The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-09 00:00:00

The Earthquake at Algiere.

We have been favoured with the following account
of the earthquake whichrecently occurred at Algiers :
" Algiers, night between 2d and 3d Jan., 1867.

" This morning, or rather yesterday morning (as
it is now nearly the dawn of next day), I was awoke
towards 8 of the morning, I think, by a very strong
shock of an earthquake, particularly awful, not only
from its sharpness but its singular motion, quite
different from the trembling motion one generally
feels and hears described, and which reminds most
people of a heavy waggon passing by, as one often
reads of in accounts ; but this one felt like being in
something, a box, for instance, which was being
shoved along by several angry pushers over rough
ground, but always in one direction.
" The movement came distinctly from the sea,
and went inland, and the moments it lasted the house
seemed hopping from north to south, and proceeding
onward that way. It was indescribably terrific. I
sprang; up from bed, and was jerked forward. I
called all the people, and we went down into the
court, and sat there about an hour and a half, not-
withstanding the rain which fell for the first time
since two months. Then, thinking it was over, we
again went up to our apartments, but soon after a
slight shock of the usual trembling kind was felt, and
some minutes after another stronger one, of a swing-
ing motion, but without the displacing sensation of
the first. Since that we have had no other. I hear
in the town the consternation is great. Some houses
have fallen in, all the people are sitting in the rain
in the open places, and all the Jews have fled into
the fields, shutting their shops, &c. A telegram from
Blidah announces the fall of 40 houses in that town,
and the town of Medeah has also much suffered. One
of the walls of our house is cracked, and the garden
walls are rent from top to bottom. It is true they
were old, but still it is awful to see. Another shock
is announced, I do not know why, and so none of us
sleep this night ; a man is placed near the great
door to open it directly he feels anything, and I am
sitting up in my bed whence lam writing. Other
circumstances make the night most dismal. My
rooms are all leaky, and the rain pattering in the
tin basins put to, receive it makes a most melan-
choly sound ; the whole day has been most
dreary, as when it rains a tomb-like chill pervades
the house, which no fire can dispel, and the little
old-fashioned Moorish windows let in hardly any
light. Altogether lam very much impressed, and
the fear, cold, wet, and waking make me feel very
uncomfortable."

GLASGOW, Jan. B.—On Saturday the screw
steamer Falcon, 264 tons, left Glasgow for London-
derry, with passengers and a general cargo. On Sunday
morning, about two o'clock, she struck the land somewhere
between the Mull of Cantyre and Marahanish Bay, on the
west side of the peninsula. The night was very thick with
heavy snow and sleet, and a strong gale was blowing south
by east. The steamer afterwards got off, and the captain
tried to back into the creek, but this was found impossible.
The boats were got out, but the first wa,, swamped. The
lifeboat was next lowered, nuct the second mate, one fire-
man, and the captain entered it. When the boat was
clear of the steamer the latter drifted rapidly from land and
wont down about a mile from the shore. The three men
in the lifeboat suffered dreadfully from tho weather, but
ultimately they got ashore on the island of Islay. The
passengers are variously estimated at from 16 to 40, and
the remainder of the crew, to tho number of 20, aro be-
lieved to have gone down with the ship.

COMPULSORY EDUCATION.—Atthe Salford Epi-
phany Sessions, which commenced yesterday, the
chairman (Mr. A. Milne), in charging the grand jury, said
the state of education disclosed in the calendar was very
lamentable and deplorable. Of 69 prisoners, 4 were well
educated, 14 could read but could not write, 29 could read
and write imperfectly, and 22 could neither read nor write
at all. Judges from time immemorial up to the present
time—and the remark applied more strongly to Quarter
Sessions and the Superior Courts—had been crying out and
begging the country to take into consideration the state
of the education of the people. It was really shocking to
see so much ignorance as must be rife among the lowest
class of the community, as evidenced by the state of these
calendars. They were told to train up a child in the way it
should go, and when it was old it would not depart from it ;
and they might depend upon it the converse of that was
also true—that if they did not train a child at all, but let
him run about the streets when he ought to be at school,
that child unless he were very fortunate indeed, would
come to grief and destruction. They would always have
calendars full so long as they allowed such a state of things
to continue. He was glad to say that the country seemed
at last to be awakening to the necessity of giving these
children some education ; they were beginning to find
now that, taking the very lowest view of it, it was cheaper
and certainly better to prevent children committing crime
than to punish them by sending them to gaol after they
had committed it. Some of the grand jury were probably
aware that several efforts had been made in that city fell:
the purpose of educating the lowest class of the commu-
nity. A society had been formed and had now been in
operation for two or three years, and was doing its best
to remedy the evil. Their object was to give assistance
to poor parents to send their children to school. That
society had done a great deal of good, and they had now come
forward and stated at a public meeting in Manchester that,
it was their unanimous and deliberate opinion, formed after
considerable study of the subject, that nothing would be
of any avail with the lower classes of the community but
compulsory education. When they considered of what that
society was composed—that it was not composed of one par-
ticalar sect, but that its members were composed of all
shades of politics and of a great variety of religious opiniouo
—and when these gentlemen thus came forward, after giving
the subject a good deal of their consideration, and stated
that it was their deliberate opinion that nothing would
avail but compulsory education, their opinion was en-
titled to very great weight. He was happy to say thei
had challenged public opinion in the town, and that by
a very large majority they had carried their resolutionS•
They earned the approval of the meeting to a bill making
education compulsory, and further providing for it by
small rate of 6d. in the pound. The objection which 120.4
been made to that bill appeared to him to be extremely
weak. The rate would certainly not fall heavily on all
but the poorest classes, and if they got cheap education for
their children they would in the long run be decidedly the
gainers. Whatever might be the fate of that bill, it would
at all events have the effect of calling the attention of par-
liament to the subject. He trusted that it would meet with
a favourable reception: because he was quite sure the coup'
try had up to this time grossly neglected the education 0`
what might be called the lowest class of the community,
and it was impossible to have anything but large calendars
and a great amount of crime while children were allowed
to learn everything that was bad by the neglect of their,
parents. Feeling very deeply on the subject, he hoped su!!
trusted that something might be done to remove a stt,t°
of things in which we contrasted very unfavourably with
many foreign countries.
IMPORTANT TO Di STI LLE RS.—A jury trial Of
some interest was concluded on Monday last, after fi'd
days sitting, before the First Division of the Court of Ses"
sion. Messrs. Taylor and Company, merchants, in Leith'
sued Messrs. Macfarlane and Co., distillers, in Port Gla's2
gow, for breach of contract, by the failure of the defended
to supply a quantity (20,000 gallons) of whisky coloure_
with burnt sugar, and supplying instead a similar qt 13,1
'_`.
tity coloured with logwood. The whisky was ordered iv,
export to the coast of Africa, where it was an advents!,
to have it coloured, though not with any deleterious s
stance ; and the pursuers alleged that, by tho failure °r
the defenders to colour the whisky with burnt sugar
other innocent material, as specified in the order, and tn'
dicated in the sample accompanying—and the 1~
nicious effects produced by the logwood used instead
a
their trade had been lust and their reputation iv_c,i,ul ,s 0
The jury, yesterday, after an hour and a quarter's d
ration, returned unanimously a verdict fur the pursuer'a
the damages, which had been laid at £6,000, being aSSOSS'
at £3,ooo.—Sweenan.