The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-02 00:00:00

,§utt.

LONDON:
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1841.

DEATH OF DR. BIRKBECK.

We announce with regret that Dr. BIRKBECK,
the President of the London Mechanics' Insti-
tute, and the patron, promoter, and founder of
such institutions in every part of the country,
(lied, yesterday morning, at his residence, Fins-
bury-square. He had been ailing for some
months, and his death was not unexpected. In
him science has lost a devoted student, and the
working classes an ardent. and affectionate friend.
was in his sixty-fifth
Dr. But.KBEcK year, and,
wasbestwknoolnwnitio
the whole empire as the e
was much trusted and beloved,
of his patients' by h
-.beyond the circle
author and champion of
scientific instruction to the
classes. It
working
thirty years since he
is now, we believe, nearly
• first undertook to deliver lectures to them at
Glasgow, and from that rime till within a few
months of his death he was unwearied in pro-
moting
motin their instruction. Not only did he ex-
plain, on various occasions, to admiring audiences,
the truths of mechanics and chemistry, he also
lectured on the principles of physiology, and
taught the members of the Mechanics' Institute
by specimens, and even by the human subject,
the anatomy and functions of life. There was
scarcely one branch of the mechanical and phy-
sical sciences on which he did not occasionally
lecture, and not one which he did not improve
and adorn. His language was eloquent as well
as simple, and the influence which he wielded
over great numbers of men, supposed to be rude
and unpolished, was overwhelming while he was
speaking, and will be beneficially remembered
by many persons to the latest moment of their
lives. Though not obtrusive, though never
courting fame, though little known to the noisy,
bastling,
political world, we, who have watched
his course and his proceedings for nearly twenty
years, venture to assort that no man in this age
and nation has done so much to improve and
soften, to elevate and adorn, the minds of the
working classes as Dr. BIRKBECK. We trust
that he will not be allowed to pass from amongst
us without some proof—for our own honour—that
we were sensible of his worth.
Dr. BIRKBECK, though not the author of the
address which first appeared in the Mechanics'
Magazine, nor the ori • •
ginator of the suggestion to
establish a Mechanics'
Institution in London,
was one of the first
persons who united
himself to the projectors, and, if he may
be called the founder to whom
its success was

owing, Dr. BIRKBECK, whose influence, talents,
purse, and zeal, gave life and soul to the
scheme, may be called the founder of the Lon-
don Mechanics' Institute. It would be unjust,
knowing, as we do, the fact, not to add that the
person with whom the suggestion originated was
Mr. J. C. ROBERTSON, a gentleman remarkable
for the usefulness and fertility of his schemes ;
but to Dr. BIRKBECK is mainly due the honour
of setting the Institution on foot. He was una-
nimously elected its President, and continued to
preside over the Institution, always assisting it
with his counsel and his services, till his death.
The London Mechanics' Institute was the parent
of the many similar institutions that are now to
be found in several parts of the metropolis, and
in almost every large town of the empire. They
have already done much to promote scientific
knowledge throughout the kingdom; and the
great impulse which they have given to human
improvement, begun in 1823, will be imperish-
ably connected with the name of Dr. BIRKBECK.
At a meeting of the Mechanics' Institute, last
night, the lamented event was announced by
reading the following letter from Miss BIRK-
BECK :

" My poor father, as you are aware, has been
a great sufferer for many months, but still we
had hoped that he would have been spared to
us for many years; but it was not so willed, for
at six o'clock this morning he expired. Late
last night he called me to him, and dictated the
inclosed note, which he bade me send you,
showing how interested he felt, even in his dying
moments, for the Institution :

"My Dear Sir—l should have liked to have
been present at another Anniversary of the In-
stitution, but it is not permitted. I have read
the programme, and I do not doubt but all will
be successful."

Dr. BIRKBECK lived to see the 18th year of
the Institution completed, and died within a few
hours of the time when many of his grateful
scholars were preparing to celebrate the 19th
birth-day of the Institution.

On several occasions lately the Times has
drawn attention to the reports which it has dili-
gently published of an investigation still pending
into the manner in which the union workhouse
of Sevenoaks has been conducted. Very dis-
gusting and very revolting scenes, as may be ex-
pected when you open wide the doors of every
ward and every dormitory of a workhouse, have
been placed before the public. We have read
the accounts and the comments in the Times with
great disgust, and we will not disgust our readers
by repeating them. We will content ourselves
with saying, that in this union workhouse, sixty-
one persons more were placed after it was said
to be full; that seven boys slept in one bed, and
five in another ; that the itch, and the terrible
disease called goitre, prevail from the dampness
of the situation and the crowded state of the
workhouse; and that, altogether, the place is:-lore
loathsome than the most crowded and worst
prison in this empire.
To the Times we are indebted for a knowledge
of the fact that the Marquis of CAMDEN and
Colonel H. AUSTEN, an opulent country gentle-
man, lately constituted the Visiting Committee,
and that the workhouse has been frequently
visited by the Rev. Dr. D'OYLY. But the Times
does not tell the public, which we desire to im-
press on our readers, that this Sevenoaks Union
is not in the manufacturimg districts, but in the
heart of one of the finest rural districts of the
county of Kent. Memory will not serve us
to enumerate the noblemen's and gentlemen's
seats which are within a very few miles of
Sevenoaks. Besides the Marquis of CAMDEN,
the Earl AMHERST, and the Marquis of DOWN-
SHIRE, we believe, Earl STANHOPE, Sir HENRY
HARDINGE, Mr. HEautEs, with scores of other
noblemen and gentlemen, have all spacious
mansions and parks in the immediate vicinity of
the beautiful town of Sevenoaks. There may be
a paper-mill or two, and there is, we believe, a
a silk mill in the district ; but the character of
the district is that of rural beauty, embellished
with a great number of noble parks and magni-
ficent mansions. In this district, and under the
eye of these noblemen and gentlemen, and on
the tillers of their estates, have the disgusting
and revolting atrocities, described in the Times,
been practised.
Agricultural and clerical Kent is doomed
to be instructive to the nation. When THOM
found believers and followers within the sound
of the Cathedral bell of Canterbury, Kent re-
vealed to the astonished world how deplorably
and thoroughly the rich clergy had neglected
and injured the people ; and the same kind of
testimony which Thom and Canterbury bore to
the character of the priesthood, do the horrors
of the Sevenoaks' union workhouse, surrounded
by noblemen's seats, bear to the character of the
gentry of England.

The French Journals, delayed by the incle-
ment state of the weather, have reached us.
The Presse has an article in which it violently
denounces the miniature revolution at Geneva,
where, however, public tranquillity has not for
one moment been disturbed.

Don CARLOS has become discontented with
the negotiations of the Carlists and Christinos
for settling the affairs of Spain by a mar-
riage between his son and the young QUEEN.
Accordingly, at the desire of Prussia, he
repudiates them, and declares that he will
consent to nothing till he is set at
liberty, and acknowledged Sovereign of Spain.
Like the barber of Bagdad, he will be content
with reigning a single day, for he protests his
willingness to resign on the next. But there
is small chance of his would-be Majesty being
gratified with a Crown, even for this brief period.
Moreover, as his abdication could not be made
in favour of Queen ISABELLA, he might as well
whistle jigs to a milestone as dream of the reali-
zation of a proceeding so utterly preposterous.
(From the Private Correspondence of the Constitutionnet)
" Oran, Nov. 16.

" When the Spaniards came to Oran under the cele-
brated Cardinal Ximenes, they, as we do, coveted the
possession of the whole of this vast and beautiful pro-
vince, but confined their occupations within narrow
limits. They spread themselves along the coast, con-
tenting themselves with Central Oran, Mostaganem, and
a port in front of Algiers, called the Pennon. It was
only at the instigation of a scion of the Sovereigns of
Tlemecen, who had been dispossessed by Arondji, that
they determined to march against this place, and having
defeated the famous Barbarossa, killed him in his flight
near the small river and bivouac of the Oned Sinan.
This success, however, did not open the eyes of the
Spanish General, and he never attempted to take se-
llous hold of the province by planting himself in
the centre. The Spanish Governors did as wo
have
done now, they were charmed by the picturesque
and commodious position of Oran, its ready and easy
with
Onfniictsations with the northern country, the excel-
founding of
erected stron forts
t, Merd-el-Kebir, and contented themselves
wilgeir more of the magnificent colony, the
they had at first contemplated. They
and left
Spain for the invasions"
them, with under-ground works and Kas-
bahs,fmonuments of the reprisals of
Count of Alcandate and his
Moors. Oran, under the
s:recessors, became a seat of
elegance and pleasure, and
thed
wealthy young patricians of It thus acquired
resortr of the gay and
little court. In 1793
ifprosvvience Without having
tthhee aspppaethllaratdivse
eovfaeCnoarttdChti
donever beenw
wrneorsshohulavdewere now to give
conqueroeduritg,
governors
it up.
trans-
fer the head-quarters of the division j this province
to
to Mascara, because their Generals were loathe
province
oathe to
deprive
themselves of the enjoyments of thi •
s minor
capital. General Bugeaud, however, has suddenly de-
termined upon this measure, which will annoy many per-
sons, derange many projects, and be injurious to many
interests, but which carries with it the nearly ripe fruits'
of an efficient conquest and a judicious colonisation."
The Moniteur of Nov. 29th has no official part.
The King has just signed the letters to the Members
of the two Chambers for the opening of the Session,
which is fixed, as we have stated, for December 27th.
M. Guizot, before going to the Council yesterday,
called on the English Ambassador, with whom he had a
conference of three-quarters of an hour.
M. Sancho, the Spanish Ambassador to England, left
Paris the day before yesterday, for London.
The Gazette de Berri, a Legitimist Journal, announces
that the Princess:of Brisa is indisposed.—Constitutionnel.
The Commerce states that since the remains of Napo-
leon have been placed at the Invalides, a period of rather
more than eleven months, four millions of persons are
estimated to have visited the spot.
" The Protestants of France," says the National, "are
about to establish Sisters of Charity of their own com-
munion, for the purpose of attending their sick in the
prisons, hospitals, &c., for which, it is said, permission of
the Government has been obtained. We understand that
they are to wear a costume similar to that of the Catho-

lie grey sisters, and, like them, will be selected from
among respectable young women."
The ancient Church of the Convent de Panthemont,
in the Rue de Grenelle, now used as a storehouse for
the War Department, is going to be converted into a
place of Protestant worship, as soon as the stores are
removed to the depot, in Gros Caillou, orders for which
have been issued by the Minister of War.
The Duke of San Carlos, who, after lying concealed
at Madrid eight days, made his way to Santander, and
thence escaped into France, has arrived in Paris.
M. Sancho, Ambassador from the Spanish Government
to the Court of St. James's, has left Paris for London.

M. Verstolk Van Soelen, Minister of Foreign Affairs
at the Hague, M. Vander Capellen, and M. Fabricius,
formerly Ambassador at Paris, and whose removal dur-
ing the Ministry of Count Mole will be remembered, are
now in the capital.
M. Merilhou, Peer of France, has been made a Com-
mander in the Legion of Honour.
The Archbishop of Bourges, M. de Villele, died on the
24th inst. of a sudden attack of apoplexy,
The Marquis de Dreux-Breze has arrived in Paris.

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