The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-08 00:00:00

EXTRA STOCK.

BEST PlG.—Silver medal to Mr. Samuel G. Stearn, of
Braudiston, Suffolk.

SILVER CUPS.

A silver cup, value £4O, to the exhibitor for the best steer
or ox in any of the classes, to Mr, William Heath, Lind-
ham-hall, Norwich. A silver cup, value £lO, to the exhi-
bitor for the best heifer or cow in any of the classes, to Mr.
Charles Swaisland, of Crayford, Kent. A silver cup, value
£2O, to the exhibitor, for the best pen of Leicesters, Cots-
wolds, Lincoln, Kentish or other long-woolled breed, in
any of the classes, to Mr. G. S. Foljambe, of Worksop. A
silver cup, value £2O, to the exhibitor, for the beat pen of
one -year old South •Downs, Hampshire, or Wiltshire downs,
to Lord Walsingham, Merton-hall, Thetford, Norfolk. A
silver cup, value £2O, to the exhibitor, for the best pen of
Shropshire, Oxfordshire, cross-bred, or any other breed of
sheep (not specified in prize list.) in any of the classes, to
Mr. John Overman, of Burnham Sutton, Norfolk.

GOLD MEDAL.
A gold medal to the exhibitor, for the best pen of pigs in
any of the classes, to Major-General the lion. A. N. Hood,
Cumberland Lodge, Windsor.
JUDGES OF SHORTHORNS, SCOTCH, 'WELSH, AND EXTRA
STOCK CATTLE.—Messrs William Sanday, John Brown,
and Thomas Parkinson.
JUDGES OF DEVONS, HEREFORDS, SUSSEX, NORFOLK,
LONGHORN, IRISH, AND CROSSBRED CATTLE,—Messrs.
Robert Smith, John Buckley, and John Coleman,
JUDGES OF LEICESTERS, COTSWOLD, LINCOLN, ROM•
NEY MARSH, CROSSBRED, OXFORD, AND MOUNTAIN
SHEEP.—Messrs. Marshall Hanley, John H. Phillips, and
Francis Spencer.
JUDGES OF SOUTH-DOWN, HAMPSHIRE, AND SHROP-
SHIRE SHEEP.—Messrs, Henry Webb, J. S. Turner, and
C. Randell.

JUDGES or PlGS.—Messrs. George Mann, John Moon,
and John Waters.

Extra Parliamentary Utterances.

LORD HARTIN GTON.

On Saturday evening the annual meeting of the East Lan-
cashire Union of Mechanics and Litetary Institutions and
Evening Schools was held at the Town-hall of Haslingden
—Col. Patten, M.P., presiding. There were present Lord
Bartington, M.P., Sir J. Kay- Shuttleworth, and a large
assemblage of pereons of influence in the district. More
than 1,000 people attended. Prizes were distributed to
about a score of young women and girls and about 100 young
men and boys belonging to the institutions of the union. It
was stated by the chairman that the books awarded as
prizes were selected by the recipients, and that the choice
was most creditable to their intelligence. After an opening
speech from the chairman,

Lord HAirrixoTort, M.P., was called upon to move the
following resolution :
" That the number of scholars attending the evening
classes throughout the union, notwithstanding the unpre-
cedented distress which has prevailed during the years 1862-
3, affords abundant proof of the permanent attraction which
a well organised and efficient system of instruction has for
the young men supported by manual labour in this district."
In the course of his speech he said it would not be more
idle and Quixotic to clothe oneself in an old suit of armour,
and ride about in search of adventures, as used to do the
knights of old, than to look within the limits of this country
for that person who would seriously contest the proposition
that education should bo as widely diffused as possible.
(Applause.) But it has happened to me to travel in a
country where I have heard clever and educated men
throw grave doubts en the benefit which is conferred upon
a country by an extended system of education. In no
country is a good popular education more widely diffused
New England States; but I have
heardthan it
mil—s
their enemies, certainly—clever leaders
of the Confederacy, gravely argue that a great many
of what they consider the faults and vices of the Northern
population have arisen from this so widely spread system of
superficial education. I hope it is needless for me to say
that I utterly disagree with those persons, or with any who
can argue that
popular education, if not productive of all
that was hoped from it, can have been productive of evil.
Still, the fact remains that popular education is more com-
pletely diffused in the New England States than in any other
country;
and yet, without saying or wishing to say any-
thing hostile or which could be taken amiss, I think there
are very
few Englishmen whose opinion is that the
national character of New England is exactly
what a patriot would wish the national character of
his own country to be. The people are extremely clever
and energetic ; but with the rapid and wide-spread civiliza-
tion of those States all travellers there who have taken the
trouble to make themselves acquainted with the condition
of society, have found that, while there is much to praise,
there is also much to regret and to blame. I do not wish
to bring a bill of indictment against the people of the
Northern States. Nothing could exceed their kindness and
hospitality to me, as I believe to all strangers, and I ac •
knowledge that there is much to admire and praise in that
people. But there is no doubt that in the Yankee charac-
ter—Yankees theywall themselves, and Yankees we may
be allowed to call them—there is too groat a tendency
to think too much of money-making, and to carry perhaps
a little too far the cleverness and acuteness required in
trade. The people undoubtedlyiposaess a somewhat exagge-
rated idea of the merits, not only of their own country, but
of all the people who dwell therein ; undoubtedly they are
somewhat arrogant, somewhat intolerant of opposition, and
also they have not in this hour of their trial developed all
the virtues—such as stedfastness, patriotism, and spirit of
self-sacrifice—which have been sometimes found in other
less cultivated nations when put to a similar trial.
But I do not for a moment believe that the widespread
popular education is the cause of any of these defects.
(Applause.) I think we may find the causes if we look for
them. The school education of American children is not in
all cases very judicious. There is, even while the children
are at school, a tendency to exaggerate everything, to make
them admire more what is large than what is rood, and,
above all, what is Amercan than what is hnything else.
igphretve nt
itsbeing so great be.
fi u e nce gets
goodtthat otherwise it whichm
But it is when the children leave scho:ol that the bad in-
However widespread tb,. tion I believe that
after boys have leo educ a'
partof
reading of school the greater the
he people will be
rt
the read; _,Ay-nine hundredths of t
AD- ..ag of the daily press; and the daily press in
-.Arica, from reasons which it would take too long to
enter into here, is certainly not the intellectual food which
tends to make a people great, or generous, or good. I be-
lieve, then, it is because really the education of the people
has not gone so far as to lay a solid foundation of good sense
and good taste that they are, as a people not vigorous enough
to reject the unwholesome intellectual food which Mosel:laws-

papers supply, and which has a most baneful effect on the
whole North Americancharacter. Newspapers will always be
a great portion of the intellectual food of a people,and our own
are conducted in a verydifferent spirit. False and wrong their
views may often be, but in general they are advocated fairly
and temperately ; the arguments are addressed to the judg-
ment of the people, or 1 o the best and noblest, and not to the
base and vulgar passions of humanity. (Cheers.) I trust that
popular education will soon be far more universal than it is.

I believe it to be as much a necessity of our age as air, water,
or the food we eat. If in America education has not had all
the good effects which it ought to have had, I say when the
air we breathe is impure, or the water we drink is foul, we
take measures to purify and to cleanse ; we do not dream of
cutting off the supplies, and what we have to consider is not
whether the people shall be educated or not, but how the
fullest and purest education shall be afforded. (Cheers.) I
believe institutions such as this may do much good I
am glad to see by the subjects of examination that nothing
very high is aimed at. What is principally insisted on is a
sound structure of knowledge of your own English lan-
guage. If you can thus induce young persons leaving school,
who have a natural taste for the acquisition of knowledge,
to study some of the masterpieces of our language, either in
poetry or in prose, you will have fortified in the most effec-
tual manner their minds against the reception of anything
which is base, ignoble, or injurious. (Applause.) lam not
going to imitate the Americans by exaggerating. I know we
cannot by societies such as this reach the great masses of
the people. It is only a very little way we can go, but our
direction is good, and NI e do get hold of those young per-
sons leaving school who have a natural inclination to study,
and whose minds, if not directed by such institutions as
this in the right way might, on the contrary, be perverted
to the wrong way. (Cheers.) Ladies and gentlemen, I
am reminded by that part of the resolution which refers to
the distress that in former years there were some pounds
on which a comparison might be drawn between Lanca-
shire and the Northern States of America. Both coun-
tries excelled beyond any other in energy—both were
making money faster—in both the manufacturers and
capitalists were richer, and, I believe, the labouring
population were better off than in any other part of
the globe. In both the science of the application of ma-
chinery to the wants of mankind had reached a higher per-
fection than anywhere else; and in both that extension of
the powers and use of machinery had exercised a marked
and decided influence upon the public mind. May I be for-
given if I say that in both the subject of my comparison,
perhaps, an impartial observer might have detected some of
the same faults and weaknesses ? Perhaps in Lancashire, as
in America, we have in former years been, if it is a fault,
almost too self-reliant. Perhaps we have trusted too much
to ourselves for the continuance of the prosperity which we
so long enjoyed. Perhaps we have been a little wanking in
sympathy with the feelings of the rest of England. Perhaps
we thought that not only were we stronger and richer than
the inhabitants of the rest of our country, but wiser, and
that the time would never come when we should need their
assistance. To continue the parallel, I am sorry to say that
to both at the same moment and from the same cause a
heavy blow and great misfortune have occurred. But here
the parallel comes to an end. While in America every day
the war continues each side only learns to hate the other
with still more bitter hatred, while the Northern States
seem not content with the war they are waging at home,
but look with distrust and suspieion on all countries abroad
—countries which I do believe from the bottom of my heart
do not wish or intend auy evil to them—in Lancashire, on
the other hand, it was only when we knew adversity that
we found out that the people of the rest of England were our
friends and brothers. (Cheers.) Lancashire will not soon for-
get the heartine:s, the generosity, the spontaneity of the
movement with which all England came to her assistance,
(Cheers.) And England will not soon forget the heroism and
fortitude with which Lancashire has borne her troubles. We
know England better,and England knows us better,than any
time the last 20 years; and if we have suffered it is worth
something to feel we are heart and soul and hand in hand
with all our brothers in this great nation. (Cheers.) While in
America the prospect grows darker and darker, and every
day of war seems only to push further onward in the future
the final result, whatever it may be, here I trust we may
say without boasting that we have passed through the
blackest darkness of the night, and that calculations as rea-
sonable as can be made prove to us that after another win-
ter of less severe hardship we shall at last emerge again into
something like our former state of prosperity, (Cheers.)
One more point of interest, I think, there is. It was our
good fortune to know at once, or very soon after this cala-
mity fell upon us, what wag to be its extent, and to be able

to take measures to meet it. Lancashire was a strong man
beaten down, almost paralysed for a time ; but life is slowly,
though painfully, returning. But the other subject of my
comparison does not know, even yet, what is the extent of
her calamity. At this moment, I believe, nine-tenths of
the people of the Northern States are enjoying a greater
amount of apparent prosperity than ever they enjoyed
before. I was astonished the other day to read in the speech
—I forget whether of Mr. Cobden or Mr. Bright at Roch-
dale ; I think it was Mr. Cobden's—that not a citizen of
the United States was the poorer for the war. I will not
believe that either of those distinguished men could be so
false to all the long-cherished doctrines and theories of their
lives as to suppose there can be anything sound or real in the
prosperity which that people are now enjoying. Do either
of them doubt for a moment that for every hour of this false
and inflated prosperity a dreadful reckoning must surely
come ? No, ladies and gentlemen, I say that the utter pro-
stration which fell upon us was infinitely better—and we
ought to thank Providence for it—when compared with the
fatal prosperity with which the United States of America
ate now cursed. It was far better for us to know at once
and take measures to meet the calamity, and slowly and
feebly to recover from it, than to go on recklessly, as those
States are doing now, into a course which all thinking men
must know can lead them to nothing but utter and
complete national ruin. How long that day may be
averted it is impossible to say—but if there is any truth in
history, and if we can derive any information from its les-
sons, I think we cannot doubt, however much we may de-
plore, that a catastrophe such as the world has never seen
must overtake that once flourishing and prosperous country.
Alter some concluding remarks his lordship sat down amid
much cheering, and the resolution was unanimously passed
Subsequent resolutions recognised the success of the in-
stitution and of the science and art classes.