The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-01-04 00:00:00

CHESTER SESSIONS.

The following report from the Rev. H. S. Joseph, the
exemplary Chaplain of Chester Castle, was read yesterday
at the annual meeting of magistrates :
" TO THE CHAIRMAN AND MAGISTRATES OP THE

COUNTY OF CHESTER.
"Twelve months have now passed away since I had the
privilege of presenting my first report to the magistrates
assembled in this court, during which time many
pleasing and encouraging circumstances have transpired
within the walls of the Castle, which I feel it to be my
duty to bring before you.

"One hundred and fifty-eight prisoners have been
discharged during the past year, many of them under very
encouraging circumstances, several of whom expressed
their feelings of gratitude for the religious instruction they
had received in this place • others expressed themselves
in this manner—' Oh ! if I had had such instruction
given me and such pains taken with me before I had been
brought to this Gaol, I should not have been a prisoner.
I have lived in the midst of sin and ungodliness, and no
one seemed to care for my soul.' Others have again
expressed themselves in this way—' Oh, sir, if it had not
been for drink and jerry shops I should have been a
happy man. I could earn from 255. to 30s. a week, and
yet after all I could not find sufficient to get me a new
suit of clothes. Most of my money was spent in drinking
at alehouses.' I find that the majority of the prisoners
were earning from 15s. to 20s. a week—showing evidently
it was nob want or distress that brought them to publie
shame, but excess of drink in most cases. In fact, I be-
lieve from my heart that the small public-houses and the
jerry shops are a curse to our country.
In my report last sessions, I mentioned that we had
sent four boys up to the Philanthropic Institution. In
the last letter which I received from the chaplain, the
Rev. Sydney Turner, he says, ' The boys, Shottin and
Tomlinson, go on very well ; of Knott and Jackson I
hope to be able to say something more in a few months'
time.' Knot is only turned ten years of age, and Jackson
eleven. We have three lads now in prisms, all of whom
I trust will be sent shortly to the same excellent insti-
tution.

" Within the last few weeks I have had a class of the
tried-prisoners, at one time, and the untried at another,
and deliverered to them a course of lectures from Cruick-
shaAk's plates on drunkenness. I have no doubt they

have had a most powerful . effect ; many of the prisoners
were seen in tears, whilst I' was illustrating the awful
effects of intoxication. I intend going on with this
course from time to time.

" The general conduct oP the prisoners is good. At
our morning services I deliver a lecture to them for about
15 minutes. To these they are remarkably attentive ;
each one that can read has his bible, and follows me
throughout ; his attention is arrested, and a deep interest
appears to be felt amongst them generally.
• When prisoners have been discharged I have always
found a great difficulty to know what to do with them, so
that the good impression made upon their minds may not
be easily forgotten.
" With the female prisoners my difficulty has been
relieved, as there is an excellent institution in this city
willing and ready to receive females into their House of
Refuge, and where several have been sent, and are still
there. One or two left at their own request ; the others
are.doing well.

" Sonie of the women that were not fit persons to be
sent to the refuge I put in a small way of business, and
they are getting a comfortable living. Two of the male
prisoners I took home with me to my own house, and in
two days I procured them situations at a farm-house in
the township of Upton, where they have given great satis-
faction, and where they both worked and earned 12s. a
week, one of them being still employed.
" Many pleasing circumstances have been communi-
cated to me concerning several prisoners that left this
castle during the past year. I pray God that the poor fel-
lows may be kept from all temptation.
" During the past year our communicants have been
as follows :—Christmas-day, 1846, four communicants ;
March, 1847, eight; Easter Sunday, 12; Whit Sunday,
10; September, 14, and Christmas-day last, 14. This
does not include the governor, his family, and the officers.
" I desire to express my feelings of gratitude for the
zealous co-operation of the governor of this castle, in the
important work in which we are engaged. I have always
found him ready to assist me with his kind advice, and to
encourage me in my work. I feel it also right to say that
both the schoolmaster and other officers of this place are
indefatigable in the discharge of their important duties,
and all things seem to be working together for good.
"No complaints whatever have been brought against
any prisoner for misconduct in the House of God, and I
have great reason to hope that the word preached from
time to time will be the means of bringing many of these
unfortunate prisoners from darkness to light—from sin
and Satan unto God.'

" H. S. JOSEPH, Chaplain."
" Castle, Chester, Jan. Ist, 1848.

MEETING FOR THE ELECTION OF
CONSTABLES IN LISCARD.

On Friday evening, immediately after meetings of the
commissioners and improvement committee of Wallasey
parish—both of which were financial'and private—at the
Queen's Arms, in Liscard, a meeting of the inhabitants
of the township was held at the same house, in conse-
quence of the following notice, publicly posted :—"Notice
to the inhabitants of Liscard, that a meeting of the inhab-
itants of Liseard will be held at Mrs. Hall's, Queen's
Arms, Liscard, on the evening of the 31st December, &c.,
for the purpose of appointing constables for the township
for the ensuing year." This was dated 29th December,
and was signed by Charles Reddy and Edward Cotterall,
overseers. The attendance was pretty numerous, and
Mr. Mullen, innkeeper, who was called to the chair, on
opening the business, expressed the feeling of all present,
in alluding to the calling of the meeting at such a time,
which in the usual routine of business was out of date,
previous elections having been in November and March.
Neither of the overseers were present to explain, but Mr.
Redhead, deputy overseer, intimated what he believed to
be the cause—namely, that Mr. Scambler, the head con-
stable, had frequently been absent at Knutsford and else-
where, to which a constable might have been sent ; that
in his absence recently there was no one to sign sum-
monses that were wanted ; and that Sir Edward Cust,
one of the magistrates, on learning the fact, had said that
if they could spare Mr. Scambler so much from home,
they could perhaps dispense with his services altogether.
Owing to this, he believed, the meeting had been called
by advice of the magistrates. The chairman good-hu-
mouredly said that those hitherto proposed for constables
(and from the list of whom the magistrates had to select
the required number) were humble members of society,
and he thought it would be but fair that some of those
who had a larger stake in the township ought to be called
to the office of general protection. He, therefore—after
a complimentary comment on the personal and other qua-
lifications of each individual named—proposed that the
following list of gentlemen, handed to him, be forwarded
to their worships :
Mr. John North, Mr. H. W. Gilliott, Mr. John Taylor,
Mr. Louis Huguenin, Mr. T. K. Hassell, Mr. Daly,
Church-street, Egremont, Mr. James Stringer, and Mr.
Wrn. Rushton Colbourn.

The list was unanimously adopted amidst mirthful, but
apparently sincere plaudits, on the general merits of each.
The chairman signed the minutes of the proceedings
and handed them to the deputy overseer for presentation
to the magistrates. It is generally thought that none of
those in the list, who may be selected, will serve, but that
they will, as is usual, we believe, in such cases, find effi-
cient substitutes. Three constables are, we learn, gem
ally appointed for the township.
The Chairman was requested by the mee _
upon the magistrates, and to represent to them, as the
general opinion of the inhabitants, that it was ,l s'. able
that the constables of the township should do the required
constabulary duties, as the Commissioners' police officers
had quite enough to do in the business of the parish.
The business being concluded in due form, those pre-
sentenjoyed a new year's glass, and separated in the best
of humour.

g to call

CORRESPONDENCE.

EDUCATION IN WALES

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVF.PPOOL
Stu,—lt is said that great events have often small be-
ginnings, and if this letter may in the least contribute to
bring about the end for which it was written, I shall feel
greatly obliged by your giving it publicity in your perio-
dical.

Not for a long time has the public mind bcen so agi-
tated as it now is. Commercial disasters are all over the
kingdom; horrid atrocities in Ireland; and last, though
not least in its consequence to the inhabitants, the moral
and intellectual character of the Welsh publicly slan-
dered. These have caused a great deal of excitement,
and the latter, no doubt, will (aute a great deal of harm.;
for, coming from government offi. ials authorised to exa-
mine the schools in Wales, the slander lets more weight.
I fear, Mr. Editor, that you will be tired of so many
letters in defence of the Welsh nation ; but all that I
have yet seen are more or less characterised by sectar'e
feeling, and uncharitable and untrue assertions respee'
the clergy and mein'oers of the Established Chur,.
Wales; and this is especially the case with the lett,
which have appeared in the Liverpool Journal. Do the
writers of these letters not perceive that, at the same
time that they are finding fault with the erroneous report
of the commissioners, by attempting to define the cause,
they themselves are casting a slur upon Welsh church-
men, and especially the clergy ? The conjecture about
the way in which the commissioners obtained their infor-
mation, is, to say the least of it, shamefully uncharitable,
and vulgarly personal. Have none but Walsh Dissenters
been scandalised ? Does it not extend to churchmen as
well ? Were not the parish schools in Wales examined
by the commissioners ? Bigotry must, indeed, be deeply
rooted that, when a common enemy is to be opposed, i 1 e
measure for defence should rause dissensions amongst
those who feel themselves injured.
That the majority of the Welsh are Disseni, _
no doubt. At the relapse which sues-:.ded the Reforma-
tion, because of the apathy and lukewa"mness of some of
the clergy in Wales, a few zealous ministers left the Es-
tablished Church, that they might have more I..cedom, as
they thought, to preach the Gospel. But can the dissen-
ters of the present day compare themselves to these ? A.
little examination will discover to us how they have dege-
nerated. So far were those pious men from bearing any
malice to the Church of England, that they spoke of he
in the most reverential manner, and expressed their
viction of the excellency of her formularies, and even
polormed the whole of the chnrch service in their cha-
pels. Can the Baptists, Methodists, and all the other
sects which have sprung into existence only a few years
ago, recognise themselves with those I Lave just man-
e.... PT.! 7 fen. e the) i-anu toTtownig Inc rum-
steps of their forefathers, that many of them at this day
consider the book of common prayer nothing else than a
jumble of Popish gibberish. I hope my dissenting fellow-
count rymen will not be offended, for have said nothing
but what can easily be proved correct. But, lam per-
suaded that better days are dawning upon the Welsh
church ; there seems to be a shaking amongst the dry
bones, and we may look forth to behold a very great army
stand up in the defence of the church of our foretathers—
the church of Christ. When Popery first landed on the
shores of Britain, with her mummeries and superstitions,
her lying legends and cruel persecutions, her promoters
found the Church of England fully established, and felt
that she was an invincible foe, and such she has proved
to be to this day. There remained some in the church
who, in the midst of surrounding degeneracy, con-
tinued steadfast, immovable in the truth ; as shining
lights when all around were involved in darkness, and
were as beacons to warn the presumptuous of their
error. But what do those of her children, who thought
fit to separate from her communion ?—who preferred
the habitation of strangers to their paternal roof ?
and the- blind ravings of demagogues to the watchful care
of an affectionate parent ?—what token of gratitude do
they show for the inflexible and victorious opposition to the
intrigues of Rome ? Alas ! the cry that is heard from
every town and hamlet, and reverberates along our ma-
jestic hills, is—" Raze it, raze it, even to the ground !"
But I must say that such animosity is only, shown by the
most bigoted and ignorant : those who know least about
the Established Church are the loudesf in their cry against
her. I know, from personal observation, that intelligent
dissenters have a regard for our national church ; and
where there is a faithful minister in the church, they will
gladly attend. As an instance of their willingness, I shall
transcribe a short extract from a letter I received from a
friend some weeks back. After stating.that he had heard
the Rev, —, a very excellent minister, lately come to a
small village in Wales, he says :—" He has an immense
congregation at his church, and the farmers of all Calvin-
istic persuasions invite him to preach at their houses con-
tinually. So great is he in the estimation of the Methodist
and Old Baptists, that they put off their own meetings
when he is preaching near, to bear, as they say, " Yr
Efengyl yn cael ei phregethu yn ei phurdeb"—" the
gospel preached in its purity. And I think the corres-
pondent of last week's Journal had no need to exult so
much because the Welsh are mostly dissenters ; for they
became dissenters not entirely from choke, but rather
through necessity.