The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-26 00:00:00

MR. KINGSLEY ON -TILE WORKING
CLASSES.

Among the papers read at the annual meeting of the
Southern Counties Adult Education Society, held at
Southampton on Thursday evening, was one by Professor
Kingsley on "The Educational Value of Industrial Exhi-
bitions." Mr. Kingsley based his observations on the
success of an exhibition held in his own as one of five
parishes in North Hants, where, out of a population of
4,000, 400 contributed, of whom about 350 belonged to
the lower middle class ; and 1,300 of the poor, besides
1,200 of the middle and upper classes, visited it. He then
offered some characteristic reflections on that exhibition
as regards the agricultural labourer, respecting whom
complaints come on all hands—they are not skilled, their
morals and general condition are not improving, and the
young men, though better fed and paid than their grand-
fathers were, are not better off, and are growing more
shiftless and thriftless every year. The large farm
system has exterminated the small cottier
Jack-of-all-
trades, and it is now painful to see how, when you ask an
average labourer to do anything be is not accustomed
to do by mechanical habit, he is at fault, not becouse he is
lazy, careless, or stupid, but that he has no resources and
no faith in himself. When he looked from Lis pulpit at
the large and well-formed brains, the delicate features of
his own kindly and graceful-mannered people, and con-
trasted the small amount of intellectual activity which
can be got out of them with the energy of the coarser
voiced and coarser mannered Northumbrian or Scot
(who is meanwhile fully their equal in Moral worth), he
seemed to be looking at the results, not of an undeveloped
barbarism, but of a worn-out civilisation; and his opinion
was, that unless they could awaken the constructive
intellect of their southern men, the northerners
would beat them out of the field. The ablest
and cleverest of their young men now migrate to
London and the great towns, and the only possible coun-
teraction he col,' foresee was a revivification of the
southern folk by northerners, by intermarriage, for example,
or rivalry. Meantime something may be done by these
industrial exhibitions if kept up periodically; but it is not
merely the receptive intellect which requires to be excited
—it is the constructive. As for the habit of boozing
in public-houses, wherever in a cold, damp, depressirg
climate you have tired peasants, with undeveloped
intellect, and tolerably full purses, they will booze just as
you see the Dutch boors of the seventeenth century
boozing in the pictures of Teniers or Ostade ; just as
William Langland saw the Worcestershire peasants
boozing in the latter half of the fourteenth cen-
tury—with this exception, that the ale was good then,
which is more than can be said of it in these days of salt
and water, cocculus indicus, grains of Paradise, and the
other poisons for promoting thirst and stupefaction, So it
went then, and so he feared it must go now, from bad to
worse, as long as insane laws or faulty laws permit the
beerhouse to be brought to every man's door, and gar-
nished with two attractions which he would not specify.
For the poor lads there are great excuses. The days are
gone by when, in England at least, the whole family
sat round the fireside, cheerful and comfortable, though in
a miserable cabin, while the old grandmother told fairy
tales or crooned ballads, and the girls knitted or spun or
made their own clothes or their brothers' ; and the fathers
and sons each had his handiwork. It might be said that
they ought to read in this day of books and tracts, but
reading for any length of time is very hard work to the
uneducated mind, especially after a heavy day's labour ;
and to listen to reading if the hands are unemployed very
hard work also ; while reading costs candles and fire, and
there is no work done to pay for that candle, as there is in
the case of the Highland or the German cottage ; and so
the beerhouse is sought again and again, not so much for
the sake of drink as for that of light and warmth and com.
pany.

Mr. Gladstone, who has brought his election tour
in South-West Lancashire to a termination, has returned
to Irawarden Castle, where the right hon. gentleman is
expected to remain until the eve of the elections.

Ain. BRIGHT'S VISIT TO EDINBURGH.—We un-
derstand that it is now arranged that the presentation of
the freedom of the city to Mr. Bright will take place in
the Music Hall on Tuesday, 3rd November, at two
o'clock ; and that the public meeting will be held in the
Corn Exchange on the evening of Thursday, the sth.--
Edinburgh Courant.
THE WESLEYAN CONFERENCE AND MR.
PUNSHON.—The Nonconformist papers state that the
Wesleyan Conference has refused to allow a request, made
by the Canadian Church, that the Rev. W. M. Punshon
should be the president of its next assembly, the rev.
gentleman being at present in Canada. His name is also
to be dropped from the " legal hundred." This condemna-
tion is to be carried out in consequence of Mr. Punshon
having, on leaving England, married his deceased wife's
sister.

ACCIDENT AT CHESTERFIELD.—A shocking affair
happened at Chesterfield during the gale on Saturday
night. Messrs. Ind, Coope, and Co., brewers, have on
the top of some newly-erected offices a large sign, which
was on both sides exposed to the storm. A furnaceman
named Thomas Willis and his wife were passing these
offices when the sign gave way, and fell with a large por-
tion of the brickwork upon them. Willis was found
quite dead, his back having been broken. His wife sus-
tained a severe contusion on the head, from which it is
not expected she will recover.

JEST AND EARNEST.—A little tragedy in real
life has been enacted at the Swansea Theatre. It appeared
that a coloured actor, named Morgan Smith, had been
engaged to take the principal characters in sensational
dramas. During a desperate encounter in one of the
pieces Mr. Smith was furnished with a loaded pistol too
heavily charged. When he fired at the heroine the unfor-
tunate actress staggered back, wounded in real earnest.
The wadding struck her on the arm, causing a severe
lacerated wound. She was at once removed to the infir-
mary, and there the poor woman will remain for some time.
THE LORDSHIP OF THE TREASURY.—Lord Claud
John Hamilton, M.P. for Londonderry city, has been
appointed the Irish Lord of the Treasury, in succession to
the Hon. Gerard Noel, promoted to the post of Patronage
Secretary. His lordship is the second son of the Duke
of Abercorn, and is 25 years of age. It is usual for
the Lords of the Treasury to:represent the three kingdoms,
and the ordinary practice is now carried out in Lord Oland
Hamilton's appointment, Mr. Whitmore being the
English, and Sir Graham Montgomery the Scotch lord.
Previously there were two lords for England, and one for
Scotland, the interests of Ireland having been cared for
Py c94422lTaylvrz the parlimgary secretary