The Tamworth Examiner and Working Men's Journal. — 1874-12-12 (Tamworth, Staffordshire, England)

THE EXAMINER  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1874.  According to a return published on Wednesday, the local taxation of the country for the year 1872-3 amounted to £22,957,031.  A man named Alfred Keighley was arrested at Halifax, on Wednesday, on the charge of attempting to murder ids wife and to commit suicide. The Brussels Conference on the Usages of War is to be resumed at St. Petersburg, but the date is not yet fixed. Russla has sent out invitations to the various Powers.  At Cambridge, on Wednesday, a man named Langham administered laudanum to himself and four children, but, with one exception, they had so far recovered in the afternoon as to be out of danger.  The revenue returns from April let to December sth, 1874, are as follow :—Receipts, £47,374,399; expenditure, £49,514,756; balances, £4,046,436. Last year :—Receipts, £47,054,896; expenditure, £51,020,052; ba1ance5,1,3,935,165. The British Government, in reply to the Russian invitation to continue the labours of the Brussels Confer,nce at St. Petersburg, have declared their willingness to attend the meeting, though they regret their inability to anticipate a practical result. - • - •  Our Paris correspondent affirms that President Mactnahon's Message has utterly failed to satisfy the French people because they know it has been framed mainly with a view to the conciliatioa of all parties; and they are at a lose to understand how it is that while the Government keenly felt the need of constitutional laws six months ago, it scarcely mentions them now. A serious conflict between whites and blacks is reported from Vicksburg. Seven hundred negroes attacked the town, with the object of reinstating the displaced sheriff. A terrible fight ensued between the attacking negroes and the white population, in which twenty-five of the former were killed, and forty wounded or taken prisoners. The whites only suffered a compara.tively.,triffing loss. The French Assembly, after an exciting debate, on Saturday, resolved by .153 to 133 votes that 11. Jaubcrt's bill for freeing superior education go,from State control should be read a second time. The principal object of this measure is to euable private universities to confer degrees, and its effect, our Paris correspondent points out, will be to transfer the monopoly of the State in this matter to clerical associations. The Local Government Board, in reply to questions sub flitted to it by the Brentford Board of Guardians, declares that guardians have no discretion in applying the piovisions of the Education Act to pauper children, The child of every person in receipt of out-door relief must receive elementary education unless it can be brought within the exceptions sanctioned by the Act, and it is pointed out that it will be the duty of the auditor to disallow relief granted in all cases where the statute has been disregarded. A correspondent at St. Petersburg reports that the Liberals are agitating for a reform of the monasteries, and that men of extreme views go so far 18 to urge their total abolition. They maintain that great advantage would accrue to the Church itself if the wealth possessed by these bodies were appropriated for the benefit of the inferior clergy, who are, for the most part, very poorly paid. Public attention has been specially directed to this subject by the frauds of the Abbess klitrofania, which exposed the abuses and anomalies of the ecclesiastical system. The monks have, it is said, already taken alarm, and the more educated amongst them are circulating pamphlets amongst the people urging opposition to "the destructive projects of the Liberals." An occasional correspondent of the "Times," at Rome, gives currency to a rumour that the English Catholic Bishops in that city have submitted to the Office of the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary for the approval of the Pope, a carefully drawnup project for arousing a strong Catholic religious sentiment in England. It is described as "an elaborate scheme of agitation for the furtherance of Catholic interests and the accomplishment of conversions." The scheme is said to embrace the establishment of an increased number of Catholic missions, the foundation of new religious periodicals, the application of large sums of money to colleges and seminaries whose professors are to be distinguished for "learning and doctrine combined," and it is also to provide for the higher culture of parish. priests, and for extending operations of the socioft of St. Vituent de Paul. At the Bloomsbnry County Court, on Friday, I a gentleman named Le Blanche sued the London and North-Western Railway Company for llls. The plaintiff, it seems, in August last, left Liverpool at two o'clock in the afternoon, having taken a through ticket to Scarborough, where he ought to have arrived at 8 p.m. There was a delay in leaving Manchester, which threw the train late at Leeds and again at York, where it was too late to catch the express train to Scarboroligh, and as he otherwise could not reach Scarborough till 10p.m., he ordered a special train, and now sought to recover he cost of it. The learned Judge thought that the defendants had been guilty of negligence on their line from Liverpaol to Manchester, which caused the plaintiff's delay at York. He gave judgment for the plaintiff for the expenses he had incurred in taking a special train.  An important commnnication has been received by the Press from Lord Carnarvon, who, " with a view to prevent any misapprehension of the precise position of the measures now being adopted far the abolition of slavery on the Gold Coast thinks it right that it should be known that according to Governor Strahan's report of the last mail, the kings and chiefs, after asking and receiving explanations, were fully satisfied with the announcement, that any slave who may not wish to continue to live with his master shall not hereafter be compelled to return to him by any court, English or native. It is therefore unnecessary that cruelty or any other cause should be established; and Lord Carnarvon entertains no doubt that under this declaration slaves will be entirely free to stay with or to leave their masters, and that any attempt to interfere with this freedom will be effectively punished. The proceedings, however, now reported, must be lodked upon as the first step of a policy which must of necessity be gradual in its development." It is easy to understand that neither the law nor the tribunals will at once be able to eradicate a system so deeply engrained in the habits of the people, is not uk oi.sistent with their notions of light and wrong, and is not attended with any severe hardship or suffering. Before slavery can be felt as in itself an intolerable thing, men must be raised to a point somewhere higher in the scale of civilisation than our subjects on the Gold (beat have 4.yet reached.