
inventor, or reformer; or poet, painter, inventor, or
reformer has no business to be poor. The choice lies
clear before him ; as unmistakeable as that of
HERCULES. Worship your ideal and be poor.
Flatter vulgar tastes and be rich. The country
will not encumber the question with situations
for the acceptance of high-reaching art or science,
or with pensions in indirect payment of a na-
tional debt—beyond the 1,200/. And even of this
scanty 1,2001., part finds its way, it would seem,
into strange pockets.
Sir ROBERT PEEL WOn some credit by his distribu-
tion of it. The last moments of HOOD were lightened
by the knowledge that through this fund his widow
was secured against destitution. The aid that
HAYDON implored in his death hoar was not
refused; and here, too, the widow and the tt-
therleas were comforted from the limited but
well-husbanded source of relief. ALFRED TE,i-
NYSON has been raised above the carking cares thht
fret the poet into incapacity, from the same fund.
Regretting much that was left undone, we have had
much to applaud in what was done. We have, in :a
fair proportion of instances, seen the ground of the
proffer, and applauded the justice of it, while in the
hands of the late minister.
But what does the reader suppose was the List
pension granted by this grave and decorous states-
man—its amount, its object, and the service it
rewarded? We subjoin the exact terms of the grant ;
quoted from the Pension List, not from Punch.
"251. per annum to JOHN LLOYD, in con-
sideration of the serrices rendered by his ancestors
to King CHARLES 11. in his escape after the battle
of Worcester."
We have no pedigree-book of the Shropshire Yeo-
manry at hand ; but we presume, after a vain exami-
nation of the Boscobel tracts for the name of LLOYD,
that JOHN MOM be a descendant of the PENDERELLS,
the honest family of Hobbal Grange; perhaps of that
very RICHARD "who was called among them TRUSTY
RICHARD," who lent the King his "greasy old grey
steeple-crowned hat, with the brims turned up with-
out lining or hat-band, the sweat appearing two
inches deep through it, round the band-place ; a
green cloth jump coat, threadbare, even to the
threads being worn white ; and breeches of the same,
with long knees down to the garter; and an old
sweaty leathern doublet." Or he may be of the
stock of that worthy WILLIAM, who did such gal-1
lant devoir in shaving Royalty, and who, when his
Majesty, after his day in the oak, "desired some
mutton, if it might be had," did not scruple
to lay sheep-stealing upon his soul in the
cause of hungry royalty, but went with Colonel
CARLIS to Mr. WILLIAM STAUNTON'S sheep-cote,
where the colonel "chooses me one of the best sheep,
sticks him with his dagger, and WILLIAM brings
home the mutton on his back." Nor did his services
stop here. " As soon as the mutton was coId,WILLIAM
cut it up, and brought a leg of it into the parlour. His
Majesty called for a knife and a trencher, and cut
some of it into collops, and pricked them with the
knife -point ; then called for a frying-pan and butter, and
fried the collops himself; of which he ate heartily.
Colonel CARLIS the while, being but under-cook (and
that honour enough too), made the fire and turned the
collops in the pan."
From whichever of those true-hearted six brothers
(all of whom knew the secret and kept it, when a
word would have enriched them for life) JOHN
LLOYD be descended, if from any, we can hardly find
in our hearts to grudge him the 25!. per annum : and
this withont discussion of the point whether the
royalty saved was worth the saving. But is it possible
that the merry monarch forgot his preservers, and
left to Sir ROBERT PEEL, after two centuries, the
task of rewarding them at the expense of the
nation ? And if the 25/. per annum be pay for any
of these services ; for keeping the secret, or for lend-
ing the jump-coat, greasy hat, and sweaty doublet,
or for sheep-stealing, or for shaving his majesty ; what
a very trifling sum it seems, to be paid in 1846 for
the smallest of these values received in 1652. The
interest has been accumulating all the while, and at
last amounts to this !
Why, the cost of a penny shave of the period,
calculating the different values of the copper then and
now, put out at decent interest, would have realised
more. As to the hire of the clothes, or the price of the
sheep stealing in a court of conscience, allowing for
time, it is miserably ander the mark. And how comes
it that we, loyal and dutiful subjects of the GUELPH,
" Black Hanoverian," every man of us, should be
called upon to pay for services done to a Stuart?
We prefer putting it in that dynastic way, to any
discussion of the niceties of value in the good deed of
JOHN LLOYD'S ancestor. .

Is it not, on the whole, a pity that Sir RonERT
PEEL did not come nearer to our own time ? These
have been self-devotion and loyalty between the battle
of Worcester and the defeat of the Protectionists,
that have not been too richly rewarded. There have
surely been unrequited services conferred on living
people, as worthy of reward as the best done to a
dead monarch. Is there not the poet with songs that
have gladdened a nation's heart, whose own would
have been lightened even by this poor pittance ? the
hungry artist, with thoughts full of ideal beauty,
and pockets shamefully empty of the one reality—
money ? the scientific projector, whose conception
may be enriching thousands, while its creator starves ?
Might not official activity have found some case of
virtuous self-denial, as rare as HUMPHREY PEN-
DERELL'S when he refused to betray his king ; of life
and character risked in as good a cause as stealing a
sheep to supply royal collops ; and acts of ready-witted
rough kindness, as memorable as WILLIAM'S when
he shaved the " merry monarch ?" Happy England,
if her minister must go back two centuries for merits
poor enough to want a pension ! Lucky JOHN LLOYD,
whose ancestry instinctively knew that to serve a king
was that only method of " casting their bread upon the
waters," which would ensure their " finding it after
many days."

IT may be the magistrate's duty " to support the
police ;" that is, to put the best construction on all
they do, and to give the utmost amount of belief to all
they say. But when a case presents two bodies of
evidence in diametrical contradiction,—one furnished

by an inspector, three serjeants, and four private
constables of the police force ; the other by a number
of witnesses, respectable in station, strangers to each
other, and not labouring under any snapicion of col-
lusion with the accused or each other,—he must be a
hardy magistrate who acts on the assertions of the
police, and rejects those of the independent and
unprofessional witnesses. He must be still bolder or
less logical if, while admitting that the evidence is
conflicting and irreconcilable, and, therefore, that
there is a lie on one side or the other, he expressly
leaves out of consideration the facts which determine
where the lie is, and convicts, relying on evidence

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY