The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-05 00:00:00

S, GREAT WINDMILL-STREET, LONDON, W.
Observe the Red Seal, Pink Label, and Cork branded
Rinahau's LL Whisky."

ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL, Gray's-inn-road,
in the immediate vleinity oi the Great Northern Rail-
way Terminus, King's-cross.
Patron—Her Most Gracious Maje,ty the QUEEN.
Vice-Patron—His Royal Highness the Prince of WALES, K.G
President—His Grace the Duke of BUCCLEUCH, K.G.
FUNDS are urgently REQUIRED to enab'e the Commit-
tee to admit 11,, distressing cases tha', more especially at
this inclement season of the year, daily present them-elves.
The Hospital is not endowed, but is wholly dependent on
voluntary contributions and legacies, which are received by
the Treasurer, Edward Masterrnan, Esq., Nicholas-lane; also
by Messrs. Coutts and Co. ; Drummond and Co. ; Berries and
Co. ; Ransom and Co. ; Prescott, Grote, and Co.; Smith,
Payne, and Co. ; Glyn and Co. ; Barclay and Co. ; W Risme,
Deacon, and Co.; Overend, Gurney, and Co. ; Nisbet and Co.,
Bernera-street ; I. Barned and Co., Liverpool; and at the
Hospital. from 10 till 5.
STANFORD S, SMITH, Secretary.

Lord Palmerston and the Romney Labourers'
Encouragement Association,

ROMSEY, Wednesday.
Lord Palmerston presided this afternoon at the
11th annual distribution of prizes given by the La-
bourers' Encouragement Association to the labourers
in the district for proficiency in agriculture, length
of service, &c. Upwards of 60 labourers and their
wives were entertained at dinner in the new Corn
Exchange. At the conclusion of the entertainment
and after distributing the prizes,
Lord PALMERSiON said,—My friends and neigh-
boum,—l have had great pleasure in distributing
among you those rewards which your general good
conduct and your skill and aptitude in the several
departments of agriculture to which you have de-
voted yourselves have, in the opinion of the com-
mittee, justly entitled you ; and I trust that those
rewards, although they may not be of great value
intrinsically in themselves, will be highly appreciated
by you as an acknowledgment of your good conduct
—that they will serve as an incitement to you to
continue in that course by which you have attained
them, and will be an incitement to the emulation of
Others to follow the same course, with the hope of
obtaining the like distinction. (Cheers.) I say
distinction, for it is no little matter for a man, what-
ever may be his station in life, to be esteemed and
respected by those among whom he mixes. (Hear.)
It is a satisfaction to him, and it is an honour to the
district to which he belongs, and it is also, let me
tell you, an advantage to the country and to the
nation of which he is a member ; for the character
of a nation, both in its own esteem: and in the con-
sideration whiCh it receives from other nations, is
built up- by the aggregate good conduct of all the
classes of which that nation consists. (Cheers.)
And the agricultural class, employed as it is in the
production'of those means by which a nation sub-
sists, is the most important element in the national
fabric, and their good conduct or their bad conduct
has- an important influence upon the general cha-
racter of the nation and upon the esteem which
that nation- receives in other countries, upon its
power, upon the respect which is: paid to its inde-
pendenee—(cheers)—and therefore I would have all
of you and all others belonging to your class to re-
member that in pursuing that good conduct which
entitles them to these tokens of approval—l can
scarcely call them rewards—and in pursuing that
conduct which secures for them the esteem and re-
spect of the immediate neighbourhood, they are con-
ferring a real benefit on their country, and are
adding to its powers, its wealth, its prosperity, and
its respectability. (Cheers.) But it would be tak-
ing a narrow and a limited view of what I must be
allowed to say are your duties—for it is your
duty to contribute by your good conduct to the
welfare, and respectability, and prosperity of your
country—it would be taking a narrow view of these
duties if you were to confine them to your own per-
sona' conduct, though that personal conduct is the
only element by which the committee have arrived
at the conclusion of granting you the prizes and
awards which you have received. (Hear.) But it

is your duty not only to secure for the present gene.
Ration by your conduct that respect of which you
I may say, are the foundation., but you have chil•
then who are to succeed you, and it is your duty to
provide for the future as well as to look to the pre-
sent, and you are, therefore, bound to take care that
those children who flock around you shall be
brought up in those ways which shall lead them in
after life, when they become of the same age as
yourselves, to pursue the same conduct which has
obtained approbation for yourselves, and to serve
as you are_doing as an important element in the
character and fabric of the nation. (Cheers.) There
are several ways in which you can perform that
duty—there are several ways in which you ought
to perform that duty. It is your business in the
first place to give your children the best education
you can obtain for them. In this town there are,
I may say without exaggeration, as many sources
of instruction as in any other town of equal
size and population. Your children will have, at
an early age, to engage in industrial pursuits.
The period of their lives that can be allotted to the
attainment of instruction must, therefore, necessa-
rily be short, and the shorter it is the more care you
ought to take that that period is well employed.
(Cheers.) Children are often thoughtless ; they
cannot have experience ; they do not know the
value in after life of a cultivated and instructed
mind ; but they know the value in childhood of
amusement and idleness. (Laughter.) It is your
business to induce them to forego those childish
amusements, and to devote the short years appli-
cable to instruction to the attainment of that know-
ledge which may be useful to them in after life.
(Cheers.) You must not expect them to be scien-
tific ; you must not expect them to acquire these
attainments which are open to the acquisition of
those who are employed in industrial and laborious
occupations; but there are three things which they
can acquire, which they ought to acquire, and which
are most important to them in their future occupa-
tions—l mean reading, writing, and arithmetic.
The power of reading with ease gives a man the
means, in those leisure hours which even the most
laborious and most constantly employed occasionally
have, of obtaining instruction from those various
means which the diffusion of printing and the
greater improvement of the age place within the
reach of almost every man who is able to read and
take advantage of them. Writing is almost as im-
portant as speaking, because every man, whatever
his station in life may be, must have constant occa-
sion to convey his thoughts, his wishes, his com-
plaints, his desires in writing, and unless that writ-
ing be legible and easily read, with the letters
well formed, so that a person can read that writing
without trouble and delay, it fails by disgusting the
person to whom it is addressed. (Cheers.) I must
say that in the present day I do not think that in-
struction in writing is given in that way which.
would render it most useful. Children who are
taught to write are taught to make up-strokes and
down-strokes bold—the consequence of which is
writing often looks like an area railing, a little lying
on one side, so that it is difficult for the eye to make
out the letters of which that writing professes to be
composed. (Laughter.) Children should be taught
to write a large hand, to form each letter well, and
never to mind whether it looks beautiful or not. If
it answers the purpose of being easily read, that is
the thing which ought to be aimed at. (Cheers.)
Now, arithmetic is to every class a most useful
attainment, and not merely that arithmetic which
consists in chalking down figures upon a slate,
and writing them in ink upon a piece of paper,
but that which is valuable to a man especially en-
gaged in industrial pursuits is the power in his own