The Sun.
London, England, 1870-01-21 00:00:00

MURDER IN LINCOLNSHIRE.

An inquest has been held at Eastof t, near Crowle, in North
Lincolnshire, on the body of a young man named Charles
Brown. It appeared from the evidence that late on
Saturday night Brown and some friends entered a room
in a public-house in which were already a number of
men, all more or less in drink. Among the latter party
were a young man, named Patrick Welsh, who was asleep,
and a man named Connolly. Connolly asked the new-
comers to rouse Walsh, and Brown, in play, pulled the
sleeper's nose. This irritated Welsh, and to settle the

disturbance which ensued the landlord ordered Brown
and his party to leave the house; Directly afterwards
Welsh and his companions followed them, and when the
two parties met, Brown addressed Welsh with, " Wilt ta,
into me now." Welsh replied, "I will, if you don't keep
off." There then commenced a struggle, and it ended iu
Brown staggering helplessly to an adjacent wall, and
Welsh walking away with a knife in his hand and
threatening Brown's friends with violence. Brown was
carried home in a dying state, for he had received three
wounds in the abdomen, and he expired before a magis-
trate could be got to take his deposition. When Welsh was
apprehended he attempted to attack the police with a
poker, but the weapon was wrested from him. He was
taken to Brown's house and confronted with the dying
man. When the wounds were shown him he burst into
laughter. Two knives were found in Welsh's pockets,
one an open one, and the other a two-bladed clasp one.
—The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against
Welsh, who was committed for trial at the Lincoln
assizes.

DR LYON PLAYFAIR ON EDUCATION.
In a lecture on "Primary Education," delivered before
the Philosophical Institution at Edinburgh, Dr. Lyon
Playfair much regretted the loss of the Scotch Education
Bill last session. Had it passed into law, Scotland would
have been assured that its own national system of educa-
tion would have been preserved and superintended by
a Board of Education in Edinburgh, instead of being
regulated by clerks in the Privy Council-office in
London. Had the bill passed into an Act you would
have confirmed for all Scotland, and have given an
example to England, that it is the duty of localities to
educate the people by rates levied in them. Then there
was in the bill the seeds of a great reform, for it gave
power to districts to form educational unions for the
promotion of special branches of knowledge, and their
utility would have prepared the public mind for one of
the greatest improvements in the education of the people
—the division of the country into educational unions
• large enough for the efficient administration of all
instructional measures. Now, with these positive advan-
tages, how was it that the measure was only coldly sup-
portedby some of the representatives of the people? Doubt-
! less because it was transparently a bill of compromises,
and not of general principles. Yet, how could it have
been otherwise? The education of Scotland has been
created by a variety of Churches, and their views required
to be consulted. In my view the Scotch Education Bill,
as it was introduced to the House of Lords, and even as
it left the Commons, had in it so much of good, that its
operation would have ensured excellent education for the
people." Speaking of education generally Dr. Playfair com-
plained that the authorities of the parochial and higher
schools were not alive to the changing character of in-
struction, not sufficiently on the alert to fit their teaching
to the requirements of the age. Beside, training
'ministers and the like, they must give tradesmen and manu-
facturers the principles of science and art, of which they
stand in so much need. Otherwise no help will be
given in the House of Commons." The lecturer then con-
sidered the best means of setting up a compulsory sys-
tem of education. "If compulsory education be
enforced, there are two methods of effecting it.
The first is the direct method, by which police
agency enforces the law on parents and guar-
dians who neglect the education of their children.
The second is the indirect method, in which employers of
labour are prohibited from employing children unless
they are in possession of elementary education. As to
the abstract principle involved in the two methods, there
is nothing to choose between them. It is quite as respect-
able and humane to drive childran into school by the
policeman's truncheon, as it is to threaten them with star-
vation by refusing employment to the uneducated. The
choice between them, to my mind, is one of simple expe-
diency, and my own preference as a matter of expediency is
for the indirect principle. In constitutional Govern-
ments it has not been found possible to work
a law of diiect compulsion until the great bulk of
the people had become educated to it, and, under the
• best conditions, this requires two generations to effect.
I do not see any solution of our difficulties by an exten-
sion of the factory system on its present basis, though I
by no means desire to abolish half-time schools. On the
contrary, I desire that they should become the natural
secondary schools for the working classes, to whom
they might give knowledge in the sciences and arts bear-
ing on their trades. But if we could make elementary
education, however moderate in quantity, an absolute
condition for employment, we would obtain far more
advantages than on the present half-time system. For
the factory half-time system, instead of encouraging
elementary education, positively discourages it as a
duty of the parent, and throws it from him to the
employer of labour. Parents naturally say—as our
children must attend school from eight to thirteen
while in factories, let us postpone all attempts to
educate them till they begin to earn wages for them-
! selves. Hence, the results at the best are poor. The first
advantage of making ability to pass an examination in
Standard 111. a condition of labour is that you enlist
every parent on the side of education, from noble motives
if he possess them, from ignoble motives if he do not.
Poor parents require the fruit of their children's labour
to aid in their support, so that if wages can only be
obtained through education, that will be pressed on their
children with all the power at their command. If reading,
writing, and arithmetic be made essential tools for labour,
parents will insist on them, as they would on a
hammer, chisel, and gimlet, if their sons were to
be carpenters." Dr. Playfair advocates the classification
of children in largo schools ; and as far as Scotland is con-
cerned he thinks it unwise to restrict State aid to the
" three R's," but he knows that a different opinion is
held in England,

OUR. MISSION TO OIIINA.—Most people would
very reasonably have thought that anything less likely to
excite commercial speculation than the new treaty with

China it would be difficult to imagine; and yet, on the
strength of the new transit regulations, a London firm is
about to send out to Shanghae a consignment of eight
hundred and forty thousand pocket-knives, and sixty
thousand bottles of brandy, for transmission into the
interior of the country.

THE FRENCH AND THE MERCANTILE MARINE.—
The following address to the French Ministers, and to
the members of the Corps Legislatif, has been very nu-
merously signed by the merchants and shipowners of
Havre :—"Messieurs les Ministres. Messieurs les Deputes.
"The undersigned, merchants and shipowners of Haire,
have not been able to see unmoved the decrees of
January 10th, 1870, by which the economic
,position of certain national industries has been
abruptly modified. Convinced that the stability of com-
mercial legislation is the necessary basis for the develop-
ment of trade ; considering that the effects of the mercan-
tile marine law of 1860, which has only been in force
during six months, and which has been so loudly protested
against, have not been sufficiently tried; considering also that
the economic system inaugurated in 1866 has greatly de-
veloped trade; we pray for the maintenance of the
law of May 19th, 1860, and the renewal of the
treaties of commerce, subject to such modifica-
tions in matters of detail as experience may havo
shown to be desirable. And the undersigned entreat you
not to consent to any modification of the existing regints
unlit a parliamentary inquiry shall have enlightened the
deameratoutt and the Chambers as to the coal intonate of
ttt "latitirAnr-'Z AV-WY 1-4. 1§7961.