Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-07-04 00:00:00

AUSEAEL,ITS, PUBLIC MEETINGS, Sce.

THIS DAY.

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E4e kortOru titueo

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1857.

THE DAY'S NEWS.

The St. Helens Canal and Railway Bill has been
:brown out. Yesterday, Sir James Graham, chair-
man of the Committee, announced that the Com-
mittee had arrived at the unanimous decision that
the preamble of the bill was not proven. So that
Liverpool will still retain the jurisdiction of the
whole of the river Mersey.
In the House of Commons last night the Secre-
tary of the Treasury stated that the al rangements
for the postal communication between London
and Dublin was now nearly complete. The
arrangement was, that the steamboat company
should provide four vessels, of 300 feet long, 1,700
tons burden, and with engines of 1,500 horse
power, capable of being worked up to 3,000, and
that the journey should be completed in eleven
hours. Sir James Graham brought up the report
of the Committee upon the Liverpool Town and
Dock Dues Bill.

In the House of Lords, no business of importance
was transacted.

It is now more than probable that, in a few
days, Mr. George Henry Moore will be relieved
from the arduous task of representing the county
of Mayo. A petition is now at hearing before a
committee of the House of Commons ; and,
familiar as we are with priestly intimidation and
vagabondism at elections, anything approaching
to what has been given in evidence in this case has
not occurred since O'Connellism ruled the roast.
The examination of Archbishop Mac Hale, which
we give at full length in to-day's paper, will well
zepay perusal.
It is stated, on very good authority, that the Em-
peror and Empress of the French are not simply to
visit the Queen at Osborne, but will also go to
Manchester, to see the Exhibition of Art there.
The King of the Belgians arrived in England yes-
terday on a visit to her Majesty.
A London cotemporary of yesterday says :—We
are authorised to state that, though the subject of
the importation of free blacks into the West
Indies, was mentioned in the course of the
conversation between Lord Palmerston and
a deputation of the West India body, introduced by
Lord Shaftesbury, the noble Eirl is decidedly
opposed to such an experiment, regarding it as
perilous in the extreme. An evening paper
in the course of some remarks upon this subject,
moral right to subject Africans, whom we may
transport to the West Indies for the advantage of
West Indian proprietors, to extraordinary mor-
tality ? In the annual reports laid before
Parliament it is shown how great is the want of
medical skill and science in the West Indies,
and how frightfully the peasantry have suffered
from this want. Yet, notwithstanding, the West
India body propose a wholesale emigration of
raw Africans to their sugar estates. Heaven
forgive them !
The excitement respecting Little's Murder, is
even greater now in Dublin, than it was when the
outrage was perpetrated. At the examination of
the prisoner on Thursday Mr. Carrew, on behalf
of the prisoner, made an appeal to the Press. He
said—" The unfortunate man at the bar most ear-
nestly and respectfully requests that there shall
not be any insertion in the newspapers of reports
and rumours about him. Some things have been
stated which are perfectly groundless, and they are
calculated to create a prejudice against him in the
public mind. I trust, therefore, that the gentle-
men of the press will, in mercy to the unfor-
tunate man, abstain from the publication of
any rumours until the trial is over, and
confine themselves to reporting what occurs in
this court, which they always do with accuracy."
Mr. Porter, the presiding magistrate, said he never
knew a more reasonable request. "It is seldom
that I offer an opinion on any matter before me
beyond what is strictly necessary in the discharge
of my duty ; but I must say that in this case a
most extraordinary number of what I can only
characterise as imaginative fictions have been
placed before the public. God knows every one,
in a well-ordered community, must desire that so
'rightful anl awful an atrocity as beyond all doubt
was committed amongst us should be brought
home to the guilty party, and the perpetrator of it
punished ; but, at the same time, we ought all to
recollect that the greater public benefit is rendered
by the majesty of the law being asserted—not
only in punishment, but in the merciful care of
the rights add interests of every subject. Nothing
should be said or done calculated to prevent the
prisoner from having a fair, impartial, and un-
prejudiced trial."
We again supply our readers with an elaborate
report of the further proceedings in the trial of
Miss Smith, in Edinburgh, for murder. The ex-
amination of the witnesses for the prosecution will
not terminate before Monday, and it is likely that
the trial will not terminate before Wednesday.

Of local news of any importance there is a great
scarcity. We may call attention to a letter signed
" A Juror," in this day's paper. It relates to a very
singular case of sudden death in Birkenhead, and
if the facts are really as they are there stated, they
are a disgrace to a civilised community. We hope
that an investigation will be made into the affair.
It is understood that an amalgamation between
the Royal West India Mail Company and the
European and Australian Royal Mail Company
has been agreed upon, subject to the approval of
the shareholders.
The news from abroad is very interesting. An
insurrectionary movement has broken out in Italy.
Ito political aspect and peculiarities are yet un-
known, and we must await details before pro-
nouncing an opinion. This revolutionary attempt
appears to have been
n made in two places, at Leg-
horn and at the island of Pouza belonging to
Naples. At Leghorn the movement was very soon
suppressed, and a Neapolitan frigate scattered the
other insurgents, and took from them a steamer
which they had managed. to make themselves
masters of. A despatch, via Paris, states that the
movements are organized by Mazzini, but what
reliance we are to give to the statement is not
made known. 200 arrests have . been made in
Genoa, and muskets and ammunition have been
seized. Naples is tranquil.
A dangerous conspiracy appears to exist in
France against the Emperor's life,andby our Paris
advices it would appear that the affair is of a more
serious character than was originally supposed.
The persons taken into custody are also more

numerous ; successive arrests, either in conse-
quence of disclosures made by accomplices or
obtained from papers found at their lodgings, have
increased the number from three to twenty-one; I
doubt whether it will rest here. Their examina-
tion by the Judges d'lnstruction is still going
on, and it is said that abundant proofs exist
of their culpability. Few authentic particulars
have transpired as to their plans, or the modes
by which these plans were to be carried out.
The main object, however, was to get rid of
the Emperor; the overthrow of the Imperial
regime would follow, as a matter of course, as
well as the re-establishment of the Red Re-
public. They belong to the same school as
Pianori, and their object is the same. They,
are also said to be connected with the conspi-
rators arrested in Genoa, who proposed to proclaim
the Republic in that city. This is the account
given by official people, who appear to have no
doubt, from the documentary and other evidence
in their possession, of bringing the matter home
to them. They will be tried by the Court of Assizes
of the Seine. A few who, except on the clearest
and most undenible proof, are generally incredulous
in those matters, dwell on the coincidence of this
new plot against the Emperor and the elections,
as if get up by the police with a view to excite the
fears of the bourgeoise.
The Bank returns are again of a favourable cha-
racter. Last night's Gazette states that the bullion
in the Bank coffers is 11,378,872 e., being an increase
of 206,0101. on the returns of the previous week.

THE Educational Conference held the other
day, under the presidency of the Prince Consort,
and attended by so many distinguished and
enlightened men, will do good, though not all
the good that was expected. No good and en-
lightened effort is without result. We may not
be able to measure it, and we may suppose that
it has produced no effect, but action and re-
action are true in the moral as in the natural
world. A pebble dropped into the Mersey pro -
duces its effect though not appreciable. This
Conference is at least a reminder of the great
importance of education, but it has not lessened
our idea of the difficulty of practically dealing
with it, still every successive consideration of the
subject seems to advance it by some small stage.
It was generally agreed at the outset, among
all the parties assembled, that the too short
period of attendance at school by the chil-
dren of the poor, is one special cause of the back-
wardness of education among them ; and the
meeting was summoned more particularly to
consider what could be done to amend this—
what means could be suggested to induce parents
to continue their children longer at school.
The Prince Consort stated that he met the Con-
ference Education on neutral ground—that he
would not have consented to preside if rival
plans had been to be discussed, or anything sec-
tarian or theological introduced. Sir JOFIN
PAKINGTON considered that perhaps there might
have been too much of mere speaking and too
little of action on this important and practical
subject.

Some of the facts brought out, though well
known, were not the less startling and impres-
sive. Taking a whole nation, about one-fourth
are reckoned to be under fifteen years of age.
There are, therefore, in this country, about five
millions of young people who ought to be in.
attendance at school or receiving some kind of
instruction, yet, in point of fact, there are onl y
two millions out of the five, in Scotland and Eng-
land, who attend any sort of school; so that
three millions of children are unprovided for,
Moreover, of the two millions in attendance, one
million and a half are removed from school, on
the average, by the time they are nine years of
age, so that only some five or six hundred
thousand children remain at school so long as
two years. And taking the period from 1818 to
1851, a term of thirty-three years, while the
number of schools is fourteen times as great, the
number of scholars has only doubled in the same
time. Since 1839, to the present time, two mil-
lions of money have been expended in erecting
school-rooms, and a million and a quarter is every
year applied to promote the education of the
poor. These are startling facts and painful sta-
tistics, and they well deserved the attention of the
illustrious assembly that had met to consider
them. They deserve the attention of every one
who wishes well to his country, who desires to see
our public institutions improved, and our national
progress resting on safe and assured foundations.
Nothing can be more menacing than that of a
large and increasing population growing up
educationless; and nothing is more discreditable
to England compared with some continental
nations, than, that the facts should be so dis-
gracefully against us. We say this in perfect
recollection that mere instruction is not educa-
tion, that education is the right unfolding of all
man's various and richly gifted nature ; that
book-learning is only one small part of the
diversified machinery which Providence has fur-
nished for human culture. The most effective
part of education is probably that which is taught
by the practical experience of life—an experience
that no books can communicate—a training that no
telling can convey. Men are being educated by
the practice of their trades and daily occupations,
and if the scientific grounds on which these rest
were made known the training would be far more
effective and the benefit far greater.
The Conference agreed that unless the perio d
of school attendance could be lengthened, not
much improvement was to be expected. The
difficulty to be encountered here, is that the
labour of the children becomes valuable to
the parents, and the earning of money is felt to
be more pressing than learning to read. Not
always, but often, it is the poverty of the parents
that induces them to send their children to early
work. It is a financial question, and we fear the
only effectual remedy for it would be an im-
proved
physical condition of the humbler class .
Whence is this to come but from their own
forethought, economy, and self-d.mial, which
are among the very best effects of that educa-