The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 3, 1866.

exercising a favourable influence upon prices, which
have of late years been very wild. Except in the
elevations of the two Ridings named the panic
caused by the plague continues, and in the two
weeks £25,900 worth of cattle from places not yet
infected have been insured at Malton. Here also
very great attention has been paid to the alleged
identity of the plague with the smallpox, and
various methods of experiment with vaccine matter
are about to be tried. The hardship imposed upon
feeders of stock by the operation of the orders in
Council is much felt in this district, more especially
in the large wold division of Buckrose, which bor-
ders on Malton, Scarborough, and Driffield, but
cannot send stock to any of these markets, and
there is no market in the division. On Saturday
Mr. Lovel, of Knapton, an extensive farmer and
feeder, applied to the Malton Bench for leave to
take four fat beasts to Scarborough, he having sold
them some time ago to a butcher there to take when
fat. The Bench regretted they had no power to
order the removal of cattle from one division to
another, and admitted the hardship of Mr. Lovel's
case and others who live in a division with no mar-
ket. Mr. Ringrose, a Government Inspector on the
wolds, appeared before the bench to lay two charges
of infringement of the orders in Council against Mr.
Grunden, a very extensive wold farmer. One charge
was for not giving proper notice of the outbreak of
the plague, and the other for removing cattle with-
out permission. After a long discussion it was ap-
parent that Mr. Grunden had acted from misread-
ing of the orders, which the bench admitted were
very ambiguous. No prosecution will therefore be
the result. Another and more serious charge was
preferred by Mr. W. Lovel, of Helperthorpe, a wold
farmer, against a butcher, for bringing cattle from
an infected Malton district into the Buckrose district,
whereby some alarm had been occasioned. The but-
cher, it appeared, had obtained the sanction of two
magistrates to the removal, and the cattle were
healthy, and were yet alive and well. Mr. Lovel did
not wish to press a prosecution, but urged on the
bench that the prohibitions issued preventing the
cattle entering a division from any other should be
strictly observed, and he produced a letter from Sir
G. Grey on the matter, stating that healthy cattle
could only be removed within the division. The bench
came to an important decision—namely, not to sanc-
tion the removal of any cattle in future. The effect of
this resolution will be to send the butchers to the
stock, instead of vice versa. Returns of the quarter
sessions have been made up to Saturday night in the
Malton district, showing the date of outbreak, num-
ber of cases, and cause or method of infection since
the first outbreak at Wigganthorpe on November
1, when the disease was first brought into the dis-
trict. For the North Riding Malton district the re-
turn shows that there have been in the two months
204 cases of rinderpest, of which 115 are dead, 14
were killed, 38 have recovered, and the rest remain
under treatment. The poleaxe was early abandoned,
or doubtless the 38 recoveries, few as they are, would
not have been recorded. The inference drawn from
the remarks appended to each case of attack, as
made in the return, was that the plague was intro-
duced from York market (kept open against all re-
monstrance for weeks after the districts were closed),
and taken to Wigganthorpe, Old Malton, News-
ham, and Barton, and thence spread throughout
the district. The return for the Buckrose (East
Riding) division is made by the chief constable, and,
therefore, cannot be obtained until the Quarter
Sessions at Beverley. The following is, however,
an approximate return from the Government In-
spector's reports :—The number of cases in the wold
district included in this division since the out-
break at Leppington, eight weeks ago, is about 360,
of which about 130 are dead, about a dozen were
destroyed just at first, and about 220 are recover-
ing, showing a much more successful issue on the
wolds than on the Malton side of the water.

Sir S. Northcote, M.P., on Art Education.

-•

In a speech at the annual meeting of the Exeter
School of Art, on Friday night, Sir Stafford North-
cote said that every one who looked at the present
state of art education, or, indeed, of the education
question throughout England, must feel that mat-
ters
were in a very hopeful position ; and that
there never was a time when greater attention
was being paid to it by the Government or by the
people themselves. People's minds were beginning
to be cleared, and they were becoming sensible of
what may be done, and what ought to be done. In
moving the adoption of the report, he was anxious
to say a few words upon schools of art, and to par-
ticularise some of the changes recently made by Go-
vernment relative to them. Some of them, perhaps,
would remember that at the meeting of the previous
year he referred to the appointment of a committee
of the House of Commons, on which committee he
had the honour to serve, to investigate the new
minutes of the department of science and art, who
had made certain recommendations which would no
doubt produce some changes in the manner that
Government aid would be distributed to schools.
The select committee made their report, which was
laid upon the table of the House of Commons. Go-
vernment, however, did not act upon the sugges-
tions, but came to the conclusion that it was not
desirable to have a complicated system of payment,
the payments being according to results. The select
committee had proposed the mode of payment by a
simple capitation grant according to the number of
students attending the school. Government had
adopted one half of the proposal, but not that por-
tion referring to the capitation grant, against which
it was said there was a substantial objection. The
course of action thus taken by his friends reminded
him of what Charles Napier once said, that if a
man chose to take the acid part of a seidlitz powder
without the alkali, he could not be surprised if
it did not agree with him. Government had
placed the select committee in a similar position, by
only taking half of their recommendations. A public
meeting was shortly afterwards called, representing
the different schools, and some of the members of
the select committee, in compliance with a request,
waited upon Earl Granville, and represented to his
lordship that the new Government minute would not
afford schools of art sufficient assistance. The depu-
tation was received most courteously, a memorial was
drawn up'and presented, and ultimately large modi-
fications were made in the Government minute.
It was true that the modifications were found fault
with by some persons, who said they should have
been better off if the first Government proposal had
been adopted. Others complained that they felt an
uncertainty relative to the course the Government
would take, and they could not rely upon them. He
was happy to say that in Exeter they could afford
to feel comparatively indifferent upon the subject,
though he was afraid that their excellent master
would not find himself any the better off by the
changes Government had made. It must be remem-
bered that Government in those matters were placed
in considerable difficulty. They had a large system
to deal with, and it was their duty to be economical
in the distribution of the public money, and on the
other hand it was difficult to act so that the system
might not be fettered in its action through want of
funds. Government in avoiding extravagance had
to take care not to be thought niggardly. It had
been determined to give assistance to artisans only
and to pay no money except for direct results, and
in accordance with the recommendations of the
select committee local committees were called upon
to work for themselves. This was done with no
desire to exclude the middle class from these schools,
but only to make them pay a reasonable sum for
their instruction. Government said, "We desire to
spread a more general feeling in favour of art ; we
are ready to help you by establishing good schools
that shall be open on moderate fees, where you can
attend and receive first-class instruction, and we
offer you as a stimulus to exertion medals, prizes,
and the like." The report informed them that they
were in a flourishing condition financially ; that was
no doubt largely attributable to the amount raised by
fees—£loo. The attendance of students was most
satisfactory, and there was an especial increase in
the new classes that had been established at a
higher rate of fee at the master's suggestion, quite
different from last year, when they had long faces,
and thought about what excuses to make for the
decline of numbers, attributing it to sickness or
some other cause. He felt that the middle class

would not object to pay their 4s. a month, or what-
ever reasonable sum was required, believing that in
so doing they would obtain great advantagesby the
instruction they would receive in the school. The
feeling in favour of art education was gradually ex-
tending ; but, as he had previously said, it must be
a work of years. Although some of the classes
were smaller in number, it was gratifying to find
that they were not so in efficiency. The ladies,
who had usually taken off the largest number of
medals, were this year beaten by the artisans.
Middle-class education had of late years been
neglected, that of the higher class had been always
good ; and within the last 20 or 30 years there had
been created an efficient training for the lower
class. The middle class were very much worse off
in this respect than either the upper or lower stra-
tum of society. This state-of things could not be
allowed to continue with safety. Inquiries were,
being made, and at the present time a Royal Com-
mission was sitting to examine into the question.
One of the points to which attention had been
drawn was the kind of education which a boy
should receive, whose life is to be devoted to busi-
ness. He should have an education on general sub-
jects, sufficient to give him liberal views and some
knowledge of foreign languages, in addition to a
science and art training. It was now beginning to
be felt that these subjectghad been greatlyneglected,
and the question was how should lit be given, not
how should it be paid for. The effect of such
schools as theirs was shown in many ways. Other
institutions frequently grew out of them.

inasmuch as the percentage of cures would astonish
many an old hospital surgeon accustomed to wards
haunted with erysipelas and hospital gangrene,
which is in some cases quite as destructive to life as
the original casualty. Mr. Napper assures us that
he has never lost a life that could have been saved—
a thing that no hospital surgeon in any of our me-
tropolitan institutions could say with truth. .He
attributes this happy result in no manner to his own
skill, but to the pure air, liberal diet, and the seclu-
sion of the village hospital, which looks more like
the peasant's own home than are the regular hospi-
tals, with their bare walls, in which everything is
carried on so methodically that the patient speedily
loses his own identity.
It must not be supposed that the cases treated are
of a light kind ; no sort of casualty is refused—in-
deed, many of them have been of the severest nature
known to surgery, yet they have all done well—far
better, indeed, than they would have done under
the skill of the best London surgeons, so powerful
is the curative power of nature when allowed fair
play and seconded by the efforts of even ordinary skill.
A little jealousy of these village hospitals was at first
entertained by some members of the profession, but
this has long since subsided. Etiquette has now
established that in case a practitioner of the neigh-
bourhood has a case for admission, he should by
courtesy be privileged to visit his patient and advise
with the medical officers respecting the mode of
treatment to be followed, and in case an operation
has to be performed he has the option of doing it
himself. By this arrangement the hospital is made
subservient to the interests of the whole medical
body of the district, a matter of no small moment
when we consider the susceptibilities of country
practitioners. When we say that the actual working
expenses of the hospital for the last year did not
exceed £lOO we may safely say that, consider-
ing the serious nature of the cases treated, or the
length of time some of them have been under
treatment, this is a unique institution, and affords
an example worthy of being followed throughout
the length and breadth of the land.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

EAST INDIAN.

The report of Mr. W. Bourne, the chief engineer
on the new Chord line of this company from Bur-
rak ar, 143 f miles from Calcutta, to Luckeeserai,
327 miles from Calcutta ; also on the main line,
having a branch to the Kurhurbalee coal field, states
that the thorough exploring and setting out of the
Chord line through the Nurgoonjoo Pass was com-
pleted during the half year. The length of the
Chord line is about 1231 miles, and of the branch to
Khurhurbalee 231 miles. The centre line has been
staked throughout, and the land plans are being
prepared. The sections and plans showing alterna-
tive routes exhibit this result that, except through
the pass and the country in its immediate neigh-
bourhood, no steeper gradient than 1 in 200 need be
adopted, and that at the pass 1 in 100 cap be ob-
tained. No curve of shorter radius than half a mile
occurs on the line. The country through which the
line passes is in general a ridgy and difficult one.
Owing to this and the thick jungle in places it re-
quired very close examination to select the best
ground for the railway. Between the principal rivers
the country is high and dips suddenly towards the
rivers, involving heavy work in the approaches to the
bridges. He states that the branch line passes through
a broken and difficult country, but by adopting
steeper gradients the work as at present set out can be
very much lightened. The point on the Burrakur Ex-
tension line from which the Chord line starts is 221
miles, from the Kahnoo junction on the company's
main line 721 miles from Calcutta. The 221 miles,
added to the length of the new Chord line, 1231
miles, make together about 1451 miles from the
main line at Kahnoo junction to Luckeeserai, on the
main line ; but by the route of the main line the
distance between those points is 2541 miles, showing a
saving of distance for through traffic, via the Chord
line, when completed, of 109 miles. It is intended
to construct the Chord as a double line at once, and
to leave the portion of the main line from Kahnoo
Junction to Luckeeserai as at present—a single line,
but to double the portion beyond Luckeeserai to
Allahabad ; the main line from Calcutta to the
Kahnoo Junction being already a double one.