The Sun.
London, England, 1852-05-07 00:00:00

THE FLEET VALLEY IMPROi'EMENT.

Deputy BEDFORD wished to ask the Chairman of the
Fieet Valley Improvement Committee whether he in-
tended shortly to bring up a report as to the progress of
the proposition with refcreaLe to the Fiect Valley im-
provement?
Deputy HARRISON replied, that as soon as the com-
mittee had received answers from the railway companies
it WAS their intention forthwith to report to the Court.
The matter then dropped.
After considerable discussion of no public interest the
Court adjourned.

RAGGED SCHOOLS AS THEY WERE
AND AS THEY ARE
_ . _

I found my firstß7lgged Scriool, in an obscure place
called West-street, Saffron-hill, pitifully straggling
for life, under every disadvantage. It had no means, it
had no suitable rooms, it derived no power or pro-
tection from being recognised by any authority,
it attracted within its wretched walls .a flue'
tuating swarm of faces—young i,, years, but,,younth-
ful in nothing else—that scowled Hope' out of
countenance. It was held in a low -roofed den, in a sick-
ening atmosphere. in the midst of taint and dirt, and
pestilence; with all the deadly sins let loose, howling
and shrieking at the doors. Zeal did not supply the
place of method and training ; the teachers knew little
of their office ; the pupils, with an evil sharpness,
found them out, got the better of them, de-
rided them, made blasphemous answers to scrip-
tural questions, sang, fought, danced, robbed
each other; seemed possessed by legions of
devils. The place was stormed and carried, ever and
ever again; the lights were blown out, the books strewn
in the gutters, and the female scholars carried' off
triumphantly to their old wickedness. ''With no
strength in it but its purpose, the school
stood it all out and made its way. Some two years
since, I found it, one of many such, in a large convenient
loft, in this transition part of Farringdon-street--quiet
and orderly, full, lighted with gas, well white-
washed, numerously attended, and thoroughly esta-
blished I went the other night to make another
visit to it. I found the school in .the same place, still
advancing. It was now an industrial school too; and
besides the men and boys who were learning—some, aptly
enough; some, with painful difficulty; some, sluggishly and
wearily; some, not at all—to read and write and cipher;
there were two groups, ono of shoemakers, and one (in a
gallery) of tailors, working with great industry and sa-
tisfaction. Each was taught and superintended by a
regular workman engaged for the purpose, who delivered
'
out the necessary means and implements. All were em-
ployed in mending, either their own dilapidated clothes
or shoes, or the dilapidated clothes or shoes of some of
the other pupils. They were of all ages, from
young boys to old mer. They were quiet, and intent
upon their work. Some of them were almost as unused to
it as I should have shown myself to be if I had tried my
hand, but all were deeply interested and profoundly
anxious to do it somehow or other. They presented every
remarkable instance of the general desire there is, after all,
even in the vagabond breast, to know something useful.
One shock-headed man when he had mended his own
scrap of a coat, drew it on with such an air of satisfaction,
and put himself to so much inconvenience to look at the
elbow he had darned, that I thought a new coat (and the
mind could not imagine a period when that coat of his
was'new I) would not have,pleased him better.— Dickens's
Household Words.

PHOTOGRAPHIC AND BINOCULAR

PORTRAITS.

A very curious discovery, which it is important that
the public should know, respecting the binocular da-
guerreotype portraits, which have now become so po-
pular, has been recently made by Sir David Brewster.
The harsh and disagreeable expression which
characterises all sun pictures, but especially the bi-
nocular ones when united by the stereoscope, has
been ascribed to the imperfection of the lenses
employed, the instability of the sitter, and the necessary
constraint of feature and of limb under which he sub-
mits to the operation. But whatever may be the in-
fluence of these causes, there is another which neit' er
the artist nor the sitter can control. Even if the lens
is absolutely perfect, the sitter motionless, and the
expression of his features such as should be per-
petuated, the portrait is a monstrous representation of
humanity, which no eye, and no pair of eyes, ever
saw or can see. This character of photographic portraits
arises solely from the size of the lets, and as every
photographer strives to procure large lenses, for which
ho pays a high price, his very attempt to improve his
art leads him to produce portraits deviating more and
more from pictorial truth. The cause of this is easily
apprehended. A perfect portrait is that which an artist
paints with one eye, or from a single point of sight;
but a portrait taken by a lens in a camera is a combina-
tion of a great number of portraits taken from a great
number of points of sight on the margin and throughout
the area of the lens. Tho consequence of this is that
the whole figure and every individual feature is a com-
bination of lines or points in different positions,
and of lights and shadows of different magnitudes and
intensities. If the commonest eye, therefore, can see
vary distinctly, as it does, the great difference between
two portraits, the one taken by the left and the other
by the right eye—which are only 2i inches distant—
how enormous must be the difference•between portraits
taken at different points of the margin of a lens four,
five, or six inches in diameter! The perfection of the
photographic art, therefore—but particularly of that
new department of it which consists in taking binocular
portraits, which the stereoscope combines and exhibits
in relief—depends upon the discovery of a process so
sensitive that portraits can be taken by lenses as near as
possible to the size of the pupil of the eye.