Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1853-05-13
England VS.. America.

To Mrs Stowe, the Duchess Of Switzerland, and
all agonzing sympathizers with the ]" Uncle Tom
mania. we COR Hend the following from Dickens's
Household Words:
ct has been calculated that there are in England
and Wales 100000 persons who can neither read
nor whitehall is to say about one-thrd of the po-
pulaon, including of course infants but of all the
children between five and fourteen, more than one
half attend place of public instruction. These state
ments-compiled by Mr.. Kay from official and other
authentic sources, for his work the social condl
ton and education of the poor in England and Europe
would be hard TO believe, if we had not TO encoun
ter in our every day life degrees of iteracy which
would be startling if we were not thoroughly used to
it, Wherever we turn, Ignorance, not always allied
10 poverty, stares in the face. If we look in the
Gazette at the list of partnerships dissolved, not
month passes but some unhappy man, rolling perhaps
in wealth, but walowing in ignorance is put TO the er-
perimentum crusis of his mark The number OF pet
ty jurors-n rural districts especally-who can on
ly sign with cross is enormous 1t is not usual to
see parish documents of great local defced
with the same humiiating symbol by persons whose
office not only shows them to be men of mark but
men of substance. We have printed already speci
mems of the partial ignorance which passes under the
pen of the post office authorities, and may venture
to assert that such specimens of penmanshp and or
Biography are not 10 be matched in any other country
in Europe A housewife in humble life need only
turn to the file of her husbands bills 10 discover HER
oglyphcs which render them many arilhmetcal
puzzles. In short, the practical evidences of the low
this country has fallen, too common TO bear repe
tton. We cannot pass through the Streets we can
not enter place of public assembly, rambIe in the
fields, without the gloomy shadow of Ignorance sweep
ing The rural population is indeed in a
worse plight than the other classes.
"Takng the adult of agricultural laborers, it is al
most impossible to exaggerae the ignorance in which
they live and move and have their being. AS they
work in the fields The external world has hold
upon them through the medium of their senses; but
to all the higher exercises of intellect they per-
feet strangers You cannot address one of them with
out being at painfully struck with the nellec-
tual darkness which enshrouds him. There is in gen.
eral neither speculation in his eyes, intelligence in
his countenance The whole expression is more that
of an animal than of He is wanting, too, in
the erect and Independent bearing of When
you accost him. if he is not insolen which he seldom
is, he is mid and shrinking his whole show
ing that he feels himself at distance from you, great
er than should separate any two classes of He
is often doubtful when you address, and suspicious
when you question him; he is seemingly oppressed
with the interview while it lasts, and obviously
lieved when it is over These are the traits which
can affirm them 10 possess class, after having
contact with many hundreds of farm laborers They
belong to generation for whose intellectual culture
little nothing done. AS class they have nc
amusements beyond the ndu geuce of sense. In nine
out ften recreation is associated in their minds
with nothing higher than sensuay have frequent
y asked clergymen and Others if they often find tho
g adult peasant reading for his others amuse
e ment? The nvariabIe answer is, that such a sigh
is seldom or never Witnessed In the first place, tn
great bulk of them cannot read. In the next, large
proportion of those who can, do with too much diff
fculty 10 admit of the exercises being an Amusement
O 10 them. Again, few of those who read with
0 comparative ease have the taste for doing So"