The Express.
London, England, 1856-10-25 00:00:00

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.817RRET.

ISTANDARD.

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DAY NEWS FORWARDED to the COUR-
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THE PUBLIC and the TRADE ar• reatindod
*Macy Oa 81,PPLIEll tan tag 'VINING =Pasta,
111 t at J. Gitt:(1011V .1 d
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pAILT NEWS LENT TON READ, fres 8 a.s.
t.ll 3 p w Jay la per week ; alyeled la lowa ce 'emery. at
we, foe IL per we Lie tawetarnpwa peewt=ter by Mr. Wale
Ina New Meat, la TetwateAreet. Wai

THE EXPRESS.—The PUBLIC sad TRADE
SUPPI lED *wry sltanzoos. at luirvot 4. by O. RTIVIDIL
Lbsusibor. and Hens Amt. 33. OamveU DAILY N EWI
NUPPLIND sad LLYT TO RIAD S the maveed.
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TO CORRESPONDENTS.
olimelapsiOs tor TIN Expre.s." Lemke twain
wet Mg at do 0111 w. 10. Ilooveriestreet. try Tv. els* ea paper, Ike
gebilsba.

TW AREET.
Ts. Emma, WILD lIAOATS. Werra Wordosh. Maples,
DiIeksIDLINI, And CAlppreade ; Cher lone. —THE STAR OF AN.
MELINA. The epeakh Deaerro.—Tlll LITTLE TREASURE.
Mks D. THE GALICIAN YAM The *Fugal% Damen.

PRINCESS'a.
Tail Ivwao, A MIERUaIIt ER NIGHTY DRILAL And
PIZARRO. Rt. and Mrs. C. Roan.

LYCEUM.
True Irogreo, BELIMIIOOI3. Mr. aid Km C. DUI L—THI
NINO% MUSKCTEERA. Mr. C Mon sad MI Wookgar.—Ad
a BALLET has the bariseptie ol the WLaw's Tale.

Ten Femme, DRED. Kw. Cr;rriek, Shepherd. red Patter ;
Klee E ddlee.—THE FILLIS YAWILT.—THS QUIET FAMILY.
Kr. Wid,kienab.—AndCOVLlLS POI TIMM

Tau Brame. CLOUDAAIiirFZIARINE. Mr. S. Atherton
Aid Mb. F.Isworiby.—KATRAILINE ANA PETAUCFIIO. Mr. S.
At den= & LAI Elimarthy.—Aad frIFTELN TEARS OF LABOUR
LOST. Mn. R. Ramer.

RION WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
r. DAT —Morales. Ob. Oe. Artorboss. I. IS..
Tbasoabow—lionusg. 3Sta Afternoon, O. Skim.

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26.

A ORATE accusation is made in yesterday's Resident
against a portion of the English Prete. Some Engliah
journals, we are told, have been eirealating calum-
nious statements respecting the French Government,
serious enough to destroy the confidence between it
and the English Government, and thus having a
tendency to disunite the two nations. The charge is
a heavy one, but it would have carried more weight
with it had it been specific. The nature of the
&amnia is not stated; and as the offending journal@
are not named we have no clue whereby to die-
cover wherein they have offended. In the name
of the English Press we demand that the
accusation be made specific, in order that
we and our contemporaries may defend our
if innocent, or make amends if we
have done wrong. As for anything that may
be said by the English Press having a tendency to
destroy confidence between the French and English
Governments, no one knows better than the Emperor
of the FRENCH how utterly unable the English
Government are to exercise any influence over the
discussions of the English Press, and how entirely
irresponsible they are for anything it may say. This
alone is sufficient to convince us that advantage has
been taken of the Emmaus', abloom at Compiegne,
by some of those underlings who have been
publishing similar complaints in the mend-
official journals of Paris, to foist the denun-
ciation to which we are adverting into the
Noniteur. These men are ignorant of how
completely the English newspapers are iden-
tified with the whole English people. They fancy
that they are like their own Parisian journals, mere
organs of individuals or coteries; and they flatter
themselves that the brutum Alums of the Mosileur
will frighten the English people into a coercion of
their newspapers. The Manson knows well the
absurdity of such a notion, and we feel confident that
the escapade of the official journal will cause him
serious annoyance and bring down a sharp rebuke
on its authors.

We maintain that, so far from evincing anima
city towards the French people or Govern-
ment, the general tone and tenor of the English
Press has displayed a warm friendship foe the
former, and great forbearance towards the latter. In
se far as we ourselves are concerned, our constant
aim has been to direct whatever influence we may be
able to exercise over public opinion to the promotion
el cordial feelings end extended industrial connexions
between the French and English nations. As for
what concerns the French Government, we will sot
affect to entertain a confidence in it which we do not
feel ; but ever since the present dynasty received the
sanction of the French people, our comments upon it
have been confined within the legitimate limits of a
constitutional opposition--such as we might offer to
an English admini.t ration to whose political principles
we were hostile. Oar relation to the measures of the
French Government has undoubtedly been generally
antagonistic, but we have been fair and even courteous
opponents. We have left to pot-house politicians the
vending of iirnoSle personal aspersions. We have seised
11M117 oppotto nit y tI) do jos t ea to such of the Eurnitot's
measures as appeared deserving of approbation; we
have recognised the loyalty with which he ful-
filled his engsgetLents to Englsnd during the WIZ.
We have laboured, not to overturn the French
Government, but to induce it to adopt a policy cal-
culated to consolichte its own power by promoting the
real ioteresto of the great nation whose destinies it
has undertaken to guide.

Wuo does not know a London child? The "linen
cheeks" and feeble limbs of the little creature bear
painful witnesa to its home. We speak not, of course,
of the children of rich parents, who can afford to
carry their families to the seashore, when they may
inhale the fresh ses•breeze ; bet we speak of those
wretched beings whose nursery is a cellar in St.
Glees, and whose playground is a paved courtyard
flanked by two stone walls. There are few men who
have witnessed the sickly pastimes of these victims of
civilisation without a secret yearning to place them
in some happier sphere. It is not only that their dreary
scene of life shuts them out from the enjoyment of
the exhilarating beauties of nature, but that, by the
position in which they are placed, their faculties of
enjoyment become gradually blinded, and their whole
being becomes demoralised. Deprive a plant of light,
and it will die: deprive a faculty of the means
of enjoyment, and it) will become powerless.
It is with the morel as with the physical world.
Lst a man deprive himself of the contemplation of

'things excellent—let him accustom himself to that
which is depraved—sad in a brief space he will he.
come vicious and &peered. The excellent Dr.
ARNOLD, writing to some noble lady, declared that
any man might make himself an atheist by excluding
Goo from his thoughts. Hs was right. For any
man to exclude the thought of religion from his
mind is wicked enough, but for any man wilfully to
place another in inch a position as to render it diffi-
cult for him to indulge in such contemplation is more
wicked still.

What shall we sty, then, of those who,
having by the necessity of things the care of some
60,000 children cut upon them, so order their
affairs that these unfortunate infants are practically
exposed toahnost every influence which can serve, not
to develop, bat to seal up and annihilate the seeds of
virtue and religion? This is no hypothesis: for, if
we may rely on the reports of the Inspectors of
Schools, it is the policy and the practice of our
own Government. This is, indeed, a crying evil,
and one that well deserves our earnest attention.
The evil is admitted. It has been proclaimed for
plan by the Inspectors, but that judicious person,
Mr. HAIM, in too timid to attempt to apply a re-
medy. We propose, therefore, to consider the remedy'
which has been proposed and advocated by the In-
spectors, and to enforce its general adoption by
pointing out the results which have already attended
its establ,shment. It is, indeed, simple enough.
For the only thing regained is to collect the
children from the various workhouses ; to remove
them from the habitual vice and contamination which
pollutes the inmates of the workhouse, and renders

immorality, instead of morality, the key-note of
society within the workhouse walls; to set them
free from these pollutions, and to collect them togs.
ther in District schools, where they may be instructed
in their duties, and have their natural good prin-
ciples developed and strengthened. This plan, we
should observe, is no castle in the air. Experience hes
sufficiently shown, that whilst the children from the
workhouse ochools are generally vicious, the children
from the District schools are quite the reverse.
Thus Mr. C. TIIPNILL observes that, in one
workhouse school, out of 39 boys who had left
the school in a period of about four years,
12 had been imprisoned and 7 transported,
several were almost permanently on the rates, and
only 7 were doing pretty well; and yet the average
attendance in that school was only 40. Whilst of
the 1,000 children est:illy met with in the Central
London District School, Mr. Tuerriu. says :—" I am
not oogniaant of more then one having been corn.
mitted to prison." It seems to be the same in the
country. The Principal of the large District school at
Swinton, near Manchester, says that he believes there
L no instance of one of those children who has had
the advantage of the average time of instruction at
Swinton falling back lots pauperism.
. .

. .
Bat, besides the positive benefits which such Dis-
trict schools confer, there is one muter connected
with the subject which to our minds is even
touching. It seems that in the Parkhurst Reformatory
Prison, about 60 per cent. of the boys are orphans. It
also appears that on the let of January, 1864, in the
pauper schools, exactly the same proportion as in the
Reformatory School., or sixty per orate were orphans.
or deported. Now, it is very remarkable that in well
conducted pauper establishment', the orphan children
are the most hopeful subjects. They are, Mr. TUP-
says, the mat attentive to their duties, nasally
chosen for pupil teachers, from their superior moral
and intellectual condition, and in every way the best
conducted. It thus appears that the most hopeful
thee of paupers—the orphans—furnishes sixty per
ant. of the inmates of our prison. Verily
the old Roman was right when he wrote: the
best man, when corrupted, is the worst. These
poor children, abandoned by their parents to the
mercy of mankind, may turn out, strange to say, if
properly educated, the very best members of society.
If neglected, they will, with tolerable certainty, tern
loot the worst. It is, then, education, and education
I alone, which determines whether theses children shall
be a bane or a blessing to society. The same result is
proved by the Ragged Schools. Those who have
parents are usually the wont. The Rev. Dr. Gum.
am, one of the chief managers of those schools in
Edinburgh, related to an inspector of schools a re
Inarkable instance. lie knew • boy who was a
regular attendant at the school only when his mother
was in prison. By the good conduct of the boy, the
authorities knew when his mother was thus taken
away, for his conduct varied with the presence or
absence of his mother. At last he was finally re-
moved from her influence, and he then turned out one
of As moat hopeful of the school. Let it not be
supposed that such an instance as this throws
any slur on the admirable of of parental infla-
mes. Let no man who has himself experienced its
effects attempt to deny its benefits. But, alas ! its very
virtues may become vices ; its very strength may
constitute its danger. As no other voice than that
of a meet can pitted in the ear of a child with more
eloquence on behalf of virtue, so no other voice can
MOM powerfully seduce a child to vice. The orphan and
the deserted are in •situation deplorable enough; but,
deplorable es that is, their situation is, perhaps,
better than that of the children in the lowest ranks
of society. Poe their parents either neglect their
children entirely or studiously educate them in crime.
Without doubt, parental influence, properly exerted,
is a thing to be held sacred. It is the fountain of a
thousand blessings. But when that induence is
grossly misdirected and neglected, it is both the
interest and the duty of the State to undertake the
abandoned office.

In short, there are 60,000 pauper children. These
children may become either admirable members of
society, or an army of thieves. Experience has proved
this in innumerable ways. Even those children who
are doomed to the superintendence of vicious parents
are proof that education is everything. A father oe
a mother, though the most powerful teachers of virtue
when themselves virtuous, are the most powerful
teachers of vies when themselves vicious. snowing,
then, these principles, instructed in them by their own
Inspectors, what is the policy of our Government P
Its policy is unfettered as to these children. The State
may do what it pleases. There is no indifference on the
part of the parent' to be combatted. The children need
not be taken from school before they are of an
age to go to work. No dome interposes a bar to their
moral and religious culture, for the Slags provides a
home. Money need not be wanting, for the State
may provide it. Yet, having all these advantages, what
does the State do P Instead of separating these State
children from the pollutions of vice; instead of '1
giving them some chance of cleansing their minds
from the pollution in which they were born; instead
of sending them to District schools, it confines them
in Peeper schools, wt ere the poison of ♦ins is
thoroughly concentrated, and where those 'dojos of
moral corruption, instead of being evaporated by e
pore atmosphere, may become ingrained and indelible.
This is a fearful responsibility. Let Mr. Luxes
look to it.

Our's Hoarrna..—At a wart of committee, of thin
hespitai,keld en the lith iait.,the RiehtHadhudd Hight Her.
Lord Aucklaad, Bishop of Bath sod Wells ; the Right Hee.
Sydney Herbert, P.; Western Weed, seq.; sad Am-
pulla &atlases, 14., wire sleeted penmen of the hos-
pital la the room of three pursers demand wad wee se.
tired.

1