The Express.
London, England, 1851-07-24 00:00:00

KING EDWARD STREET RAGGED SCHOOLS
AND EASTERN REFUGE, SPITALFIRLDS.

Yesterday afternoon the opening of this institu-
tion took place in the presence of the Earl of Shaftesbury,
the Duke of Grafton, Lord Radstock, and • very large
number of ladies and gentlemen interested in the moral and
industrial training of the thousands of aged
Ta children
that abound. in the east of London. The building which
is henceforward to be dedicated to this philanthropic pur-
pose, has been erected in the pointed Rlisabetluus style, in
Albert-street, Banton-street, fipiteltlelda The Germout-
lay, including a large plot of freehold land, has amounted
to about 3,500,, hut it is estimated that 2,0001. additional
will have to be spent on furniture, fittings, &c., in
order to render the working of the establishment compete.
About 2,2001. of this sum has been subscribed, leaving
1,3001. still to be provided fur. The school and class room
will accommodate ZOO children. The basement story is in-
tended as a school for infanta, and a scullery and laundry
for the girls. The first floor will be devoted to the pur-
poses of general education, and the upper story will consist
of workrooms and dormitories for 40 youths of both sexes.
The building, which has been finished in a substantial form,
is eminently adapted for the purposes fur which it it de-
signed. It is expected that its annual expenditure will
range somewhere between 7001. and tSOOI.
Ihe celebration of its opening was presided over
by the Earl of SIIAFTESBCRI, who said that it
could not but be a matter of joy sad congratulation
to hint that they were assembled there that day iu a
building so spacious and commodious, and dedicated to
a purpose so holy and so useful. He heartily rejoiced to see
another instance of the progress of that movement which
was taking place throughout England and many countries
on the continent, and which had for its object the rescue of
the poorer classes of the community from the depths of ig-
norance, poverty, and crime. Ile was glad to see on the
face of the prospectus of the King Edward-street schools
that the committee had announced that their ragged schools
were also to be industrial schools. It had always been his
opinion, and ho had never failed to urge it, that such
schools would fail in their object if there were not indus-
trial schools attached to them. It was essentially
necessary in institutions such as these, where they
took children from a vagrant and lawless life and
communicated to them new habits, that they should
give them the means of honest industry, and thus eaible
them to raise themselves in the rank of citizens, and in
the higher sphere of true and sincere Christians. This was
no hopeless effort. Ile could instance many cases in which
children educated in ragged schools had gone to service or
emigrated, and in both respects had elevated themselves to
a better position than that now occupied by children of a
higher grade. Ile would, however, only point to the expe-
riment which had been lately tried in this metropolis in
proof of his position. They had all seen " the shoeblack
brigade " engaged in their active and honest avocation.
Let them take the history of those boys. They had
all come originally from the very depths of ;human filth,
vice, and misery. They had becu carefully trained in the
rwreed schools, and th, y bad been selected for their good
char 'eters to go out as shoe-blacks. They were now mak-
iug by their daily labour 1,0901. a year. They brought
home—and he believed they brought home every farthing
they received—sums varying from 41. to 10e. daily. They
were under a good system of discipline ; they met for
prayers in the morning, and every evening they were re-
viewed. Part of their earniugs wect to the institution;
another part was deposited in the savings bank; and
the third part was given to themselves; and, as
soon as ever they made money, they all left
the filthy dens in which they had been reared, and
every one of them went to the model lodging-houses, and
paid for nightly accommodation there. (Applause.) One
of them the other day produced out of his own prisons]
savings a sum of 31., and with that, added to his moiety of '
the sum in the savings bank, he proposed to emigrate.
Mr. 11. 11. WILLIAMS, the honorary secretary, then,
read the report, which set forth the cost of the building, as
given above, and the extent of its accommodation.
The Rev. T. BINNEY proposed the first resolution, to
the effect that the meeting, having heard the report, re-
joiced in the success which hail attended the efforts of the
committee, lielieviug that ragged schools were eminently
calculated to ameliorate the conditiou of those for whom
they had been established, and that industrial pursuits were
highly conducive to the reclamation and future usefulness
and prosperity of a large class of the juvenile population of
the east of London, who are now the objects of destitution,
vagrancy, and crime.
The Duke of GRAFTON seconded this resolution in a
brief speech, expressive of his sympathy for such insti-
tutions.

-Mr. B. GURNEY supported it, and, in doing so, pro-
mised, amidst loud cheers, to give per annum for the
nest three years towards the maintenance of the King Ed-
ward's School.

The lie,. H. ALLIN moved the second resolution, to
the effect that the meeting, while acknowledging the di-
vine goodness, in the establishment of this institution, re-
commended that, in order to ensure its permanent useful-
ness and prosperity, an immediate appeal be made for the
fonds necessary to the speedy discharge of the heavy out-
standing debt still remaining upon the institution.
The Rev. Mr. HARRIS seconded this resolution.

LOrdRAIPITOCIL supported it.
Upon the motion of the Rev. A. J. ERWAILPS, seconded
by Mr. T. B. PROCTER, and supported by Mr. C. PEAR-
SON, a vote of thanks was passed to the noble chairman,and
the proceedings terminated.
In the evening a large number of the friends of the new
institution sat down to tea, and another public meeting
was held to celebrate the opening.

THE BRIGHTON

(hem tin Daft New.)

ITE CASE.

Have our readers "marked, learned, and inwardly
digested" the decision of the Ecclesiastical Court at
Doctors' Commons, delivered on Thursday last on the
Brighton church-rate case ? They ought; for it
constitutes another great and serious encroachment
on parochial franchises and popular rights; sad, as
such, it forms a new resting-place in the history of •
question on which the law has rapidly descended
from bad to worse; and on which public opinion has
gone on slowly butsurely improving. So that now,opi-
Mon and law are utterly and violently at variance as to
the means andthemanner of maintaining thefabrics of
our churches and of providing for the decent celebra-
tion of divine worship therein ; the law violating
conscience and overriding our constitutional system;
whilst one section of public opinion is ashamed and
the other indignant at the law.
The decision was given in this case by Sir HER-
BEST JENNER FUST, a judge whose infirmities are
occasionally an obstruction to the due, and regular,
and orderly performance of his duties ; whose family
relatives and friends, infesting his court much as rats
do corn ricks, are a heavy burden on its suitors ; and
many of whose leading judgments—the CORIUM
ease, for instance—have been signally and most be-
neficially overruled by appellate authority.
On the part of the churchwardens the case was a
very simple one : it was a libel promoted against a
respectable trillium en of the ecclesiastically troubled
town of Brighton, for the substractioia of a church
rate laid on by a very small minority of a public
vestry against the decision of a large majority, to
which rate the tradesman in question had of course
many and serious objections, and because of them op-
posed the reception of the libel. The arguments
thereon were heard on the 11th of January,
in this year, by a court having, comparatively
speaking, little to do; but it was not until the
17th of July that judgment was given by the lightest
worked judge in the United kingdom. For this
delay of six months in deciding on the initiatory
stageof a cause, Sir HERBERT JENNER FUST thought
it eto a swifter and better administration of ins-

Lice at Doctors Commons to offer some explanation;
it arose, he said, from an expectation that mean-
while the House of Lords would have heard the
Braintree case, and have definitively settled
the law ; an excuse to which respect and
assent might be given, were the ordinary
course of justice in his court speedier or more satis-
factory; but not being either, the delay of six months
in this case is to be accepted as the usual standard of
promptitude in a court the scandal of which is really
much greater than that of Chancery itself.
In the Braintree case, our readers will recollect,
k was held by a very slender minority of the judges
tithe Common Pleas and Exchequer,sitting in error
nem the Queen's Bench, that the common law obli-
gation of parishioners to uphold the fabric of their
church, and to provide for the celebration of divine
worship therein, was so strong that a rate laid
es them by a minority assembled in vestry was
• legal and valid rate such as the courts were bound
to enforce. Lord Chancellor Talmo, Lord Chief
Justice CAMPBELL, and Mr. Baron PAUKE, than
whom the common law of this realm has now no
greater expounders, we all know, think otherwise;
two of them indeed
.exressly dissented from that
judgment ; but, a majority of the Court of Error so
' ruling, until and unless reversed by the House of
Lords, such is the law. _

In resulting the minority rate of their vicar, the
dissident parishioners of Brighton, knowing this to
be at present the law, were not, of course, so foolish
as to rush into unnecessary litigation on the exact
points so temporarily ruled iu the Braintree ease.
In order to avail themselves of the ultimate judg-
ment of the House of Lords in that case, if against
the validity of a minority rate, they included those
points in their objections ; but they raised this addi-
tional and novel one : admitting, they said, that a
minority rate can be supported at common law for
the purposes of maintaining the fabric and providing
for the ordinary celebration of divine service, it can-
lnot, they contended, be supported to defray the ora-
mental and sanitary accompaniments which modern
I taste and sense of comfort have introduced into our
churches ; and, inasmuch as their minority rate had
been laid on for ornamental as well as necessary
church purposes, they hold that such an excess
of the common law obligation vitiated the rate.
That, as we understand it, was wherein the
Brighton differed from the Braintree case ; and the
distinction is obviously and patently one of very
great importance. For, it has always been argued
on behalf of the church that the mainteuauce of the
fabric and the ordinary celebration of service consti-
tuted not a tax in the ordinary sense of the
word, but that the church had such an interest
in every man's realty as was necessary for
those church purposes; they being indispensable
for a church established by law. But, though a
water-tight building, and pews, and seats, and vest-
ments, and sacramental bread and wine, and books,
and cleanliness, and bell ringing, are necessaries of
a church and public worship, and may, therefore,
form such a common obligation as a parish cannot
escape from, it is very clear that organs and
organists, professional singing and singers, warmth
and stoves, handsomely clad beadles with great brass
nobbed canes, are not church necessaries. They are
useful, desirable, pleasant, and comfortable; but not
indispensable. They are all very proper things
to be paid for by those who use them
and enjoy their advantage in their devo-
tions; but things it is very hard to make those
pay for who either object to music in churches
on principle, as do the English dissenters and all
Scotland, or who never go to church at all. The
law obliges us to support paupers, but not to supply
them with tobacco and pipes; it compels us to
maintain country roads, but not as highly metalled
as if they were turnpikes ; and so with churches, to
maintain them and service therein is an obligation
quite sufficient, without adding thereto their orna-
ments or decorations.

UNQUALIFIED PRACTICE OF :MEDlClNE.—Yeater-
day an inituest was opened by Mr. Baker, at the Bell,
Ratcliffe-highway, on the body of Henry Steward Davis,
aged 13. Deceased, whose mother was a lunatic, being in-
closed to idiocy was placed under the care of a married
wanes mimed ilisabeth Wanstall. On Monday last as he
estelphaseil eta pain in his bowels, Mrs. Wanstall gave hint
ads powder obtained for one penny, at the shop
of aXL Zia Stephens, " medical botanist," potato mer-
chmit.mii avant to Dr. Coffin. On Wednesday evening
whams saw Kr. Stephens, who prescribed another dose of
the powder. The same evening Mr. Stephens administered
an enema to the deceased. Witness was present. This
was about ti o'clock at night. Lie seemed to be relieved
by it, and exhibited no symptoms of suffering pain. The
fallowing morning he appeased lower. About twelve
&clock that day he had the rattles in his
throut, shortly anti' which he died. William Richard
Croker, ahopman to Mr. Stephens, said that be had
supplied Mrs. Wanstall with the composition powder.
It is Kept in a coffee-canister. When Mr. Overton came
witness guessed at the quantity he wan to give. lie did not
mention either to the constable or Mrs. Wanstall how it
waste be administered. Witness recollected Mr. Stephens,
es het Wednesday, making the injection fur the deceased.
It was made of the composition powder, with some 'Merle
and sabclia. The latter is caned a poison, but it is
sot. The injection is always composed in that
manner. The whole was about a quarter of an
ounce. It was not weighed. Witness does not
know what he added to make a liquid of
it. Mr. Stephens visits his patients and witness makes up
medicines from his prescriptions. Witness has seen him
camp and medicines, when he has taken them out or they
have been sent for. Mr. Stephens has no diploma, end
'lima believes he has received no education for medical
purposes. Witness has no other knowledge of medicine
than what he has picked up from Dr. Coffin's book. If
witness found a difficult cue he would consult Mr. Stephens.
Kr. Garrett stated that in the deceased's condition=
clan astringent character ought to have bees '
M the deceased. The Coroner, after commenting upon the
elrcumstance of Mr. Stephens practising without a diploma,
stated that be should adjourn the inquiry, in order to have
ea Yalysis of the contents of the stomach, and he tlincted
that Dr. Letheby should be applied to for that purpose.
The inquiry was then adjourned.
BRUT,U. MCRDER IN MANCHESTER.—In the
Express of Tuesday we ppvs a brief amount of the
murder of a female at Keaisster by a mesa named Wick.
About half-put six o'clock en Monday mining a police-
man on duty in Back Istediestreet heard a wee of fighting
in a cellar. He listened, red heard a mesa gay, Wdl you
give me my money," awl a woman sod "'Yes." The
sound of blows immediately recommend. and the officer
pushed open the door of the cellar, them be eaw Wick just
getting up from a mum who wee Ibis on the floor,
and whom be apparel alms bus beaSing- .The policeman
esksd Wick wheels led bees yam, sod the latter replied
=haw eghled Ise of her .emmens, sad then they
le pit me out." Rhea aid whet he had been
lemilhealet tome fur, he said Imangeell le get bis
this The lemma was very nue bushed, em 4 was -
ies es heed and face. the a muvil bed the officer
thud estaihar woman, who aced Mires bow beaten,
eml who only just breathed. ponied the
el another admit, and leek the am into cus-
tody. women were CalaVart M tlo Royal WM'S,
es soon Ypowible, when it ajaallalli that the women who
was found lying on the bid wee quite deed. The
prisoner was brought up at Se Manchester Bo-
rough Court the same morning. bat was remanded.
On Monday obsesses the depesteles at the we. whom
the policeman' heed as the Om at the cellar, was taken,
in coneyuuo at hen hie ethitheised that she wadi
not survive. M mid /mg was Helen Farms& aid
that of account was likettlek • ...The] 1ina.62,0*
thee in the aft bi Bak BrIPID4W•et. Tea a•Mearra west
out late on SOW" al^ ails Mama with IrLwisaer
about 4 skink is Os =Nth* Dammed said was
an old aspaintinee at brisit,ffini asked him to treat thew
Wick puithied theha mead pay for breakfast for them
all mat wasakti. Weis tem la bed when they came in,
iihrert up mid sopa Ida Am off some pickled
and mass bees,al which they all had
rather too ' Ithimemds went to bed.
He gave each et they then
went out for a walk. timed is half an hoar,
=Wick seized end them both saying they had
him. Wilms ethumbeeed u• mere at the shatter.
Oa Tessizotto was wit bismobt up st the
111.11
.41thithz=dtbstalitilltsd made 71,t:'Zru:
's body. He found an extensive
hemailt eglhe limp.
_with effusion of blood on the &Uk-
ases vsems aides were fractured, and one of
FiLsors bra. lbws were also several contused
dldigend pat se the body, with great appear.
✓ind Moog ikilMOD IMO by external blows. Them
=IMO lift ammo to account for madam
Ad bin hem eaused from the feet or knees
el po Ma the prisoner. The prisoner was
opM re Re swath, in order that the other woman,
who is now expected te_
_Rawer, may attend and give evi-
dence. Mr. Herford YM an inquest on the body of Mar-
garet Firling yesteV. bet no additional credence was
adduced, it was

Well, that being the point in the Brighton case,
Sir HERBERT JENNER FUNT has advanced the law of
the Braintree case to meet and embrace it. Yes ; he
holds a minority rate is supportable at common law
for church ornaments, comforts, and luxuries, as well
as for church necessaries. This is clearly a tremen-
dous decision for the clergy. if it be law, we are at
the mercy of them and their churchwardens, and
may be taxed for all the gilt and frippery of St.
Barnabas in every parish in England. For where
can any line of demarcation be drawn if we once get
into a legal liability' to provide church ornaments
and decorations, and if a minority rate can be en-
forced for ecclesiastical elegancies? This is a step in
advance with a vengeance ; one that the very squires
will feel, for it affects their pockets desperately.

Yet this is the
_principle laid down by Sir HER-
BERT JENNER And he justifies it by the
common law. Now the common law we laymen arc
told by lawyers, is that law " whereof the memory
sf man runneth not to the contrary." But most of
us can remember churches without stoves, churches
without organs, churches without paid organists
and choirs, churches without beadles with gold laced
hats, churches without screens, without gilt, glitter,
and pomp; and remembering those good old rural
churches where we were first taught to pray by our
good, pious, and affectionate mothers, without any
such frippery, we can't understand how at common
law the new-fangled vicar, with his strait-standing-
up collar, and his unbending bigotry (so unlike his
kind-hearted, rather slovenly, but jolly predecessor!)
can make us pay for these and such other novelties
as he has imported.
Judge Fu T, we know, tells us to object to them
at the vestry. But to what end? There the vicar,
encouraged by him, won't listen to us ; there he is
deaf to all our objections there ho refuses to put any
of our amendments ; there, flourishing the Braintree
case in our faces, he declares his rate carried whether
we will or not ; and, dissolving the meeting, walks
away, threatening us with the terrors of the Ecclesi-
astical Court. Nay, not content with even that ;
next Sunday he libels us from the pulpit, taking for
his text the apostolic words, " God is love !" teaching
us that "love is the fulfilling of the law," and insist-
ing that the Braintree case being law, we are lost
moutons if we do not pay what he has assessed us
at. Then, to shame us, and to . proclaim
our iniquity to the world, and to raise funds
wherewith to prosecute us, he prints the
sermon. That, of course, brings our worthy ally,
the dissenting minister, into the lists ; Mr. CONING-
HAM naturally follows with his heavy artillery ; and,
when the smoke has cleared away a little, Judge
FEsT, at Doctors Commons, is heard recommencing
oar troubles.

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 24, 1851.

And Judge FeaT says that, though this is judge-
made law, the beet law in the kingdom is of the
same order. Probably it is; but, though of the
same order, the quality, may differ. Lord MANSFIELD
when he laid the foundations of our commercial law,
did so by judge-mude law. When Lord CAMDEN
held general warrants to be illegal, it was by judge-
made law. When the slave SOMERSET was dis-
charged, it was by judge-made law. Lord ELDON
enlarged the scope of our endowed grammar
schools, and introduced the humanities of scholarship
into them by judge-made law. And Lord COTTEN-
HAM relaxed the severity of settled property by the
same authority. But, to compare Sir HERBERT
FUST'S judge-made law with that of those giants of
jurisprudence' is to compare Hyperion with a Satyr.
They adapted, enlarged, liberalised, and ennobled the
law; fitted it for the growth of men, of manners, of
society, and of learning; they used it as an instru-
ment of human improvement. He narrows, eon-
fines, cribs, crimps, and compresses it. They im-
proved their fellow-creatures by the use they made
of the law; he torments and plagues them. Hap-
pily, however, there is a Judicial Committee of the
Pnvy Council to disprove his self-complacent com-
parisons, and to correct his decisions; and thither, it
is to be hoped, the Brighton case will be carried.