The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-10 00:00:00

MONKEYS.

The residents in English streets nre not the only
persons who suffer from the continuous visitations of
monkeys. In Madras the ugly animals are terribly
plentiful, and the evil in that province is worse
than in England, inasmuch as the monkeys
do not bring with them any peace - inspiring
foreigners, or anything in the way of harmony. So
great is the annoyance caused by the little
wretches in the Indian province that the
municipal authorities, at once blind to any
thought of the probable affinity between
monkey and man so often disserted upon when both
are sewn together in England, have planned by a
horrible piece of treachery the annihilation
of the tribe. A. sum of five hundred
rupees has been set apart from the public funds to
produce the " deportation" of the monkeys. This
money is to be expended in the purchase of opium,
which will be strewn about the streets for the
treacherous delectation of the fourhanded. A
primary experiment only caused the animals to
stagger about the streets "in a disgraceful state of
intoxicatiun," but it is believed that if the dose-is in--
creased the proper results will be obtained. Can we
try anything of the kind at home ?

BISHOP FRASER ON AGRICULTURAL
LABOURERS AND TOWN YOUTHS.
On Saturday evening the Bishop of Manchester distri-
buted, in the Oldham Town Hall, prizes and certificates to

the successful students of the Oldham School of Science
and Art.—Mr. J. Platt, M.P. presided ; and there was
a crowded attendance. After the special business of the

meeting,
The Bishop said he hoped the youths to whom he had

listributed I;rizes would regard them as encouragements
for the future rather than as grounds merely for self-

complacent retrospection, or for resting satisfied with

a,st achievements

Unabated attention on their part to

mental culture and the acquirement of knowledge was
especially desirable in the6e days, when the nation was

at length trying to make real the boast that we lived on
a free soil, under equal laws, with an equal chance for
all to develope and make the most of whatever

acuities God had blessed them with. What the
Lew school boards made of the new Education Act,

from which some expected so much, would depend
almost entirely m `what their fellow-citizens compelled
them to make of it. Wherever there was an enlightened
public opinion in favour of education the measure
would become a great and powerful reality ; but, on the

other hand, where there was no such expressed and de-
veloped public opinion, he did not expect there would be
any very great difference years hence, unless the Educa-
tion Department exercised, much more arbitrarily than
any other department of Government had hitherto done,
the very large powers entrusted to them under the act. He
could not but commend the aspirations of the successful
students who had been before him. Young men who so
devoted themselves with steadiness and persistency
to a course of useful study, deserved much credit
and the very greatest encouragement. Before coming
to the great diocese of Manchester, he had been
nothing more or less than what was called a quiet
country parson, with a small parish of about 370 souls,
in tne rural shire of Berks. He then had a night school,
and it used to be one of his greatest pleasures to go
regularly and teach in that school for two hours on two
nights a week. There were no nights that he spent more
to his own satisfaction than those so employed with those

plough boys and sheep boys in his little Berkshire night
school. He mentioned this because there seemed a dis-
position in manufacturing districts to depreciate, a
little rudely, the intellectual condition of the agricul-
tural labourer.- Before coming to Lancashire he had
lived all his life among that class. He would freely
admit that, if an agricultural labourer were set up to

iscuss with one of the shrewd Lancashire operatives

upon political or social questions, upon the rights of labour
and capital for instance, the operative might puzzle the
poor brains of the labourer very much ; but, on the other
hand, if some of the operative class were to visit some of
the rustic population which he (the Bishop) had left be-
hind him, he thought a matter or two could be found on
which the agricultural labourers would rather puzzle
them. In all districts, even among such labourers, that

was a great deal of the stuff that made good English-
men. For instance, in farms around his late parish, a
number of steam ploughs were used, and the engineers
who drove these and managed them were all native
agricultural labourers, not including one imported
man from Yorkshire or Lancashire. While, therefore,

giving all due credit to young men in towns like Oldham,
he wished them, in return, to give due credit to others of
more rustic habits. He might be allowed to add a word
also for the country parsons, because he doubted
whether townspeople did perfect justice to them.
Speaking not merely of one village, he might say that, so
far as he remembered, every parish within at least five
miles of the one with which he had been connected, had
its own night school, at which the minister attended,
and was glad to teach the lads who came to be taught ;
so it would be seen that these country parsons were
really doing some good in their own quiet way.
With regard to the attendance at such schools, it might
be mentioned that he had 35 scholars out of a population
of 370, and he thought not more than one out of the
whole number missed getting one of the prizes he offered
to all who attended upon 40 out of the 48 nights of the
session. It would thus be seen that there was a desire,
even in the bosom of the agricultural labourer, to learn
something that might be both useful and ornamental to
him in after life. He had observed that most of the prizes
now awarded were for rather abstruse subjeots, connected
in general with the daily avocations of the competitors.
Students in such a locality were perfectly right to place
these studies in the front rank ; but, nevertheless, he did
not think Almighty God had sent any one of us into this
world to be a mere drudge all his life long. Life was
meant to be sweet and cheerful, as well as useful and
laborious ; therefore, he would have been still more glad
had he been called upon to present a greater number of
prizes indicating a cultivation of a taste for pure, refilling,
improving literature. He did also wish that we in Eng-
land had more places generally open to the masses of the
people for healthy and innocent recreation. It was
all very easy for well-to-do people, with comfort-
able houses, carpeted rooms, easy chairs, libraries,
and newspapers, to say that they could not understand
what took young fellows to public-houses or casinos. He
could understand it without any difficulty at all. They
went for amusement, which human nature prompted them
to seek in some form outside, if it could not be got at
home. Although human nature was by no means all one
could wish it to be, yet he did not believe in the
miserabie depressing doctrine often heard about our
being so terribly bad. On the contrary, he believed that
if an innocent and a vicious place of amusement were
put side by side, nine out of ten young men who
had been at all decently brought up would choose
the innocent recreation. What must be regretted was
that instruments and means of amuse ment which might
be healthful and elevating, had got to be degraded,
partly through being left in the hands of indifferent
people, or through religious people shaking their heads,
shrugging their shoulders, and saying, " Fie ! fie !" of
wha' they ought rather to tr and improve.
On the motion of Mr. J. T, Hibbert, M.P., seconded
by Mr. W. Richardson, a vote of thanks was passed to
the Bishop, shortly after which the proceedings con-
cluded.