The Sun.
London, England, 1869-10-06 00:00:00

THE SOCIAL SCIENCE CONGRESS.

BRISTOL, TUESDAY,

The address of Miss Carpenter on Female Education in
India formed an attractive feature in the programme of the
soirée at the Victoria Rooms last night. The 'ball-room, in
which it was delivered, was crowded to excess. The Rev.
Canon Kingsley escorted Miss Carpenter on to the plat-
form. The address commenced with a reference to the
number of subjects which at such a gathering as the Social
Science Congress required the time and attention of its
members and associates. The qnestion of the colonies and
the various interests connected with them came frequently
under consideration. Such, however, was not the case
with India. The Hindoos, it was observed, though aware
of the justice of the English, did not feel that
sense of attachment to them which it would be well to
see, and which, it might be mentioned, they almost always
felt when they made a visit to this country. Whenever
there was a friendly sympathy exhibited towards them
by Englishmen or women in India, the Hindoos were
always ready to respond. It was generally thought
they were not a grateful race, that they had
not the word gratitude in their language. But
then it must be observed that people were seldom
thankful for things they did not like, and the Eng-
lish had done much for India which the race inhabiting
the country did not at all like. Passing on to the
immediate subject of the evening's address, Miss
Carpenter told her audience that she was in-
duced to go to India, upon the accounts which she
read of the miserable condition of Hindoo widows after
the custom of sutteeism was done away with. The Hindoo
women of the higher classes were not, it was known, well
educated, and were kept in seclusion, while the lower class
of women were kept to do the hardest tasks, working indeed
as slaves. The first thing that struck Miss Carpenter m India
was to see how Hindoo gentlemen took their pleasure,
abroad without their wives. In some parts a woman had
more liberty than in others. Thus in certain towns the
Hindoo ladies called upon Miss Carpenter. Wherever the
ladies became educated they acquired more liberty. In
Calcutta and Madras, but especially in Calcutta, the ladies
were especially secluded. Calling upon a native gentleman to
see his house, Miss Carpenter, asking to see the ladies, was
was taken into a small room, where they were shut up. It
might be laid down as the result of experience that as the
religion of the people of India became purer, as in the case
of the Brahmins, the treatment of their women
improved. The Brahmins were found everywhere
to be the most advanced members of the race. Several
instances having been furnished of the degradation in
which the higher class women even were kept, Miss Car-
penter proceeded to point out the evils resulting from the
rule that a Hindoo widow should never re-marry. The
educated young men, however, were setting themselves to
get rid of that rule, and in several cases had already broken
through it. The early age at which marriages took place
was noted as an obstacle to female education.

In an interval of rest which Miss Carpenter found it
necessary to take, one of the higher-caste Brahmins,
Surendra Nath Banergea, now attending the Congress,
delivered a neat little address much to the de-
light of the audience, especially the ladies. In
concluding her address, Miss Carpenter stated that
she intended to return. to India on the 23rd of the present
month, to carry on her work amongst the female popula-
tion. A hearty vote of thanks was accorded to Miss Car-
penter for her interesting address,
All the departments to-day were occupied with volun-
tary papers. The number of these was large, but the
greater part were only of secondary importance.

TRADE IN INTOXICATING DRINKS,

The drink traffic was the subject of a voluntary paper
read by Professor F. W. Newman. The Association, he
said, attended in detail to the public education, public
health, and public wealth, and treated of them separately,
though in reality they were not really separate. There
was a potent cause ruinous to all three, which was not
prominent in the documents of the Society, which stalked
abroad in the world, laughed at scruple and trampled
under foot every form of human welfare. It
would not be right to allow that formidable
agency to escape a most searching discussion.
The traffic in intoxicating drink yielded to the
Executive Government twenty-one millions sterling of
annual revenue as a fraction of the money spent on it—
indeed, only a small fraction—of the substance wasted
besides the moral ruin. It was a favourite idea with many
that education would gradually banish all the mischiefs
of seducing liquors. That might be true if any one could
kill off from year to year, not only all those who drank too
much, but their families with them, and leave none but
the duly educated to people the land. Forty
years of improved education side byside with the increased
development of capital and commercial freedom, had mani-
fested how feeble a weapon was mere scholastic teaching
against the solicitation to drink and its hideous train of
miseries to the whole community. Those who trusted to
education were now saying it must be compulsory; but
compulsory education could not work on that part of the
community which it is chiefly desired to affect until drink
shops were closed. The Professor imagined the children of
a drunkard forced into a school by law. The state in
which they would come would be such that, unless the
Government could prevent the vice of these parents, it
would, in all probability, have to adopt the child entirely.
While the State insisted en permitting capitalists to thrive
by making drunkards, it loft itself no means of educating
drunkards' children, but by a socialistic system, in which
the State became universal parent. The friends of
education spoke of training as well as teaching,
tut training presupposed family life. It would
be sufficient, said the professor, to press that until Parlia-
and the nation elected to feed, clothe, and lodge for
nothing the children of drunkards ; the first pre-requi-
site step for educating them must be a law for making
drunkenness difficult. The paper then went on to point
out that it availed little to pass laws against inoculation
and vaccination, and in general, laws for the health of towns
or country in the case of those families in which the seeds
of disease were nourished by the drunkenness of parents. A
sot could not keep a healthy house, and no laws could
force him to do so. It was then demonstrated that, as
regarded the wealth of the nation, the effect of the beer-
house and gin produce was to keep in a state of semi-
pauperism thousands upon thousands. Having called
attention to the fact that the subject he was discussing
had been taken up by the Lower House of Convocation,
Professor Newman urged that an absolute veto on the
drink traffic must be exercised by some one for moral pur-
poses. The collective public, it was his opinion, ought to
have the power co-ordinate with the magistrate. Such a
veto, he said, could not correctly be called despotic or
tyrannical.

This paper was much applauded. At the close of the
reading a gentleman asked what effects had been observed
in the parishes above a thousand in number —in
which, according to a statement in Convocation, no
public-houses were found.—Mr. Raper replied that the
evidence had satisfactorily established that the best moral
effects were observable.—Mr. James Heywood inquired
how the proposed veto should be exercised.—Professor
Newman replied that the local vetoing vote was to be
that of two-thirds of the inhabitants in the district.—Mr.
Raper, observing that several proposals were before the
country, said that the plan mentioned by Professor New-
man was substantially the same as that advocated by Sir
Wilfrid Lawson in the House of Commons last session.
The principle was to prevent public-houses being forced
into districts where they were not wanted by the inhabi-
tants. Government would have to decide the precise way
of ascertaining the will of the residents.—Professor New-
man thought that London would require special arrange-
ments.

The Rev. W. Cairne, of Manchester, dealt with the
Sunday liquor traffic. He traced the history
of the laws connected with this difficulty, and
enlarged upon the ultimate relations between
Sunday drinking and crime, drawing upon his experience
as a chaplain in the county gaol at Manchester. The rev.
gentleman quoted Mr. Bright's statement that none were so
interested in the question of Sunday closing as the
families of the licensed victuallers. Great advantages
would accrue to all classes from a stop being put to the
Sunday liquor traffic.

Professor Newman thought that Mr. Cairne scarcely went
far enough. There must be provision for more than
Sunday closing.—The benefit of the operation of the law
adopted in Australia to further Sunday closing was ad-
verted to by a gentleman from that colony.—Another
colonist stated that pressure had to be put on
the Legislature to induce it to pass this Act.—The
Rev. Mr. Cairne, in replying, pointed to the advantage of
keeping temptation away from prisoners. Many of those
had actually regretted leaving gaol because of exposure to
temptation.