The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-24 00:00:00

711 E PEOPLE'S MARKEIS

Early in December last we had occasion to notice the
opening of the People's Market, 272, IVhitechapel-road,
which had been established by Mr. John M`Call, of
Houndsditch, for the sale, at prices below those usually
charged by retail dealers, of butchers' meat, vegetables,
bread, butter, provisions, groceries, and other articles.
The market has now been opened for more than two
months, and during that time an active business has been
done by the salesmen in all the departments. The greatest
amount of goods were sold in the first week during which
the market was open. The prices charged were then
considerably below the rates at the retail shops in the
neighbourhood, and the inducement to housekeepers to
avail themselves of the market was proportionately great.
In the course of the last few weeks, however, the shop-
keepers, who had felt the effect of this new form of com-
petition, in diminished business, have reduced their prices
to about the same rates as are charged in the market.
Some indeed. charge rather less ; but it is doubtful
whether the articles they supply are quite as good
as those which may be obtained of Messrs. M`Call
and Co. The effect of this alteration has been
that some of the retail trade of the neighbourhood
has returned to the old channels, and the business
done in the market has slightly diminished in extent. The
market is not, however, entirely dependent upon the
patronage of the dwellers in the immediate vicinity. In
order to extend its advantages to families residing at a
distance, branches have been opened close to the termini
of the Great Eastern, South-Eastern, and North London
Railways. At the two first-mentioned depots a stock of
some articles is kept, and both there and at the third
branch any goods which are ordered in the morning are
delivered the same afternoon. The proprietors of
the People's Market have not confined their attention to
the supply of raw provisions at moderate rates. They
have also made an attempt to deal with the question of
providing cheap cooked food for the poor. Twice a day
they sell good soup—pea, curry, or Scotch broth—at 2d.
a quart, and a pint of any one of these soups, with a
large piece of bread, which is supplied for a halfpenny,
is found to furnish no bad meal for a labouring man
or woman. So much is the soup approved of by the
people in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel, that about
300 gallons are sold daily, and sometimes as many as 200
persons are to be seen drinking it at one time. Pa ;ins are
supplied by the proprietors of the market, but the soup-
drinkers have to bring their own spoons. We paid a
visit to the market on Saturday night, at the time that
the soup was being sold, and y, itnessed the satisfaction
with which it was swallowed by both men and women,
by both old and young. The soup served on Saturday
night was pea-soup, and having tasted it we can vouch
for its being well flavoured, strong, and nourishing. It
certainly hardly merited the lavish encomium which Lord
Brougham one pronounced upon some penny soup in the
House of Lords, greatly to the amusement of the peers,
" Better soup your lordships never tasted ;" but it was such
a liquid as no hard-working man or woman need despise,
and which no unsophisticated palate would reject. For
those who are snore nice in their tastes, or are blessed with
more abundant means, there is always on hand a good
supply of cooked meats, hams, tongue, brawn, &c., and as
these are sold at prices considerably under those charged
in the ordinary ham and beef shops, they are always in
brisk demand.

4RCIIBISHOP MANNING UN ED & CATION.

The Lenten pastoral of Dr. Manning was read in all the
churches and chapels of the Roman Catholic diocese of
Westminster yesterday. It consists exclusively of a treatise
on popular education, and is diametrically opposed to the
State undertaking the instruction of the people. The
Archbishop says the duties and rights of parents are
derived from the natural and the Divine law, but the
Church is the guardian and executor of that law. " The
State has no commission, either natural or revealed, to
educate ; and no jurisdiction over the rights of parents or
of the Church in the education of its children. here we
are at direct issue with Erastian and latitudinarian poli-
ticians. The wisest policy of the State, for its own sake,
is to assist both parents and the Church in the work of
education. The public revenues cannot be better applied
than in preventing ignorance and crime; nor more unpro-
fitably spent than in punishing what it ought to have
prevented. It is true, indeed, that the State may pro-
tect itself. If parents, through criminal neglect of their
offspring, suffer them to grow up in ignorance, and thereby
to commit crime, society, in self-defence, may punish the
parent and endeavour to reclaim the child. But even
then it has no rights against the faith and conscience of
the parents or their children." " A Minister of Public
Instruction," he goes on to say, "is intelligible : a
Minister of Public Education there cannot be. The office
is not vacant. The Church has received this coin-
mission from its Divine Head. It will never resign its
trust, and no earthly power can deprive it of its
office To establish a sys'cem of mere secular
instruction, to avoid `the religious difficulty,' as it is
called, is a poverty-stricken device. It has been tried in
America, and proved by experience to be neither efficient
nor moral in_its result. France and Prussia, which have
led the way in State education, have shewn a higher
sense of what education is. Both have been wiser and
more Christian than to attempt a system of mere secular
instruction. Both have carefully preserved and employed
to the fullest extent what is called the denominational
system. Moreover, where is the justice of -paralysing the
free action of a majority who are already labouring to
Christianise the people, in favour of a minority who reject
or are careless about Christianity ? Every sign of the
times warns us' of our public danger. Pauperism and
crime have steadily increased, and drunkenness, deny it
wh ) will, the cause of both, is steadily spreading among
our people. They who believe that these moral diseases
can be cured by instruction— that is, by reading, writing,
and arithmetic—know little of human passion and human
wickedness. The miserable religious divisions of England
are driving our legislation into a complete exclusion of
Christianity from its pub:ic acts. But this is to desecrate civil
society, and to reduce it to the mere natural order ; an I
once reduced to the mere natural order, two consequences
are inevitable—the moral action of public law
expires, and the immoralities of the natural order straight-
way revive and multiply. But we may yet hope that a
system of merely secular education is not likely to exist
among us." After condemning the present Irish system,
which some, he says, would wish to have adopted in Eng-
land, the Archbishop urges that instead of new expedients
fatal to the integrity and efficiency of the vast, if inade-
quate, system of education we have already forissed, the
course of true policy and of just toleration would be, first
to develope and extend the existing system, and, secondly,
to increase the grant; of public money for educational
purposes. '' A million and a half," lie says, " spent in a
true Christian education of our people would in the
end save millions now lost in punishing crime and in
relieving pauperism. There was, perhaps, never a moment
when Christianity had a feebler hold over the people of
this country, and that for two reasons-- the action of reli-
gion over the masses has grown perpetually less, and the
masses have multiplied year by year. At such a time as
this to hasten and extend the separation of religion from
education is an imprudence bordering on infatuation.
Better let even our sectarian divisions exist than rob
Christian children of Christian education, howsoever im-
perfect. To be in earnest for a fragment of divine truth
is better than to be indifferent about the whole of Chris-
tianity. Excepting a handful of doctrinaire and a few pro-
fessed secularists, there is not to be found any number of
people in the coantry who would prefer a school without
Ohristianit;."