The Sun.
London, England, 1870-01-18 00:00:00

Tin SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 18, 1870

offices-is permanently oirtrgrovir'C' The other advan-
tages mentioned are substantial; this last can be of
comparatively little avail.

Wau.sT the pauper is unhappily demanding such
a large share of public attention, the claims of the
numerous class which just floats above the destitution
line must not be overlooked. The care
of the one is scarcely less difficultt than that of
the other. To feed the multitude who are more or less
dependent on parochial relief is hard, but not less
important and perplexing is the task of preventing
an equally numerous host who contrive to support
existence by their own efforts from joining the ranks
of their still less fortunate brethren. There is always
allarge proportion of our countrymen who are shivering
on the brink of pauperism, and ever in jeopardy of
toppling over. These need assistance and encourage-
ment, and yet aid of any kind is a perpetual danger and
a snare to them. They require continual moral support,
and sometimes material assistance ; but self-respect and
independence are not too abundant amongst
our poor, and they are apt to disappear
altogether under the baneful influence of prodi-
gal aid. Facilis descensus avoid ; now-a-days
the descent to beggary is pleasant and easy. To
discover means of giving the poor assistance
which is not charity, and encouragement
which does not take the place of self-reliance
is difficult ; but it is important, and, more-
over, not impossible. One plan, of which Lord
HATIIEIILEY is the leading representative, has been
found to work well. A small organization is
formed in any parish, and mission women, chosen
from the class amongst whom they labour, go round
to the poor and collect trifling sums—a few pence—
which are stored up for the benefit of the donors.
The poor women meet in a room, where they have
pleasant reading, and where they are taught to work
upon the useful articles which their own savings
have purchased. They receive simply the value of
their money laid out to the best advantage. Last
year between £7,000 and £B,OOO was collected in
this way. Similar in design, and capable of still
greater results if extensively adopted, is Mr.
RusxlN's plan. Some time ago he purchased two
or three tenements habited by the poor—
common lodging houses in fact—put them in
thorough repair, and engaged a lady to collect
the rents, and in general to fulfil the duties of
agent. This really excellent and sound piece of
philanthropy is, we are glad to say, finding imitators.
Lady DIXIE and Lady STOPFORD BROOKE have
each isTrited capital in the old dwellings
_of the
poor.
The merits of such a scheme are several.
It involves no loss to the benefactor, and is no
direct charity to the benefitted. It is notorious
that the poor pay enormous interest on the capital of
their landlords, and therefore Mr. RUSKIN and his
coadjutors in the good work can charge a moderate rent
without loss. The poor get a good dwelling-place,
for a weekly sum smaller than that which they usually
pay for a bad one. For this feature alone the scheme
deserves the highest praise since bad dwellings are one of
the most powerful influences which tend to the discom-
fort and demoralisation of the poor. Next to drink,
the miserable hovels in which the labouring classes
are constrained to live are most baneful to their
moral and physical well-being. Mr. Rusimr's plan,
however, goes further than this. The lady who col-
lects the rents is enabled without any artificial
expedient to become acquainted with the real wants,
sufferings, and efforts of her tenants. Her mission
is ostensibly one of business, not of charity ; but
with the open design of rent-collecting is combined
the secret one of watching for an opportunity to do
good. She sees who are industrious and who are
idle ; who are profligate and who are deserving;
whose misfortunes are beyond their control,
and whose are the effect of their own misdeeds.
It is notorious that " regular " charitable agents are
looked upon either with distrust or with greedy and
unjust expectations. The house-agent has a mission
which gives her a prima facie pretext for her visits.
The poor take her into confidence without that sus-
picion or embarrassment which is so frequently the
result' of more formal visits. The lady
can give encouragement, advice, and instruc-
tion without imposing any burden. And
when the worst conies, and there is no other hope,
she can represent a case for active assistance on the
fullest information, and without fear of imposture.
The system is so sound and thoroughly free from
objection that its adoption on the largest scale is in
all respects to be desired. Miss HILL and her new
allies are not alms-givers, but only exceptionally kind
landladies, which is precisely what the poor require.

A sad affair is reported from Norbury.
gatekeeper and Lis wife quarrelled. The man appears to
have loaded a gun, at the same time making a threat. The
woman afterwards shot the man with this gun - acciden-
tally, sho says. It is believed that she afterwards intended
to commit suicide.

The London correspondent of the Scotsman says
he has reason to believe that, notwithstanding the guarded
manner in which Mr. Bright has spoken of the measures
which will be submitted to Parliament during the ensuing
session, Mr. Forster's Education Bill is in a forward state
of preparation.
The funeral of General Sir Pe Lacy Evans took
place this morning at Kensal Green Cemetery. The funeral
was, in accordance with the wishes of the deceased, con-
ducted in a simple and unostentatious manner. Six
mourning coaches and a number of private carriages fol-
lowed the remains.

In searching yesterday among the ruins of .the
Star and Garter Hotel at Richmond some bones were dis-
covered, which are believed to be those of Mr. Lever,
the unfortunate manager. As soon as it is ascertained
that they are human bones, an inquest will be held.
Thousands of persons yesterday visited the scone of the
disaster.

Addressing a meeting held at Oldham on Satur-
day, to inaugurate a Working Men's Association, Mr. Bib-
bert, M.P., took a very encouraging view of the public
finances In the course of a few years, he said, he thought
the national expenditure might be reduced £8,000,000. Mr.
Platt, M.P., was also present at the meeting, and spoke upon
education.

A young man named William Cane, aged 20, died
at St. Bartholomew's Hospital on Monday morning from
the effects of injuries received at the explosion which
occurred on Saturday at the oilshop of Mr. Vickers, of 32,
Aldersgate-street, City, while deceased and two lads named
Henry Roberts (who died on Saturday) and William
Knight were pouring some "Brunswick black" varnish
from one can into another.

A public meeting, called by the High Sheriff of
Shropshire, was held in the Shire Hall, Shrewsbury, on
Saturday, for the purpose of considering what steps should
bl taken to induco the council of the Royal Agricultural
Society of England to select Shrewsbury for holding the
show of 1871. Lord 11111, the Lord Lieutenant of the
county, presided. The desirability of the show being held
at Shrewsbury was affirmed by resolution, and an influential
committee was arpointed to promote the object.

Professor Blackie has been speaking at Edin-
burgh on education. As to a Scotch schoolmaster at present
his occupation was either beggary or banishment. He
was either banished to Oxford, where ho might ultimately
have his port wine after dinner, or he remained in Scot •
land, and did not feel himself on a par with other people.
He was pushed into scorner, and called " dominie," and wus
despised by the people, who wore not worthy of his honest
labours. Tho whole system of education must be re-
formed.

Yesterday afternoon an attack was made upon
Andrew Watts, warder in the Deven County Gaol, at
Exeter, by a prisoner. The details, as usual with matters
transpiring within the walls of that prison, are kept
secret, but it is alleged by the Western Morning News
the prisoner had secreted some stones in his cell, and
yesterday afternoon assaulted the warder who came to
visit him, and afterwards stabbed him,and then attempted
to escape. In this, however, he was foiled. The injuries
to the man are so serious that further medical aid had to
be called to him last night.

The want of another judge in the Court of Queen's
Bench will be again felt this week. This morning the
At'orney-General was mentioning the case of the Bridg-
water election petiiton, when the Lord Chief Justice said
that Justice Blackburn, before whom the original
motion was made, wou'd be present on Thursday;
and, added his Lordship, "as this Court will
have to furnish a judge for the full Court of Divorce we
shall only have sufficient judges to sit in this court, and
therefore the sittings at nisi pries on that day cannot
take place. This shows how much an additional judge is
noniirtcL"

LAW INTELLIGENCE—(This Day.)

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH.
STRACEY AND OTHERS.

To-day, on the motion of the Crown, a rule was
granted to call upon Mr. Stracey and others, against
whom an indictment had been preferred for bribery
and corruption at the last Norwich election, to show
cause why a suggestion should not be entered on
the indictment to charge the venue from the city
and county of : the city of Norwich, to some other
county which the court might direct, on tho ground
that party political feeling was so intense, and so
much excitement prevailed in the city of Norwich,
as to render it impossible to have the indictment
properly and fairly tried.

DIVORCE COURT.
THE MORDAUI,.iT CASE.

This morning before the Judge-Ordinary, Lord
Penzance, Sergeant Ballantine asked for the peti-
tioner that an early day be fixed for the hearing of
this case as far as the issue now before the Court
Is to the sanity or insanity of the respondent. It
is the well known case of Mordaunt v. Mordaunt,
Cole, and Johnstone.

Mr. Searle, for the respondent, said he had no
abjection, and was content to abide by the judg-
ment of the court.

The Judge Ordinary said there was no reason
why there should be any departure from the
ordinary rule. The case had not been delayed
in any way, but set down in due course, and
would come on in the ordinary way. There
were only five probate cases to be tried
before special juries, and it was a question
whether under all the circumstances, and the
lelays as to the special juries in the Divorce
Court he the (Judge Ordinary) should probably
think it advisable to give the special juries for di-
vorce priority to those of probate, and his lordship
had determined to do so in one- case in which the
witnesses were up in London last Term, and that—
A.tkinson v. Atkinson and Gath—would be put first
on the list. He (the Judge Ordinary) must de-
,;line to accede to the application of the learned
Sergeant. Application refused.

POLICE INIELLIGENCE-IThis Day.

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

SINGULAR APPLICATION.—A respectable-looking
female, who stated that she resided in the neigh-
bourhood of Fitzroy-square, applied to Mr. Tyr-
what for a summons under the following circum-
stances :—The applicant said that on returning to
her lodgings rather late on Christmas Eve, her
landlord, an old gentleman, invited her and
another female into his apartments to take a
" glass of something." They then accepted the
offer, it being Christmas Eve, and while they
were in the room the old gentleman kissed
them under the mistletoe. This appeared to have
given great offence to his wife, and to have engen-
dered in her mind a feeling of jealousy, notwith-
standing that her (applicant's) husband was up-
stairs at the time, and she had since been subjected
to severe threats.

Mr. Tyrwhitt supposed the applicant did not
kiss the husband, be being an old man ? (Laughter.)
The applicant said she did not.
Mr. Tyrwhitt granted a summons.
WRONG IN HIS LAW.—James Chalmers, a ser-
vant, was charged before Mr. Tyrwhitt with being
drunk and disJrderly.
Police-constable William Crab, 147 C, was on
duty in Jermyn-street last night, and heard the
prisoner, who was in company of some prostitutes,
making a great disturbance and shouting at the top
of his voice. On requesting the prisoner to go
away, he refused to do so, saying that he lodged
with a policeman and that he knew what the law
on the subject was, and on taking him into custody
he said that the magistrate could only fine him ss.
Mr. Tyrwhitt fined the prisoner 20s.

tIIE EARL OF DERBY ON CRIME AND
CRIMINALS.

The remarks of the Earl of Derby, at Manchester, on
41onday, at the meeting of the Prisoners' Aid .eciety
)ver which he presided, were not by any means lengthy.
Alter expressing his sympathy with the work of the
society, the noble earl went on: I think I may fairly
congratulate you, on behalf of the Prisoners' Aid Society,
.n the fact that that institution, although upon a small
scale, is making steady and rapid progress in the work
which it has to do. In the past twelve months we
save not much to complain of, although, as we all
know, the last two or three years have not been very
favourable to the support of any charitable or philan-
thropic undertaking. The subscriptions and donations
for 1869 are something under £l6O, which is rather less
than the year before ; but then it must be borne in mind
that a good deal of the duty which formerly devolved
spon us is now taken off our hands by the kindred
society established at the other end of the county--
tt 'West Derby—rcunded upon principles precisely
similar to ours, and, to a great extent, sup-
ported by the same persons. The general result of our
three years' work is this : 418 persons have had
their cases inciuired into, 32.1 have received assistance,
and of those 321, 1-.05, or nearly two-thirds of the whole,
.tre known to be doing well. Thirty have turned out
badly, and the remaining 86 have left this part of the
country, and cannot be traced; but it is fair to say that of
those, 86 a good many arc known to have emigrated, and
it may therefore be presumed that they are in a fair way
to earn an honest living. No doubt it may be said that
these results arc not numerically great, and that is true ;
but if we had in this country what we ought to have, and
I believe shall have—an institution of this characti r con-
nected with every considerable gaol in the country, so
that no prisoner, having gone through his term of punish-
ment, shall be turned loose upon the world without hav-
ing the offer of honest employment—l say, if that were
the case, you would find that a very real and substantial
_mpression had been made upon the great mass of crime.
I don't want to overstate the case. lam not, perhaps, one
of those persons who take a very rose-coloured view of
what this society or agency is about to do ; and I suspect
that the future will differ very much less from the past
than many sanguine and amiable people are apt to
think. I certainly don't look forward to a time when
our gaols shall be without inmates, or our judges have no
prisoners to try. Education may do something; the
growth of temperate habits among the population may do,
and I think will do a great deal ; and increased clean-
liness, decency, and comfort in the houses of the poorer
classes will have its effect. But after all has been done
that can be done by these means, there will always, I am
afraid, be some of the worst of society who are hope-
lessly perverse ; there will always be some who are
easily led away by bad companions—misled, it may be,
bcthe example of their own parents and nearest relatives;
there will always be some who, with an exaggerated dislike
to work in any form, have acquired a most unfounded idea
that a life of crime is an easy and a pleasant one; and
there will be some, too—they are not, I think, as rare a
class as might be supposed—who seem to have hardly
enough of mental power of any kind—hardly enough of
sense or intellect to know clearly what the meaning of the
words right and wrong is. There is yet another class to
add to these. I mean those who, though not exactly what
we call habitual criminals, yet get their living in the main
by vagrancy and begging, and when those resources fail,
sometimes find out worse means of making out their sub-
sistence. Between all these classes lam afraid that what-
ever may be done by schools, by model dwellings, and by
temperance teaching, there will always be work enough
both for the magistrate and for reformatory agencies. And
I look upon it that our function—the function of this
society—is twofold : First, and mainly, to see to it that,
so far as our operations extend, no man or woman wishing
to leave off a life of crime shall be forced back into it by
inability to find honest employment. Secondly, which is
also a matter of some importance, we want to deprive any
plausible scamp who, having served out his time in Man-
chester gaol, had afterwards gone back to his old habits and
associates—to deprive such persons of the excuse with
which they are always ready, viz., that they wanted to live
honestly, but could not find anybody who would employ
them. To such a person the magistrate who tries him
may fairly say, " Did you go to the Prisoners' Aid Society?
You knew of its existence. You knew it was ready to
help you. Did you or did you net ask them for work?
and if you did not what do you mean by saying that
you could not find employment ? " We have taken
a great step in the last year or two in the passing
of the Habitual Criminals' Act. We have
to recognize the fact that although with our utmost vigil-
ance and our utmost care the prevention of individual
and isolated offences is impossible, still, that it is possible,
and it is our duty, to protect society against the existence
of the class which lives to make war upon property. I
hope, for my part, that the powers conferred by that
Act will be seriously and strenuously exercised It
it no cruelty, it is kindness, to society to fol-
low up, to pursue, to hunt down, as it were, men
who live by breaking the law, and to make them feel that
that is a kind of business which does not pay. But if, on
the one hand, the law be, as it ought to be, inexorable
towards those who continue in wrong-doing, so, on the
other hand, I say that society should be merciful to
those who are willing to amend. It is not by severity
alone, it is not by kindness and humanity alone, but it
is by using severity and kindness each in the proper
time and proper place, that we can effectually make wa•
upon crime.

The Right Hon. Edward Sullivan, the newly-
appointed Master of the Rolls for Ireland, took his seat
on the bench for the first time on Monday.

A. LION CAGED.—Prince Pierre Bonaparte's
neighbours will not be sorry to lose him, for a short time
at all events. One of the Paris papers states that the
Prince kept a lioness in a cage at his residence. It was a
most intelligent animal, but was the cause of much uneasi-
ness at Auteuil. Since the late unfortunate result of his
Highness's momentary loss of temper, the lioness has been
removed to the Jardin des Plantes, where it may now be
seen.

TEE REDUCTIONS.—Some time ago the Admiralty
held out an inducement to clerks at Chatham to retire,
by offering an addition of ten years' service in making the
calculation for the superannuation allowance, provided the
retirement took place before the end of this financial
year. The same offer has now been made to the profes-
sional officers of Chatham Dockyard, and it is reported
that already some of them have expressed their willing-
ness to accept it.

MUSICAL SERVICES.—Concerning musical services
Archbishop Arundel and William Thorpe exchanged some
decided words. `• And the Archbishop said to me,"
Master William Thorpe tells us, in the record of his
" Examinations," "Lewd losel, is it not lawful for us to
have organs in the church to worship therewithal God ?
And I said, Yea, sir, by man's ordinance; but the ordinance
of God, a good sermon to the people's understanding
were much more pleasant to God. The Archbishop said
that organs and good delectable songs quickened and
sharpened men's wits more than should any sermon. But
I said, Sir, lusty men and worldly lovers delight, and
court, and travail to have all their wits quickened
and sharpened with divers sensible solaces."--Jeafferson's
Book about the Clergy.

THE MODERN COLLISEUM.—The Royal Albert
Hall of Arts and Sciences, Kensington, has been nearly
roofed in. The huge building at present is remarkable
for size rather than for beauty. Its vast proportions
dwarf every structure near. It reduces Mr. Gilbert
Scott's Albert Memorial to the dimensions of a toy.
There is reason, however, to hope that the hall, when
finished, will receive some mitigation from statues, decora-
tive terra-cottas, and especially from a ceramic frieze,
now in course of execution, under contract with Messrs.
Minton, at the South Kensington Museum. In one of
the private rooms of the museum it is a pretty sight to
witness a company of some eight or ten girls busily at
work in putting the mosaics together, like so many child-
ren's puzzles which have to be pieced and fittedto pattern.
The tessera consist of small tubes of earthenware manu-
factured in various sizes and colours, the mosaic being
put together with the face downwards on a cartoon of
paper. -
-

- -
WHEN DOES DEATH SUPERVENE P— The
execution in Paris has revived the old question
whether death instantaneously follows upon the seve-
rance of the head from the body. In a letter to the
Gaulois, Dr. Pine. asserts that decapitation does not
immediately affect the brain. The blood which flows after
decapitation comes from the large vessels of the neck, and
there is hardly any call upon the circulation of the
cranium. The brain remains intact, nourishing itself with
the blood retained by the pressure of the air. When the
blood remaining in the head at the moment of separation
is exhausted, there commences a state, not of death,
but of inertia, which lasts up to tho moment
when the organ, no longer fed, ceases to exist.
Dr. Pinel estimates that the brain finds nourishment
in the residuary blood for about an hour after deca-
pitation. The period of inertia would last for about
two hours, and absolute death would not ensue till after
the space of three hours altogether. If, he adds, a bodiless
head indicates by no movement the horror of its situa-
tion, it is because it is physically impossible that it should
do so, all the nerves which serve for the transmission of
orders from the brain to the trunk being severed. But
there remain the nerves of hearing, of smell, and of