fbt Vinnium.
The farewell dinner to Mr. Sharman Crawford by his constituents was given in the Public Hall at Rochdale on Friday the 5th. Mr. John Bright and Mr. Cobden made the speeches of the evening : Mr. Crawford himself spoke but briefly. Mr. Cobden in particular attacked the "small borough" system, with a great variety of illustration; but from that special onslaught he proceeded to a general indictment against all con- stituencies for the little value they set on their own political principles, by letting the best Members of the House of Commons go into the service of the Government of the day without imposing any condition on the Go- vernment that their principles shall be carried out. He bad in his eye eight or ten instances. Now, if one by one the Government is allowed to detach from the Liberal party all those who could enable it to carry out Liberal principles, what right have Libe- rals to complain that their party can accomplish nothing in the House of Commons ? . . . . You all recollect, that last session the two parties, Whig and Tory, broke down together ; it seemed as near a dying out of the old members of party as possible. Neither Whig nor Tory party could carry on the Government. They took up the reins, and after fumbling a little at them, dropped them again. Our Government went so completely a begging that an octogenarian Field-Marshal took the reins on Saturday and held them, I think, till the Wednesday ; Lord John Russell telling the House of Commons that the Queen, finding that the Government could not be held by either of the old parties, had banded it over for the time being to the Duke of Wellington : but the old parties took advantage of the opportunity to have a special kick at the Radical party, and said, Ah ! but the Queen :never sent to your party, though. The Queen offered the Ministry to Lord Stanley and to Lord Aberdeen, but nobody ever heard of her sending for Mr. Hume or the Radicals.' Well, I don't complain of that. I don't complain that the Government don't send for me as an official. I don't want to have any mock modesty about it. I tell you honestly, that from opportunities I have had since I have been in Parliament of taking stock of the men who do fill official situations, I am not going to tell you that I believe I could not fill an office as well as any of them. I am not going to affect any such hu- mility, because it would be very great humility : but I have no desire, no taste for it. My craniological development, according to the phrenologists who have manipulated my head, does not show any great organ of self- esteem or ambition. I am abundantly satisfied—I am more than satisfied— with whatever of prominence or publicity, or fame if you like, I may have had in public life. I do not think it would add to my satisfaction—I am sure it could not to my usefulness—for me to be in office; and therefore I have no ambition to be sent for : but I want to see the men who are sent for in earnest to carry out their principles. I tell you how to do it—follow the ex- ample set by Manchester, who, when Mr. Milner Gibson was in the Ministry, plainly indicated that if their Member joined the Government it must carry out certain principles that Manchester desired. They valued him too highly to sell him so cheap as to let him go for nothing. This is what will follow —by retaining those men in our ranks that are now draughted off by the Whigs to become Attornies-General or Solicitors-General or Masters of the Rolls, or anything you please—Lords of the Treasury or Secretaries of State—instead of draughting off these men from our ranks and taking them into the Whig Government, we shall keep. them on our benches ; and we shall very soon have a party—a party comprising so many men of talent, and having such an amount of influence at our backs by the constituencies they represent—honest, firm, independent constituencies, who won't allow themselves to be made merchandise of for the aggrandizement of any indi- vidual—that we shall stand in a commanding position to say to the Govern- ment, ' You must send for us to carry these principles out'" A public entertainment to Mr. R. J. Walker, late Secretary to the Trea- sury of the United States, was given by the leading merchants and manu- facturers of Manchester, at the Albion Hotel there, on Tuesday evening. Mr. Baxley, President of the Chamber of Commerce, presided ; the Vice- President of the Commercial Association was in the vice-chair ; and Mr. Cobden, Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Bright, Mr. Brotherton, Mr. Charles Hindley, with General Walbridge and Colonel Colt of the United States, were guests.
Mr. 'Walker's speech in returning thanks for the chief toast of the even- ing, was an eulogium of free trade, founded on a repetition of those full and interesting statistics which he lately gave at Liverpool, of the won- derful advance of commerce in the ports of the United States under the comparatively liberal tariff of 1846. At the end of his résumé of past victories for the principle of free trade, he announced that he has already declared himself in favour, in due time, of a further reduction of Ameri- can import-duties. But in his endeavours, we on this aide of the water can help him. If Englishmen think the American duties of thirty per cent on some of our manufactures a little too high, the Ame- rican arithmetic shows that our duties on their tobacco are as high as 1200 per cent. Mr. Walker put it to us whether such a duty is not only above the revenue standard, but so extravagantly above it that it might be immensely reduced and yet produce a larger return. He wound up his free-trade advocacy with a suggestion to English statesmen, who can more readily have access to the statistics of all the world, that they should work out the results of universal free trade; showing that if the labour of each person in all the world be depreciated only a penny a day by being driven out of those pursuits in which it would be most profitably invested if left free, the loss to the whole world in one year would amount to the incredible sum of 480,000,0001. Mr. Walker referred to the events which have just happened in France. He did not disguise a feeling of grave apprehension from the acts in Paris of a man who has combined in himself the character of a traitor, an insurgent, and a military usurper ; but, asking, "Will England be safe when there is nothing but despotic government throughout Europe ? " he answered—" The entire American population, backed by their Government, will come as one man and fight the battle along with you, if it be necessary."
Mr. Cobden made a cosmopolitan speech ; marking the present dinner as a token of great progress in the world's history—a proof that we have passed over the artificial divisions of mankind.
A number of gentlemen known to the public for their philanthropy and acquaintance with the subject of preventing crime and reforming criminals have been holding a conference at Birmingham, to consider the present condition and treatment of the perishing and dangerous classes of children and juvenile offenders. Mr. M. D. Hill, the Recorder of Bir- mingham, presided over the deliberations of the Conference on Wednes- day morning, said over a public meeting which was held to ratify the resolutions of the Conference in the evening. We can only make room for the gist of the resolutions adopted. They affirmed—
That juvenile delinquency is inadequately checked, partly through the want of proper industrial correctional and reformatory schools, and partly through the want of authority in magistrates to compel attendance in such schools. That an altered and somewhat extended course of proceeding on the part of the Privy Council is earnestly to be desired on behalf of children not yet amenable to the law, but excluded by the vice, neglect, and poverty of their parents, from admission to the existing schools ; on behalf of petty juvenile criminals, who might be aided by the establishment of "industrial feeding schools"; and on behalf of juvenile felons, who should be placed in correctional and reformatory schools. That magistrates should have power to enforce the attendance of the petty criminals in the "industrial feeding schools," and levy the cost on their parents ; and to commit young felons to the correctional and reformatory schools, instead of to prison. A Committee was formed, consisting of Mr. M. D. Hill, Mr. W. Glad- stone, Mr. Power, Recorder of Ipswich, and twenty other gentlemen of influence, to frame a legislative bill, and to draw up a memorial to the Committee of Council, for the attainment of the objects specified.
Birmingham, like London, has had its great show of cattle—with the additional provincial feature of a display of all breeds of domestic poultry. The breeders of the Midland Counties have been competing among each other in beasts and fowls, for some years, at the capital of the hardware districts; and each year it is said that they come closer up to the classical perfection of the national competition in the Baker Street Bazaar, while in trade excellency they bear the palm. Much of the stock shown in London is prepared altogether without reference to cost, but all the stock shown at Birmingham is judged with reference to price; and yet the difference of the two stocks is often such a one as the curry- comb and the stable pomatum-box could chiefly account for. However, Prince Albert, Lord Hatherton, the Earl of Leicester, and the Earl of Aylesford, managed here, as well as in London, to bear of good prizes. The display of fowls this year is said to have been six times as large and good as any other, or any previous one, in the world. "This extension," says the reporter of the Times, "has been obtained by the multiplication of fancy varieties, the useful character of the show being still presumed. Lord Beauchamp exhibits three extremely rare hybrids be- tween a gold and common pheasant, in which the connoisseurs in such matters were extremely interested ; but the public at large will be more sur- prised and instructed to hear that a. Cochin China cock and hen were pro- duced, weighing together 211b. [twice the size of a large Christmas turkey.] The poultry-pens altogether'number 1656, and to each its prioe is appended in the catalogue. The sums specified for the more valuable lots are really surprising ; yet they are bought up with such avidity that prices intendecIby the owners to be prohibitory are, we understand, not unfrequently paid by buyers. This department of the show proves by far the most attnctibe; and as the visitors move about, the most obstreperous storm of cockcrowing that ever was listened to assails the ears, and drowns every other agricul- tural sound in the building. Even the pigs, silenced by the clamour of these chantieleers of all nations, grunt and squeak no longer."
A man and two youths have perished by an explosion of fire-damp at Woodthorpe Colliery, near Sheffield. There was an avenue in the pit so charged with gas that no one was allowed to go there with a candle ; but a strange youth, not acquainted with the pit, had gone down to visit a ,young friend, and this stranger took a candle into the dangerous working : he 4nd his friend perished. It appeared at the inquest, that the management of the mine had been intrusted to a man who was quite ignorant of mining, and who paid no atten- tion to complaints respecting the want of ventilation. The Jury, after con- sulting together for some time, concurred in the following verdict-
" The Jury find a verdict of manslaughter against Joseph Oldfield. We cannot, however, separate without expressing our opinion that Mr. John Rhodes the owner of the mine) ought to have employed a more efficient and intelligent under-g-,round steward than Oldfield."
The inquest at Dartford on the seven persons killed by an explosion ended with a verdict in which, with a statement of the accident, censure was cast upon the employer of the deceased— The Jury were "unanimously of opinion, that gross carelessness had been dis- played on the part of Mr. E. Callow, in suffering blasting cartridges to be manufac- tured in a building quite unfitted for the purpose, having imperfect floors of wood and gravel; in suffering themen eroployed,to work in nailed boots and shoes; and in not having any defined rules or regulations, either written or printed, forthe guidance or protection of the persons employed in the premises." Much damage to property has been done in Mr. Woodfull's paper-mill at Footscray, by the explosion of a boiler ; but, though a hundred persons were at work on the premises, not one was hurt.
George Bush, a milkman of Timsbury, a village near Bath, has been mur- dered, apparently for the small sum of money he had about him. He went to an auction at Priston, a neighbouring village; next day he was found in a field, near a lonely foot-path between the two villages, with his throat cut. His pockets had been rifled. Suspicion has fallen upon his landlady, Eliza Flower, upon a couple named Windmill, upon Stephen Box, and on Evans a butcher ; they are all in custody, pending the investigation into the murder. The Secretary of State has offered a reward of 501., and the Churchwardens of Timsbury a like sum, for the conviction of the murderers.
A young man named Charlton, of Basford, has been found dead on the Nottingham and Newark Railway, the head separated from the body. His friends had opposed his marriage, and there seems little doubt that he com- mitted suicide.
A Pensioner living at Nottingham has attempted to cut his throat—be- cause his wife had rated him for losing ten shillings after receiving a payment of his pension !
A boy fell through weak ice into the water of a pond at Liverpool ; ano- ther boy, a little older, tried to rescue him; and both were drowned. At Preston also a boy has been drowned while attempting to aid his brother.
A vicious dog has caused a loss of 2001.to Mr. Shepherd, a farmer of Cat- tistock in Dorsetshire. He got into a field at night, worried some hundreds of ewes in lamb, and drove them into a corner ; in the morning, upwards of a hundred were found dead : they had been suffocated by the prescva which in their fright they had inflicted on each other; very few had been itten, and those not severely.
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