Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-02-12 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

Under no circumstances can we insert communications not
accompanied by the author's real name and address, not neces-
sarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

AMUSEMENTS, MEETINGS, &c
THEATRE ROYAL—Grand Comic Pantomime
ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE—EngIish Opera Company
HENGLER'S CIRQUE VAuirrs—Miscellaneons Att/
THE PARISIAN GALLERY OF ANATOMY, Paradise-Stref
MANnERS' MENAGERIE - Foot of Shaw's-brow.
ST. GEORGE'S HALL—Organ Performance.
CLAYTON HALL—Christy's Minstrels.
far For particulars see advertisements on Bth page

THIS DAY

1* Ileljtru. Eino.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1859,

THE DAY'S NEWS

• The news from the Continent, last night, was
•of the same indefinite character as that received
daily for some days past. The speech of Count
Cavour has produced a very unfavourable im-
pression in Paris. With reference to the proba-
bilities of peace or war, the Paris correspondent
of the Herald, writing on Thursday night, remarks,
that the affairs stand much the same as they were
before the delivery of the Emperor's speech.
Great difficulty, he says, does exist, and must
be solved either by diplomacy or war, and that if
diplomacy fails, war must certainly ensue. The
writer adds that the Emperor does not overrate the
efficiency of diplomatists, in thus preventing the out-
break of war. The Paris correspondent of the Daily
_News, writing at the same time, remarks that the
rumours of the day were altogether warlike. He
states that the British Government had urged
upon Austria to evacuate the Roman legislations,
and to lend herself and influence to reforms in
Rome and Naples ; but it was thought these
conceptions would not be regarded as sufficient
authority by France or Sardinia.
The Augsburg Gazette, which is devoted to
Austrian interests, states that Russia is concentrat-
ing forces on the frontiers of Gallachia, and that
the tone of the Russian journals towards Austria
is becoming dailyrae more and more offensive.
Advices from it by telegraph state, that the
Prince of Wales had paid a visit to the Pope. The
Pope having sent his Ma
jor Do mo to the Prince to
pay his compliments, the Prince paid an official
visit to his Holiness.
His Royal Highness was
accompanied by Mr. Russell, the secretary of the
English embassy at the court of the Grand Duke
of Tuscany.

The day': before Prince Alfred left Malta, on the
e
3rd inst., the Governor issued a notice,
stating that he had received a gdespatch overnmentn
Secretary of the Colonies, expressinc, her Iroin the
satisfaction at the reception whichb all from
the-Maltese population had given the Prince,easse: oaf
that Her Majesty. had been much affectedb this
expression of their loyalty.
The steamer Thames, with the heavy portion of
the Australian mails, arrived at Southampton
yesterday, and the letters by her will be delivered
here this morning.. The Alhambra, with Lisbon
and Peninsular mails, and also having on board
the mails and passengers from. the Brazilian
steamer Avon, which broke down near Lisbon,
also arrived yesterday at Southampton, and the
letters by, her will also be delivered in Liverpool
this, morning. The advices by the Brazilian mail
state that when the Avon left Bahia a tremendous
fu'e., was raging, and it was fully expected that
the -city would be entirely destroyed. .Advices

from Rio Janeiro state that the Paraguay forts
were so well fortified, that it was expected that
the Americans would be defeated.
In another column will be found a full digest of
three clays later news from America, brought by
the steamer City of Washington. The news from
Mexico is important, as showing that the British
fleet was about to take action.
A deputation waited upon Lord Derby, yester-
day, by appointment, to urge.-the desirability of
repealing the paper duty. His Lordship received
the deputation very cordially, but stated that, in
the present state of the national finances, it was
quite impossible for him to make any decisive
promises on the subject.
The Galway election took place yesterday, and
Mr. John Orrell Lever was returned without
opposition. After the official proceedings had
terminated, a procession, said to number from
8,000 to 10,000 persons, with flags, banners,. &c.,
paraded the streets, accompanied by the newly-
elected member and Father Daly. The election
for the University of Dublin also took place yes-
terday. The Right Hon. J. Whiteside was
returned without opposition.
The proceedings in the House of Commons, last
night, were confined wholly to the asking of
questions on various subjects, which need no
reference beyond the report in another column.

OUR RAGGED SCHOOLS

THERE is no more important system of active

charity in operation amongst us, - we are per-
suaded, than that of the Ragged. Schools. The
very name is one that tells a tale of love and
brotherly kindness, which ought to secure the
warmest sympathy of a Christian community.
Ragged Schools,—so called, because, as their

name imports, they are schools for the Ragged—

that is, for those whose condition, physical and

moral, is such, that they must needs have a sepa-
rate and, distinct provision for their care and
teaching, and which must be such as will seek to

reclaim them from their most degraded position :
so degraded, that the ordinary schools, even of the
lowest class, would not often open their doors to

receive them ! For ragged too generally means,
and is. found to be, degraded,—and often, very

often, as vicious and depraved as well can be.

Ah I but it is a sad thing, in this most respectable

world in which we live, and to which we belong,
to be reduced to a condition of rags ! He was

not, it is true, altogether a bad, though he was a
poor man, who is related to have had occasion to
As I go in this ragged tattered coat of

mine, I am hunted away from the door by every

barking cur." Even the very dogs, we see, have

an instinctive horror of the ragged—associating
them, it would seem, in their canine minds, with
nothing that is reputable, but with everything,
perhaps, that is repugnant to the right ideas of
even a brute. Yes ;—if the poor ragged wight
should but-ask the queition, " Why do your dogs
bark so ?" it were only necessary to point to his
coat. For being ragged, he is, very naturally, it
would appear, set down as a ragamuffin,—and we
all know what that means. It is long ago that
one of our poets had to say—

" And ragged virtue not a friend at Court."
And the saying was then, and is still, but a figure
of speech, and a very forcible one, for the universal
friendlessness of those whose unhappy fate it is to
be clothed in rags—the emblem not only of
poverty, but of misery, and, now-a- days too
commonly, of profligacy and vice. To have
thought of such a thing, in those days, as
educating the ragamuffins in our streets—of
providing good schools, and devoted teachers,
for such, the very offscouring of the people,
the lowest of the low, the vilest of the vile—
would have been scoffed out of mind in an
instant. But, thank God, we have fallen upon
better times,—times when Christian influences,
in their most practical bearing, extend to every
class, however low : nay, are directed with even
the greatest force of all, as indeed they ought to
be, to the lowest of all, because needing them
most of all—not alone to the poorest of the poor,
but to the most degraded of the degraded, and
those who, being such, have hitherto been found
most commonly to have none to help them.
This subject has again been brought prominently
before the people of Liverpool, by the recurrence
this week of the anniversary of the Soho-street

Industrial Ragged Schools,—an establishment

which, though by no means so extensive as, in
such a town as Liverpool, it ouk,ht to be, is

yet evidently, according to its means, doing much
positive and practical good among those who,

with often but too much reason, have come to be

called the dangerous classes

There were admitted

to the Schools during the past year, it appeared
by the Report, upwards of three hundred boys
and girls—the great majority of them boys; and

the average roll was about half that number,

These boys and girls

" helpless little ones,

the Report termed them

•" ready to perish, and

aptly styled ' City Arabs' —we suppose from
their wild
.and apparently untamable character,
when first rescued from their sad condition as

street wanderers--are not only taught to read,

and wr

ite, and cast accounts, but are trained up

also in habits of industry; and it is this, it seems,
on which the directors of the institution mainly

depend for the success of their labours. "Indeed,"
they tell us, " the beneficial influences of the
work-room can scarcely be too highly prized ; for
it has been found that, as soon as the child sees
the result of its labours, and thereby knows and
feels that, with its own hands, it can do something
profitable, a new spring of action is elicited—the
germ of self-respect becoming apparent, and is
rapidly followed by a desire for self-improvement.
A wish to learn appears, and gradually the little
outcast, and unprofitable member of society,

becomes self-supporting." Now surely this were
a practical result of real, substantial value. And
the permanent worth of it, we find, is attested by
the fact, that " a very large proportion of the
children who have been inmates of the institution,

and are now in situations, are conducting them-
selves in a manner perfectly satisfactory to their
employers." They themselves become sensible of
the great advantages of such a training as they
receive, and, therefore, of the happy change that
it produces in their condition. It is related, for
instance, in the Report, that at the late annual
Christmas Dinner of the Schools, two boys, now

•
almost men, were present, former inmates, who
had just returned from sea, and who addressed
the children in most touching language, telling
them how they themselves had once been ragged
and destitute, and of the benefit they had received

from attending the Schools, and urging the
scholars present to persevere in regular attendance,
and in the course of good conduct it was the
purpose of the Schools to train them to.

Now such an institution as this, we repeat, has a
claim upon the people of a town like Liverpool far
beyond anything which, alas ! they are content to
bestow upon it. With only too much reason did
Rector CAMPBELL declare, at the meeting, "There
is not a sufficient degree of sympathy—l am afraid
there is not sufficient public spirit to assist us."
For, as the Committee of the institution state in
their Report, " in all large densely-peopled towns
like Liverpool, observation and experience have
shown that there are children which the National,
Congregational, and Parochial Schools, or such
establishments as the Blue-coat School, and the
Orphan Asylums, cannot effectually provide for,
or even bring in any degree within their influence."

And they who, but for these Industrial Ragged
Schools, would thus be neglected, are just those
who have the greater need of our charitable care
and concern. The Rector of Liverpool truly said
of the institution, that " it is one calculated to

reach a class of, society which can be reached in no
other way—the class which may be called the
worst in the land. _ The streets of our cities,"
he added, " are the hotbeds of . crime, and any-
thing that can be done•to rescue these unfortunate
creatures must be a good work." There can be

no doubt that it is a work of real, practical,
substantial good ; and one which would repay
fold, were there expended. in
its prosecution as many thousands as there ought
to be, to meet the exigency of the case as it is
found to exist in such a town as Liverpool.

society many, many

FREE LABOUR IN THE WEST INDIES.
IF" our West India colonies are to remain
prohibited from the employment of slave labour,
as we must all hope and trust they ever will,

then must there be every encouragement given to
them to obtain free labour,—unless; indeed, they
are to cease to be cultivated, and arc to sink into
the vast wildernesses- from which our Colonists
have reclaimed them. And if the negro or other
labour that is already there be insufficient, then
must means be adopted for importing more,—
the only available means for which are that
of immigration. It is much to be regretted,
therefore, that there should be so much
jealousy displayed, as there appears to be, on
this subject of immigration whether from
Africa or elsewhere. Of course, we cannot but
sympathise with the feeling of repugnance to any
sort of immigration which was compulsory, and
thereby partook of the nature of slavery. But
this feeling must not be carried to excess, or al-
lowed to be indulged unreasonably and indis-
criminately. Negro labour is found by long
experience to be the best adapted for the field
work of the West Indies, and there is a great
demand for such labour. This is one point of the
case. Then there is the African negro race
whom it is desirable to civilise, and to habituate
to industry as a method of civilisation. And this
is the other point of the case. Negroes are
urgently wanted in the West Indies ; and there
are African Negroes in abundance whom it might
be a blessing to transport thither. The only, or,
at any rate, the great question is, can this really
be done so as to aviod its being perverted to
virtual slavery—so as, in a word, to be the
blessing it ought to be, as a means of civilising
and Christianising the now poor benighted and

degraded Africans, without the risk of its degen-
erating into the old curse of a degrading and
inhuman slavery ?

There was a short incidental discussion on this
interesting subject in the House of Lords the other
evening, which had the effect of throwing some
light upon it. A " Jamaica Immigration Act" of
the Colonial Legislature is awaiting the Royal
Assent; and Lord BROUGHAM rose to make some
enquiry about it—evidently with a strong preju-
dice against its object—notwithstanding that he
subsequently was induced to admit that he did not
object to, on the contrary he approved of, a well-
ordered system of immigration. This, however,
was after Earl GREY had pointed out, that although
these Colonial Acts required to be watched with