The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-08-19 00:00:00

Sir T. Bernard Bir,

, Eq., Ilan

Samuel Bright, E;(i., Sar

„ . „ .....
Jos. Brotherton, Eq., M.I
Wm. Brown. E,q., M P., Ric:mond-huh
Henry Bury, Eq., M
James Pitcairn Camp)
Thos. Cron!;, E=q , P
Edmund Grundy. E

Brotditon, Salford

A., Liverpool

1., Bridge-hall.
am Harter, Esq., lope-hall.
Honry, Esq., M P..W
saw, Esq., M.P., Manchester.
ty, Esq., Victoria-park

Edw. Rvloy Lang Wort
Harold Litt Esc

Liscard-hall

Edw. Lloyd, Eq., Pr
Thos. Redick. , I
Wm. Neild, Manchester_
Fred. Percival, E-q., Manchester
John Rosson. E-q , Moor-hall.
Clement Royals, Esq., Monntfalinee_
Jos. Brooks Yates, Esq., West Dingle_
The proclamation against vice and immorality having
been read,

h-lodg
001.

His LORDSHIP proceeded to charge the Grand Jury.
He said it became his painful duty to discuss the calendar
--a more atrocious one than which, in the course of his
experience, he never saw. He found in it crimes of
fraud and violence as various as the law described. He
found forgeries, commercial frauds, offences under the
head of fraudulent evasions of the law, cutting and stab-
bing—t hat most un-English of offences. He found the
crime of arson, the crime of rape, and criminal knowledge
of children under ten years of age. He found the crime
of manslaughter, and standing out in great prominence
the crime of murder. It seemed to baffle all the calcu-
lations that benevolent and philosophic men had drawn
from the tables which had been properly made annually
in this country, for the purpose not only of discovering
the number of persons who had broken the law, but if
possible of discovering the source from which criminality
flowed, in order that crime might be prevented before its
commission. And it had been seen from those tables,
travelling over a space of no less than thirteen years, that
the want of education stood as a mark upon crime, for it
had been found invariably during those twelve years that
the totally illiterate and the partialiy educated together
formed nine out of ten throughout the calendar, showing
that ignorance and crime were intimately connected.
But he found in this part of the county of Lancaster
that education had not had a very salutary effect, for he
found here,—whereas, as he had already stated, that
throughout the country ignorant persons were criminals
in the proportion of nine to one--that in this calendar,
consisting of 123 prisoners, there were 18 who could read
and write well, and six of a superior education, bringing
the proportion down to three or four to one, and diminish-
ing, of course, to the same amount, the proportion in
favour of education. Thus, they observed, that IS and
6 made 24—that was 24 educated persons out of 123.
That was very striking. 1 here must be some cause for
it. Was it a lax mode of conducting trace in this great
trading portion of the island ? Was it a want of moral
feeling in the conduct of trade ? Was it a want of care
which was exhibited as to the morals of the persons who
so There must be something
was a source from which
rai Jle inference to the con-
clusions of sow very wise men on this subject, that
education, unl it be moral and religious, was
',I acquirement to man.
of stabbing ; there

might receiv

'some education ?

wrone in this ; or it might be it

they might draw a %Try. farourat

rather a IT

pus than a u

There were no less than nir

laughter, involv-
ing the lives of twenty-five of her Majesty's subjects.
In one case nine lives were sacrificed ; and added to that
there were seven cases of murder. There was one case
in the last class to which he had alluded, that of murder,
upon which it would be necessary he should say a few
words. On reading the depositions in the case there
certainly appeared to him to be reason to suppose that the
unhappy woman who was charged with the murder of her
children, was at the time an incompetent agent ; but if the
case was brought before them, and they were satisfied the
act was committed by her hand, notwithstanding what they
had heard about the state of her mind, that had better be
left to the consideration of the jury here, because on an
acquittal from that crime proper care might be taken of
her hereafter; and therefore, if they were satisfied that
this person had destroyed her children, although she was
insane, it would be their duty to find the bill. There was
another case of a class which had disgraced this country ;
a case of domestic treachery by the administration of
arsenic, whores member of the fatiiily in whom the high-
est confidence was placed, in offering food she gave the
means of death—when offering the cup of comfort she
offered that by which life might be destroyed. They
_l_ 1 • I

were no less t

n seve

snouui be cautious in connexion with these matters, be.
cause it seldom happened that a suspicion of this kind
fell upon an individual of having committed so great ar,
atrocity, but public feeling was excited ; it went head.
long away, without having proper premises from which
to draw conclusions. The jury were to protect such per-
They would_pioperly sift the case, to see whether

tor charging this offence ; and, if they
s a ground fur inquiry, they ought to

There was

d with the wilfu
r duty to tr

__
another case, where a mothe
murder of her child by cru

len), that if a course of ern

ed or revenge—they ought to

n mind—