The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-06-27 00:00:00

CONSTANTINOPLE PROM THE SEA.

No words can express the beauty of the city of Constan-
tinople, with its charming suburbs of Pera, Galata, and
Scutari, when seen from the waters on the opposite shore
of the Hellespont. Situated on a cluster of hills, which
there border the Sea of Mormora, it presents an assem-
blage of charming objects, such as are not to be seen in a
similar space in any other part of the world. It has not
the magnificent back ground of the Bay of Naples, nor
the castellated majesty of Genoa, but in the perfection of
the scene, the harmony of all its parts, and the homoge-
neous nature of the emotion it awakens, it is superior to
either. The scene is perfect; the panorama as seen from
the bay is complete. To the north, the majestic entrance
of the Bosphorus —the waters of which are covered with
caiques, while its shores exhibit alternately the wilder-
ness of the savage forest and the riches of cultivated
society—kindles the imagination with the idea of unseen
beauties ; to the east, the suburb of Scutari, in itself a
city, with its successive ranges of terraces and palaces,
the abodes of European opulence and splendour ; to the
west, the superb entrance of the Golden Horn, crowded
with vessels, and the dense piles of the city itself; rising
one above another in successive gradations, surmounted
bythe domes of a hundred mosques, among which the cupola
of St. Sophia and the minarets of that of Sultan Achmet
appear conspicuous ; while, to the south, the view is
closed by the beautiful Point of the Seraglio, its massy
structures guarded with jealous care, half obscured by the
stately trees which adorn its gardens, and dip their leafy
branches in the cool stream of the Dardanelles.

To the above specimen of our author's skill anct
taste as an artistinlandscape,we cannot resist adding
an illustration of his masterly manipulation in
delineating character, and for this purpose adopt his

MENTAL TORTILAIT 07 TUN TrUICS.

The character of the Turks, taken as individuals, has
many estimable qualities, which have gone far to counter-
act the disastrous effects of their system of government.
That they are brave and determined;. and. at one period
Were most formidable to Europe, for their military prowess
need be told to none. But it is not equally well known
how worthy they are, and how many excellent traits of
character are revealed in their private- life. They are not
in general active or industrious—they haveleft the labours
of the field to the natives of the soil—the cares of commerce
to the Armenians, and the islanders of the Archipelago.
Like the ancient Romans, or the medieval Knights, they
deem the wielding of the sword or managing a steed the only
honourable occupation, and worthyot a freeman. But no
one can mingle with them, either in business or society,
without perceiving that few races of men are more estimable
in the relations of private life. Fearless, honest, and
trustworthy, their word is their bond, and they are desti-
tute of the restless spirit and envious- disposition which so
often, in western Europe and America, at once disturb
happiness and provoke to crime. Inactivity is their great
characteristic, repose their chief enjoyment. Their wants,
generally speaking, are few ; their enjoyments such as
nature has thrown open to all. Tb sit on a carpet, smoke
a scented pipe, and gaze under- shade• on the dancing of
the sunbeams on the waves of the Bosphorus, is their
supreme enjoyment. Satisfied, if wealthy, with his own
harem, which combines the ideas of home and pleasure,
the Turk has generally no ambition to invade that of his
neighbour; and the enormous mass of female profligacy
which infests the great cities of western Europe is unknown.
Nothing excites the horror of the Osmanlis so much as
the details of the foundling hospitals, and fearful multi-
tude of natural children in Paris and Vienna : they cannot
conceive how society can exist under such an accumulation
of evils. Though capable, when roused either by religious
fanaticism or military excitement, of the most frightful
deeds of cruelty, they are far, in ordinary times, from being
of a savage disposition ; they are kind to their wives,
passionately fond of their children, charitable to the poor,
and even extend their benevolent feelings to dumb animals.

Of the political sagacity which characterises the
historical compositions of Sir Archibald AllBOl3,
and which is prominently displayed in the present
volume, on the important topics of currency, free
trade, taxation, the rights of labour, the duties and,
privileges of capital, and the practical evils opposed
to the theoretical advantages of trade combinations,
numerous and lucid, as well as dispassionate illustra-
tions are given, in discussing the various domestic
occurrences which are brought under consideration
in course of the narrative ; and in all of these the
benign influence of philanthropy and the soothing
spirit of benevolence are brought charmingly in
aid of cool judgment and clear discrimination,

As indicative in some degree of the light thrown
on the probable issue of the present Turko-Russian
war, by Sir Archibald Alison, and even of the pre-
sent campaign, numerous examples might readily
be quoted, but diminishing space warns us of the
necessity for being brief; and believing that from
the past we may in some sort read the future, we
content ourselves with the annexed account of the

TIIE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.

only excepted. Since the Sanatory Act came into operation,
1,600 dwellings in this town have been drained, being 28
per cent. of all which required it ; whereas during the same
period the number similarly drained in London has fallen
short of 9 per cent. As a consequence, the recent report
of the Board of Health states that the mortality of Liver-
pool has decreased from 31 to 29 per 1,000; but the truth
is, that in the worst part of the town—the parish of
Liverpool, where more than three-fourths of the drainage
has taken place—the reduction in mortality has been from
35 to 32 per 1,000, or equivalent to a saving of 800 lives
annually.*
[lt is sometimes difficult to comprehend such state-
ments without a comparison. The average number
killed annually, both by sea and land, in time of war,
amounts to 899 ; while the wounded are somewhat more
than four times as numerous, being 3,623. Yet in the
town of Liverpool alone, the laying of a few thousand
feet of pipes for drainage, prevents a sacrifice of human
life equivalent to the war destruction in both arms of the
service ; and, by removal of the predisposing causes of
disease, more than four times as many are prevented from
being silently wounded. In 1847, the approximate pro-
portion of life lost in Liverpool by each person was one-
half; but supposing it now to be only one-third, the
number of lives destroyed annually, in a population of
400,000, must be appalling. Every investigation tends to
show that in actual battle the mortality is, for the circum-
stances, surprisingly small ; while amid the masses of our
population it is surprisingly great. At the battle of Vit-
toria, only one bullet in 459 took effect ; and in the recent
Cape war it required 3,200 bullets and as many charges of
powder to wound a Caffre ; while medical men, in the
visitation and treatment of severe epidemics, are killed at
the rate of 12 to 20 per cent.—that is, one out of every
five or eight ! The horrors of peace are a hundred fold
greater than the horrors of war.]
The conclusions arrived at, on a consideration of all the
circumstances, may be very briefly enunciated, viz. :-
1. That evening classes for adults are most valuable, in
supplying the omissions of early education, and in impart-
ing the peculiar sort of knowledge which experience has
shown to be most required by the pupils.
2. That such classes, like church services on week even-
ings, could be established in almost any part of the town ;
and their absence depends not so much on the difficulty of
the case as on the absence of demand, and the conscious•
ness that such instructions would be but partially, if at
all, taken advantage of.
3. That in Liverpool, such classes are most likely to
succeed among artisans or skilled labourers ; many of
whom live near the parish boundary, from Windsor,
along the lower part of Edge-hill and Everton to Kirk-
dale, and also in the Park.
4. That they may also succeed in any mixed popula-
tion—as in Birkenhead, Chester, or West Derby—where
even the lowest class of the community exists in compara-
tive comfort, and constitutes but a small proportion of the
whole population.
5, That with the lowest and most numerous class in
Liverpool, comprising unskilled labourers only, such classes
are not likely to be either appreciated or accepted ; from
the want of all motive for improvement, the constant pre-
sence of one absorbing thought, how to live at all,-and the
consequent deficiency or utter absence of spirit, ambition,
and self-respect.

6-; That even in those cases where such classes are
gladly taken advantage of, they will be successful only, or
mainly,.during the winter months.
7. That while reading and: writing should be taught,
of course; where they are not sufficiently known, the• in-
structions should have a special character, where people
of a particular class reside in unusual numbers—es:,
foundry-men, carpenters, miners, sailors, &c.
8. That from the inveteracy of habit, the claims of
domestic life, and other causes% such classes are not likely'
to succeed, even during the winter months, with persons.
who have passed beyond 22 or-23 years of age.

9. That the difficulties which surround the education,
of the adult, should form a new and powerful argument
for the better education of the: young ; and that the chil—
dren of the lowest class in the community, whose case
is most hopeless in after years, have the first and:
strongest claims upon the sympathy and exertions of
the town.

After these conclusions hull been reached, indepeti.-
dently, some very interesting,but indirect verifications of
them, attracted my attention..

The first is an abstract taken from the census of edn.
cation cf 1851. It appears that there were then 1,515,
evening classes for adults in • all England and Wales, or
one fore every 11,000 of the population. At this rate;
Liverpool should contain about 36, or nearly at the rate of
one for every ecclesiastical districts in the town. As might
be expected, they were most numerous in the manurae-
tilting districts; and in Lancashire and the West Riding
of Yorkshire, they were far more numerous than in any
other part of the country.. The pupils amounted to
39,783;! giving an average of 26 to each school. One crass
of the community alone, artisans, constitute more than a
third,. or 36 per cent. of the whole ; three other classes,
agricultural labourers, factory hands, and domestic ser-
vants, constitute another third; leaving to all other
classes of the community to supply the remaining third,
in which the town labourer would find a low place. Do-
mestic servants, who are given as one of the four principal
classes, amount only to three-per cent. The subjects knight
generally embraced reading, writing, and arithmetic,hut in
addition to these, grammar and geography were taught in
more than a fifth of the schools, history in one-ninth,
mathematics in one-twelfth, modern languages intone out
of every forty-threes and book-keeping in one out of --every
fifty-three.

The second verification. I obtained at the Free Public
Library ; the faetsuf which are the following. In, the
month of November last year, the reading room contained
at an average IfY7 readers, each evening at eikbt o'clock,
and in the month, of May of the present year,.lla. Its
entire accommodation amounts to only 130. If we suppose.
the room to be occupied by two distinct sets. of readers in
the course of an: evening, the numbers are. doubled, and
are respectively 214 and 226. In connexion with the.two
leading libraries, there are 4,015 volumes, and 1,50 e
readers, or persons entitled to take books home. Many
persons who. look at such facts absolutely but not rela-
tively, are.highly pleased with these results,. and they are
highly gratifying so far as they go. I would skaply
remark,, however, " what are these among so many r If
an enormous population like ours possessed a fair average
of intelligence and spirit, there is not a ward of the town
but should do as much in the way otacquirements as the
whole town has done.

The third, point is derivable from the statistics of the
evening schools held at the North. Corporation School ;
the.facts referring to the last three years. In nine years
5,951 males were admitted, and in three years 1,258
females; or an annual average of 661 males and 419
females. The average attendance, however, was only 73
males and 65 females ; and this is accounted for in part by
their brief connexion with the school, which averaged a
little more than four weeks for the males, and more than
five weeks for the females. In both sexes, though the
pupils had left school anclentered on remunerative employ-
ments, there were few actual adults; for the makes
averaged in the three years, from 25th March, 1851, to
25th March, 1854, 15. years, and the females from 13; to 13.
Strange to say, in both cases, there was a regular decrease
of age, a younger class of pupils seeming to thrust out
even those who by courtesy were called " adults." One
would like to see the tendency in the opposite direction ;
the junior population requiring supplementary instruction
less and loss, and the seniors trying to recover lost ground
more and more, in the competition of improved intellect.
I have thus endeavoured to present as many facts as
possible in a brief space, as the basis of sound opinion.
The practical inference to be derived from the whole is, I
think, at once obvious and indisputable. We should
endeavour to supply to adults, the education which, from
circumstances of various kinds was neglected in youth, or
which experience has shown to them to be most required.
If adult evening classes were opened in parts of the town
where skilled labourers and other poor persons reside, who
are beyond the harrassing pressure of want, they would
be likely to be well attended, and in general would be
completely self-supporting. The time of our best teachers
is a good deal occupied, owing to the stringent arrange-
ments of the committee of the Privy council, but com-
petent teachers could still easily be procured. One class,
of the community, however, I consider all but hopeless in
reference to improvements to be effected in this way. It
consists of those who can never drive " the wolf from the
door ;" who, through hardship and uncertainty, have lost
all trust and almost belief in an overruling Providence ;
who have, in many cases, retrograded from moral agents
and intellectual beings to mere animals ; and in whose
dark future, to-morrow threatens to be as gloomy as to-day,
to-day being only a repetition of the misfortunes of
yesterday.

* From a Ite;iort of the Medical Officer of Health, June
15th, 1854.
1: There are 46 such districts in the town.

ISI).',WSPATERS ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.—Small as
cor.ntry newspapers were, not containing more matter
tviian in one of our pages, the editors had sonic difficulty in
Ifilling them. A Leicester newspaper about 1750, filled
with a chapter from the Bible every week, beginning with
Genesis I ~ until it reached Exodu3 X.