The Sun.
London, England, 1848-07-28 00:00:00

in the actual condition of the country to give rise to
the most grave and serious forebodings. If the
rebellion has not actually broken out in the county
of Tipperary, the entire district of which Slievena-
mon Mountain is the centre, appears to be on the
very verge thereof; and it is almost impossible to
hope that many days can elapse before collisions will
take place between the troops and the people, and
blood be freely shed on both sides in the conflict.
The Government are determined that the law shall
be strictly enforced, and that the powers with which
they are entrusted shall be vigorously and efficiently
carried into execution. The clubs are to be sup-
pressed, the arms to be searched for and captured.
The ignorant multitude have been told by their mis-
chievous instructors, " that the privilege of bearing
these arms is the inalienable right of a free peOple,
which no Parliament is competent to restrict or in
any manner to interfere with ;" and they have been
appealed to in the strongest and most exciting lan-
guage not to surrender the weapons of which they
were possessed. They have also stated that' "they
will not be the first to commence the attack, but woe
to their aggressors ; and that the people will resist
to the last extremity the capture of their leaders."
When the elements of combustion are so thickly
scattered around some explosion must be expected,
We believe, however, that it will be speedily put
down, and that the powerful force which the Go-
vernment have concentrated upon the disturbed dis-
tricts, aided and assisted by the well-affected and
loyal inhabitants, will most signally defeat the
rebel troops whenever they may venture to appear in
armed resistance to the authorities. The contest
cannot be prolonged for any considerable period, and
the misguided men who have suffered themselves to
be so grievously led astray will suffer bitterly for
their temporary infatuation by being compelled to
become fugitives from their families and friends,
even if they should succeed in escaping the more
serious punishment which must undoubtedly be in-
flicted upon the rebels who are taken in arms, fight-
ing against their SOVEREIGN and their country.

Political economists would do well to ponder over
certain facts enunciated at a meeting held on Monday
last at the Guildhall—a meeting convened by the
committee of the "Ragged School Union," in which
the Lord Mayor, Lord ASHLEY, Lord KINNAIRD, and
other philanthropic gentlemen took part. The object
of this meeting was to take steps towards the forma-
tion of a school of industry in the east end of London,
the school established some time since in Westminster
having fully realised the benevolent expectations of
its founders. The statistics of this school we earnestly
commend to the attention of the economical. This
" school of industry " (a " ragged school" is no
longer its proper denomination) contains one hundred
boys and girls, all of whom have been enabled in one
year to clothe themselves with the proceeds of
their own labour. These children, it appears, are
completely supported at the cost of 61. 10s. per annum
each, "or about one-third of Me cost incurred at
Parkhurst." It has already been demonstrated that
it is cheaper to reform than to punish, and now we
find by irrefutable evidence that it is even yet
cheaper to prevent the crime than to reform the cri-
minal. Children can be educated and supported in a
school of industry at one-third of the cost incurred at
Parkhurst ! This is a fact which we willingly re-
iterate, and which we should never weary of repeat-
ing. This is a fact which we would thunder in the
oars of those in whom humanity is overcome by
parsimony. Draw tight your purse-strings—
we would say to these economists—deride
private benevolence as an amiable extravagance, and
speak loudly of the virtues of economy in high places,
but remember that when you have had your way,
when not a shilling has been wasted in any scheme of
quixotic benevolence, and the ragged children of
London have been abandoned to their fate, remember
that when these Pariahs of society, emerging from
a childhood, spent in the foulest abodes of vice, and
passing that career of guilt and misery so inimi-
tably pourtrayed by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK (a
career to which they were predestined by
your neglect), shall have finally reached the
penitentiary, the hulks, or the gallows—remem-
ber, then, sticklers for economy, that each of these
miserable wretches has cost you three times, and
perhaps six times as much as if in their early child-
hood
you had snatched them from destitution and de-
pravity, by the intervention of a ragged school. This
is, assuredly, a sufficiently strong case, on the score
of econosy ; on humane grounds it would be a work
of supererogation to advocate these philanthropic
institutions.

Ragged schools are, without doubt, among the most
truly charitable of all charitable institutions. They
constitute one of the most efficient panaceas yet dis-
covered for the moral misery of the children of our
poor. Ragged schools have elicited in their behalf the
valuable exertions of Lord ASHLEY, as they long
since inspired the earnest eloquence of CHARLES
DICKENS. Ragged schools can scarcely need
commendation or panegyric new. Their effi-
ciency has been tested by experience, and
not found insignificant, and their efficacy will be yet
more fully and more satisfactorily demonstrated,
when this system shall be further extended and
developed. As a step towards the extension and de-
velopment of this system, at the meeting held on
Monday Lord KINNAIRD moved, Mr. WIRE se-
conded, and the assembly adopted unanimously a
resolution, " That a juvenile refuge and place of
industry, on an extensive scale, be established in the
east of London for the admission of destitute persons
of both sexes, where they shall receive gratuitously
the elements of a secular and religious education, and
be trained to such industrial pursuits as will fit them
for future usefulness either at home or abroad?'
The estimated cost of this establishment will be two
thousand a year, and it will be two thousand well
employed. Her MAJESTY has subscribed 1001. to-
wards its erection, and many benevolent individuals
have already contributed their mite. Heartily do we
wish a God-speed to this new ragged school—this
" school of industry " would perhaps be the more
proper epithet, but for ourselves we shall always pre-
fer the original' term, "ragged school." To our
thinking it has a peculiar and beautiful significance ;
it tells at once of the disease and the remedy. It
brings vividly before us the abject condition of the
miserable children of the metropolis, but it also tells
of the succour—the insufficient but yet beneficial
succour vouchsafed them. A light, feeble and
intermittent though it be, has at length
beamed upon the darkness of their desolation,
and for this all acquainted with the awful depth of
that moral night cannot be sufficiently thankful.
Convinced of these things, we feel that we cannot be
too grateful to the founders and promoters of these
" juvenile refuges," nor too solicitous for the further
extension of tneir
.benevolent institutions. At the
same time we are well aware that " ragged schools
will of themselves be able to diminish or counteract
very little of the misery and immorality of the metro-
polis. Other things, and many other things, are im-
peratively required ;.still it is a great error to cavil
at any individual improvement because it cannot effect
all that is required. Let it suffice for us to
know that ragged schools must, under all
circumstances, be beneficial to the commu-
nity, and that at the present moment in the
absence of so many necessary reforms, they are most
beneficial, and assuredly we sball see little cause to
refuse them our most cordial encouragement and our
most unhesitating support. Those persons, however,
who may be insensible to such arguments in their
favour will, after the statistical facts to which we
have referred, find reason to advocate ragged schools
as a source of national economy.

CHRISTENING OF LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S INFANT
SoN.—Yesterday fort noon the infant son of Lord and
Lady John Russell was baptized
at Petersham Church,Richmond, by the Rev. Lord Wriothesly Russell, in the
presence of Lord and Lady John Russell, the Countess
f Minto, the Ladies Elliott, Viscount and Viscountess
Melgund, Lady Grey, and a distinguished circle. The
infant was named George Gilbert William. the sponsors
being Lord Melgund, who represented Sir George Grey,
and Lady Grey. At the conclusion of the ceremony
the Noble Lord left with much baste for London, in
consequence of the report of an alleged rising in Ire.
land. Lady John entertained the company at a season-
able dejeuner.
SALE OF BEER BILL.—Mr. Hume has just given
notice that, on the third reading of the Sale of Beer Bill,
in the House of Commons, he will move to strike out the
words, "coffee and tea-shops" from clause four. Mr.
Craven Berkeley will also wove the omission of the
words, w
ord " before half-past twelve o'clock in the afternoon,
or where the," and insert, " before the termination of,"
in line 13 of the said Bill.