Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-01-15 00:00:00

ANNUAL REPORT

In laying before the subscribers and friends of the Liverpool
Establishment for Needlewomen a statement of the progress of
the institution during the last year, the committee have to
speak more of the steadiness than increase of its business, but
they feel great confidence that the one will follow the other.
It is encouraging to find that those who have had work once
done at this establishment rarely forsake it, and there is
perhaps at present as much work supplied as the superintendent,
single handed, can cut out and oversee.
The committee are happily in a position to give a most
satisfactory account of the funds of the institution, which, by
the generosity of the Chatham. Society, and the liberal bequest
of the late Israel Barned Esq., have been much augmented.
They are naturally anxious that these funds, so liberally be-
stowed, should be judiciously administered, and to see the poor
people attached to the institution fully employed.
There are numberless applications for employment. The
ladies of the committee could well afford, and are quite willing
to give, any additional assistance that night be required, if the
public will only supply the work which they will find well and
reasonably done, and at the same time have the satisfaction of
knowing that the work woman is adequately paid ; and surely
it is cheering to know that the thinf,*s which administer to the
comfort of the rich arc not obtained by the under-paid labour of
the poor.
The poor clothing this year has had a fair sale, and conse-
quently the second and third classes of workwomen have had
better employment than heretofore. The repository also shows
a more favourable account ; and, on the whole; the committee
have reason to report with thiinkfulness that the institution is in
a-flourishing condition.

Let not this be a reason for any to slacken in their endeavours.
Though much has been done, there remains much to do. The
winter is coming on, and the poor are crying out for work Let
it not be said that they cry in vain.

The committee have great pleasure in calling the attention of
the subscribers and their friends to the statement of the Poor
Clothing Fund, showing that 293 articles of clothing have been
sold, being an increase upon last year of 56, thus enabling the
poor workers to receive £8 13s lid, nearly two-thirds more than
they earned last year; and when it is considered these articles
are made by those who, from failing eye-sight, and inability
from other causes, to do the finer kinds of work, the extra em-
ployment must confer great benefit, and is known to be highly
appreciated..

The committee hope that the depositors at the District Provi-
dent SOciety will more generally avail themselves of the advan-
tage afforded them of buying clothing with a reduction of 2d in
the shilling, and they also beg to add, a resolution was passed the
last year, that " all subscribers to the institution should have the
same privilege."

The Rev. Mr. Denny, treasurer, read the financial,
statement, as follows :
The Treasurer in • Account with the Establishment for
Needle-women.

Jan. 1, 1858. Dn. s. d.
Balance on hand .. 66 15 7
Liabilities for the year .. .. 90 19 6
Donations .. .. 15 10 0
Bequests 70 0 0
Proceeds of Chatham Ball .. ..120 0 0
From ladies for work done to order .. ..417 5 8
Articles sold in repository .. .. 17 7 7
Commission on articles sold .. 1 8 7
Interest accruing from banking account (not
including interest of £245.) 0 15 6
From Lady Treasurer .. .. 20 10 0

£B2O 12 5

CR. £ s. d.
To Needlewomen for work done ........417 5 8
To depositors for articles sold
Salary to Miss Skeafing, with quarterly al- 1
47 14 0
lowance for messenger, coals, and gas ...
Rent (one year) ...
Water rent . ..... ....... - 1 7 0
Stationery and printing ....
Advertising .. ..... 1 7 0
Expenses on establishment, joinery, &c..... 412 21
Income-tax .. ....
Cash advanced to Lady Treasurer .. 5 0 0
Paid over to Lady President....
Balance in hand. •e ••• •

MARY SWAINSON,
MARY WOOD.

£B2O 12 5

His Lordship remarked that he hoped the feeling ex-
pressed in the report was the feeling of every one present.
He thought there was nothing one could feel more
ashamed of than to have in his house, or elsewhere, any-
thing for which an adequate price had not been paid to
the workman or workwoman. (Hear, hear.)
The Rev. Rector Campbell moved the first resolution,
which was, that the report and statement of accounts
just read be adopted, printed, and circulated. He said :
The only remark with which I think it necessary
to accompany the proposal of this resolution is to express
the high satisfaction which I feel at the reference to the
assistance which has been rendered to the institution by
that most benevolent individual, the late Israel Barned,
who has set an example which Christians would do well
to follow. (Hear, hear.) He has left, I am told, in
charity, bequests to the amount of nearly £20,000, £3,000
of which, I believe, has bean given in this town. I hope,
and, indeed, .I suppose I may feel assured, that that which
was left to this institution has been paid. I wish I could
say that I was equally lucky myself. He was kind enough
to leave the sum of £l,OOO to the rectors of Liverpool, to be
invested, and the interest thereof to be disposed of at the
discretion of the rectors, for the benefit of the poor. But the
lawyers have, unhappily, found out that, as he left it to the
rectors, and there is now only one rector, the money
cannot be paid—(laughter)—and that it must be sunk into
that abyss, that gulf of all good things, the Court
of Chancery. (Renewed laughter.) It was in vain I
pleaded that there was an Act of Parliament for the
consolidation of the rectory, which put the surviving
rector exactly in the place of the two rectors, and autho-
rised him to exercise all the rights and privileges of the
two rectors. The lawyers in reply to that said, that was,
all very well, but the Act of Parliament only gave the
surviving rector the power of exexcising all the rights
and privileges which were then in existence, and that the
right and priviledge of dispensing Mr. Barned's legacy,
was not then in existence, and therefore I the sole rector
could not give the executors a discharge—and the conse-
quence is, that the money has to be paid into Chancery.
(Laughter.) When it will get out of Chancery lam
sure Ido not know—perhaps not during my life. I hope
some time or other, it will come out of Chancery, and
that my successor will have the pleasure, of which I am
deprived, of dispensing the late Mr. Israel Barned's
charity. I think it is as well that this should be known,
At the same time, I am most anxious to express the
gratitude I feel to that individual for the noble muni-
ficence which he has displayed. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. North seconded the motion.

The Chairman said he joined I/loftily in the expression
of gratitude to the memory of Mr. Barned, who had been
so great a benefactor in Liverpool ; and he hoped the
rector might, in due time, receive the sum of money of
which he now spoke rather despondingly. (Laughter.);
-Whatever faults there might be about the Court of Chan-
cery, there was one very great benefit attending it—that
it was not, like a court of law, tied up to the extreme
letter and stringency of construction of the law : but that
it could give an • equitable and reasonable construction to
the intention of a will ; and he, therefore, hoped that
Mr. Barned's kind intention would be carried into effect,
and that the rector would have the great gratification of
dispensing the money for many years yet. (Hear, hear.)
The resolution was then carried. •

Rev. Mr. Appleton moved the appointment of the
ladies constituting the committee, which was seconded by
Mr. Sandbach, and carried.

Mr. Cecil Gray moved a resolution appointing Mr.
Townsend as collector for the society for the ensuing
year. He explained that this resolution was brought
fo'rward in consequence of the fact, that some of the
subscriptions were not paid in until very late in the year,
and the ladies, therefore, thought it expedient to employ
the services of a collector.
Mr. Harmood Banner seconded the resolution, while
at the same time expressing surprise and regret that
parties subscribing to the society—the subscriptions being
only £9O a year—should put the ladies to the necessity of
employing a collector.
After some conversation on the subject, the notion
was carried.

Mr. Christopher Bushell moved a resolution, tendering
the thanks of the meeting to the ladies of the committee,
and to the treasurer, the Bev. W. H. Denny. Mr:
Bushell took the opportunity of suggesting the utility.
and feasibility of forming an institution, where young
'women, versed in arithmetic and in the more elementary
forms f keeping accounts, might be recommended to

parties requiring assistance of that kind, permanent or
temporary, in shops or in their houses, and whose means
might not allow them to avail themselves of the services
of men. By such an institution, he urged that a new
path would be developed for the employment of female
labour. _ _ _

The Rev. Mr. Maddocks seconded the resolution, which
was carried by acclamation. _

Mr. Banner moved a vote of thanks to the Bishop for
his attendance.

Mr. Percy M. Dove seconded the motion

•I
Mr. William Brown, M.P., supported the motion,
observing that although members of parliament were
generally exceedingly jealous of appointments by. the
Government, all who belonged to Liverpool felt deeply
indebted to Government for having sent among them his
Lordship, who was foremost in every good work. He
remarked that needrewomen were probably of all classes
of the community the greatest slaves, the worst remu-
nerated, and the most liable to lose their health. It was
painful to read the accounts sometimes given in the Lon-
don. press. From early morning, "stitch, stitch," through
the greater part of the day, and frequently through the
whole of the night. No one could help feeling that the
ladies who took so much trouble to endeavour to alleviate
such a great evil were performing most important services
to the society in which they lived. (Hear, hear.)
His Lordship having acknowledged the compliment
paid to him, the meeting then separated.

MR. MASON JONES'S ORATION ON MILTON.
Last night, Mr. Mason Jones delivered the third and
concluding oration of his course.. Hope Hall, where the
lecture took place, was even more densely crowded than
on Wednesday evening—in fact, before Mr. Jones had
made his appearance in the hall, every available seat
appeared to be filled. At half-past seven o'clock, Mr.
Jones entered the hall, accompanied by the Rev. Dr.
Raffles, Mr. I. R. Jeffery, and several other gentlemen,
and was greeted by a cordial welcome, in the shape of a
loud and spontaneous burst of applause. The chair was
then taken by the Rev. Dr. Raffles, who, in a few words.
opened the subject of the evening, and then gave way to
the lecturer. Mr. Jones found in the subject he had chosen
for his concluding lecture—" John Milton "—not only a
finer theme than either of the preceding, but a subject
which afforded him a happy opportunity for displaying the
variety of his power of thought, as well as the copious
richness of his language. In alluding to the great choice'
which Milton was called upon to make between king
and people, between superstition and principle, the
lecturer found occasion to express some vigorous and
telling truths,
_appropriate to the daily life of the most
ordinary man. How many of ourselves, for instance,
would not, under such circumstances, have gone in for
what Mr. Jones called in American phrase " the respect-
able ticket ?" Was Milton a man qualified to get on in
life—say, for instance, upon the Liverpool
Exchange ? Such questions as the'se afforded to •
Mr. Jones an opportunity which he keenly seized
to tell some bitter truths regarding ihe objects we now
usually set before our eyes as aims hnd the tests by which
we try merit, which, although they appeared to be
received with something like surprise in the first instance,
became better appreciated as the lecturer went on, and,
at last, were warmly and unanimously applauded. The
lengthened digression with which the considerations
arising.out of such a theme led the lecturer, was welcome,
because it showed him in a somewhat different light from
any portion of his previous addresses,—as an earnest and
a sincere thinker and teacher, as well as a brilliant, well-
cultured, and versatile speaker. Mr. Jones made many
dashing assaults, not only upon doctrines, but upon men,
and singled out, to the astonishment of no small
number of his hearers, the , material philosophy of
which he declared Lord Bacon the oracle, and Lord
Macaulay the high priest, as the official source of false
aims and false tests in lfe. We would by no means be
understood to express any, concurrence with some of Mr.
• Jones's opinions. Many of them we believe to be the
errors of an earnest and enthusiastic mind, too eager for
the truth to be patient and content with compromise,
and cast in what may be called the religious (using that
word in a somewhat narrow sense) rather than in the
political or philosophical mould. But, at the same time,
it must be allowed' that Mr. Jones's earnestness, vivid
force, splendid resources of languacre, and command-
ing, declamation, forces the hearer, sometimes
against his will, into entire admiration and
almost entire sympathy, In describing Milton's
career, Mr. Jones took occasion to defend him skilfully,
and, at the same time, truthfully against what, perhaps,
we may call the vulgarideas entertained in reference to
Milton's views on divorce, and the relations of man to
woman. Mr. Jones displayed a thorough and deep
appreciation of the genius of Milton, as well as a com-
plete intimacy with his works. But, as we have to sit in'
tho spat at least of the critic, we cannot help pointing
out that the lecturer did not do equal justice in every
instance to other great poets as to Milton. For instance,
we believe his estimate of the aims of life, and the ten-
• dencies of the works of Goethe (whom he contrasted
with. Milton), to have been entirely mistaken, narrow and
unjust. It was possibly the popular and British view
of the great German; but not such as we might have
expected from so appreciative a critic, and from a lecturer .
so sincere and earnest in his desire to do justice, as the
eloquent speaker of last night. But, as a whole, the
lecture was a brilliant success (no part, perhaps, more
successful with the audience than that to which we have
just taken exception) ; it showed Mr. Jones in the
character of teacher as well speaker, and left on the.
mind of every one who heard him a deep impression
of eloquence, earnestness, and power.
We quote the following passages, not becanse they.
seemed to us the best, but because they best exemplify.
that which the general reader will most willingly accept,
the rhetorical richness of Mr. Jones's diction. They give'
some idea of one phase of Mr. Tones's oratorical capa-
city. They do not, of course, convey. any impression of;
his quick humour, his vigorous logic, his hard-hitting.
invective. It must be added, too, that only those who
have heard Mr. Jones can have any just conception of the
position he is entitled to hold as a popular lecturer. No
man more eminently requires to be heard and known as
a speaker, in order to be appreciated. Those who merely
read can have no idea how an audience is swept along
by the splendid declamatory power, the full clear 'voice,
the dramatic action, and the earnest force, which char-
acterise Mr. Jones in so peculiar a degree.
In the following passage Mr. Jones idealised the life of
a poet:l
have often imagined to myself the life of a true
poet ; in his youth he is a worshipper of nature in her
purest and most perfect forms ; he is a lover of the hills
and woods and streams ; he delights to wander by the
solitary shore and gaze upon the heaving world of
waters, listenine,,, to old Ocean thundering his deep bass
against the rocks, or as the billows on the sands dash
their eternal music, when heaving responses to the
amorous glances of the • moon, the sea breaks out into its
old, quaint, boundless, multitudinous, chorus laugh of
waves, apostrophised of old by the chained Prometheus.
His soul delights to wander amongst the lights of heaven,
where countless millions of flaming suns are for ever
teeming from the womb of illimitable space. In the
evening hour, when the sun is sinking in the west, he
loves to gaze upon the motionless clouds in the motion-
less heavens, stained with all the thousand gorgeous hues
of sunset, and flinging their floods of golden or of purple
radiance upon hill and vale. He is filled with a holy
rapture as the shades of night come on with silent pace,
and ' Hesperus leads forth the midnight host,' and the
moon, pale shepherdess, comes forth upturning her
silvery face, watching her bright flock, the stars. Yet
earth to the poet is a rich treasure-house of priceless,
joys ; the sighing of the summer winds, the tinkling rush
of streams, the ceaseless melody of woodland birds, are,
the music upon which his spirit feeds. He hears the
violet-laden breath of eve whisper love secrets to the
closing flowers ; he sees the leaves all trembling with
delight in the hot kisses of the setting sun, or he walks
with erec,t head and dilated eye amidst the echoing pines,
listening to the grand old anthems of the woods, when
the forests are made vocal by the winds of heaven. He
delights in all wild and solitary places which nature
ever delighteth to make glad, carelessly revealing there
the charms of her naked loveliness ; and never yet did
lover, for the embrace of his beloved, sigh with such a
passionate longing as does the young poet to lay down
his head on nature's lap, and gaze upon the marvellous
lustre of her eyes. All her varied moods and phases
for him have equal charms, from the giant oak
on the mountain brow down to the simplest
flower that blows. They all give rise to thoughts
in him that lie too deep for tears,' for the poet is nature's
favourite, she decks him with her choicest gifts, crowns
him with her glittering regalia, reveals to him her most
cherished secrets, takes him by the hand and leads him
into the secret places where she is for-ever at work amidst
her laboratories and fires. She explains to him the
mystic meaning of her symbolic beauty. Then the scales
fall from his eyes ; this fair external world assumes a•
new significance, becomes pregnant with a higher
meaning, and clothed with a more gorgeous beauty.
Then the poet has a still higher lesson to learn when he
comes to listen to the still sad music of humanity, to lay
his finger upon the pulsing throb of the world's great
experiences, to feel in himself the dark questionings,
doubtings, and despairings which ever oppress the sensi-
tive, thoughtful and gifted mind, when his unquiet spirit
is ever striving to pierce the darkness that rests upon the
silent past, explain the mysteries of the present, and tear
down the veil that hides from his longing eyes the awful
and inscrutable secret's of the future. When purified by
affliction, and made perfect by suffering, he recognises for
man a grander destiny beyond the tomb, and taking his

Tl-1E isTORAIERN TIMES; SA'TU'RDAY, JANUARY 15, 1859

stand on the highest ground, becomes a prophet and a
teacher. Then, when the poet has thus learned the great
lessons of his art, he 'comes forth amongst mankind to
teach them the things which it most concerns them to
know, and whether they will hear or whether they will

forbear, the song springs unbidden from his lips and goes
forth into the busy world, and will not rest until it has
f)und a home where it may abide in some congenial
heart."
The conclusion of the oration was as follows :

• " I often think of him in the days of his blindness,
shut out from beholding the glories of nature, which he
loved so well, but with the eyes of his soul purged and
cleared, what visions of overwhelming glory and grandeur
did he not see ? What processions of unimaginable splen-
dour passed then before his mind. The past, the pre-
sent, and the future lay open to his view. Scenes from
creation when this fair earth Started into beauty and life
he saw. Paradise with its unclouded sunshine, unfading
flowers, and summer bloom, was trodden by his feet.
Around him in his blindness gathered the heroes and
sages, the orators and poets, the bards and philosophers,
the saints and martyrs, the apostles and prophets of the rn
past. They crowd his presence-chamber, they fill his
levee-rooms, they keep him company. Homer recites to
him the ' tale divine of Troy.' Virgil sings to him the
story of the Alban fathers, and the walls of Imperial
Rome. Dante, a kindred , genius, enters with a stern
aspect, and with whispered breath, tells him of the terrors
he has witnessed in the lowest hell. Shakspeare takes
his place beside him, puts his kindly hand in his, and
relates to him his voluminous experiences of that great
mystery, the human heart. In imagination he stands
with Moses upon the mount, and hears the thunderings
and trumpetings of Sinai. He sits with Job in the dust
when the Almighty held, with his afflicted servant, that col-
loquy sublime. He is concealed with Elijah in the clefts of
the rock at Horeb, when the whirlwind, and the earthquake,
and the fire passed, and in the still small voice the Lord
went by. He enters the courts of the Temple with Isaiah,
when the house was filled with smoke, and his lips, too,
were touched with a live coal from ff the altar. He
beheld with Ezekiel the vision of the burning wheels
with eyes. He stands with St. John in the Isle of
Patmos, surrounded by the waters of the blue Aegean,
and overhead the cloudless skies of Greece,
and sees unrolled before him the visions and mysteries
of the Apocalypse. He follows the Saviour's
footsteps from the temptation in the wilderness, by the
shores of the Sea of Galilee, in the mountain, and desert
solitudes, to the last agony in the garden, and thence
beneath the. shadows of the cross ; and, while the un-
thinking, mocking, jeering crowd, with upturned lip' and
wagging head, exclaim, He saved others, . Himself He
cannot save,' John Milton's soul bows reverently before
that cross, exclaiming, Oh yes !He saved others, for
He has saved me.' He enters the infernal regions with
the air and tread of a conqueror : he looks around upon
its gloomy scenes of woe and desolation; upon its lurid
flames and seas of fire ; upon its fens, and caves, and
wildernesses of death, with heart undaunted, and with
eye unappalled. He entered tremblingly, into the sacred
courts of Heaven : in his own noble 'language, he heard
the hymns and hallelujahs of the saints, and the seven-
fold symphonies of the harpers, harping upon their harps,'
and the quiring of the young-eyed cherubim before the
throne. He saw the pearly gates, and walked the golden
streets of the new Jerusalem. Then laden with all know-
ledge, fraught with all wisdom, enriched with all philo-
sophy, burdened with all science,.and flaming with a piety
divine, he comes forth to singhis immortal song ' to assert
Eternal Providence, and justify the ways of God to men.'
. When liberty was in danger and truth was in peril, then
it was that Milton came forth, strong in the strength of
his self-reliant, unconquerable spirit, to wage war against
tyranny and violence, against oppression and wrong,
against falsehood and sin. Unfettered by the petty
interests and passions which bind as with chains
of adamant the souls of common men; free, toq, from
the meaner ambitions .of our nature, he kept himself
aloof of and unspotted from the world. His soul was
like a star and dwelt apart. He never bent his knee before
the shrine of Mammon. He recognised no power on earth
above that of justice. Tyranny though robed in purple,
sceptered, diademed, and attended by shouting millions,
was the object of his holy and undying hatred His arm
was strong,. and his hand was willing to pluck the
crown from its brow and the sceptre from its hand—to
tear down the disguises which despotism assumes, and '
expose it to the world in its naked deformity. He would
have men everywhere rise up in their intellectual might,
and remove every barrier that could impede their march
to freedom, happiness, and truth. He was a great
pioneer of progress. Onward ! was blazoned on the
'huller which he bore. Onward ! from darkness to
light,-from ignorance to knowledge—from hatred to
love—from slavery to freedom. Fear not to destroy
the effete and old. The new that will spring from its
ashes will be fairer and better. True, generous, and brave,
were the words he uttered ; and they have since kindled
hope in thousands of hearts that have grown weary to
see how evil is ever becoming stronger and stronger ; how
simple justice is every whre disregarded; how all the
world over, might is everywhere 'trampling upon right,
for they speak of a time when' truth, and peace, and love,
shall re-visit the long-deserted rallies of the world.
John 'Milton's heart had sympathy for all human
sorrows and all human joys, yet, he ever held com-
munion with the angels in their thoughts. His soul
was like-an electric chain; connecting earth with heaven,
and tremblingly alive to both, bringing down the virtues,
graces, joys of the one, and bearing up the wants, aspira-
tions,
and hopes of the other. So went John Milton
through life, performing his duty,, and doing good; and
when his mission here was accomplished, and his work
was done, he,laid aside the mask of mortality, and was
seen of men no, more. In sure and certain hope of a
glorious resurrection from the dead,' he calmly resigned
his soul into the hands of him who gave it, and waiting
angels conveyed his spirit home.''

• At the conclusion' of the lecture, the chairman rose,
and, with some words of the warmest eulogy, moved that
the thanks of the meeting be given to Mr. Jones, which
was passed amid the most enthusiastic bursts of acclama-
tion. Mr. Jones, in returning thanks, expressed a hope
that he 'might soon revisit Liveipool, and address a
Liverpool audience again—an expression which was the
signal for renewed and often repeated demoustations of
applause.