SOCIAL SCIENCE AT BRADFORD.
One of the most remarkable features of the recent meeting was the wonderful, ready, and versatile power of Lord Brougham. His wakeful attention and close thought were manifest on every occasion. Energy and power marked the speech in which, on Monday night, he distin- guished between a patronizing toleration and a mutual tolerance of different opinions. Though, in the lengthened address which he read on Tuesday morning, his voice became weaker towards the close, he yet appeared to curtail nothing of what he had written, and from time to time fired up with renewed energy, as he denounced, in strong terms, the electoral corruption of the day. His closely-strained attention to the proceedings was shown by the readiness with which he corrected even an occasional lapsus Engine on the part of the speakers, which would escape half the younger men in the audience. He showed a deep in- terest in the meeting of the Financial Reform Association over which he presided, and whose results he reported to the Association on Satur- day, carefully distinguishing between the plan for abolishing the duties on smaller articles (which bring in only 700,0001. a year to the revenue) with which he agreed, and the suggested direct wealth-tax, which•he ablrand impartially described, without giving; it the sanction of a de- 1.eided-opirrion: His sympat* with. struggling; industry was displayed -by the warin which, when, ale Secretary ofl ttis ;Radford Manics'
Institute:mentioned the name of the first prizeobotr to him, he turned sharp mord with the words':: "S' it out' lintatf. But the physical
feebleness otage•was evident as he felt for the arms of his chair when ,sitting down at the close of each of his addresses, and on Friday the la- bours of the week compelled him to ask a respite from some of his en- gagements, that he might be ready to discharge his part in the closing meeting of Saturday. To give a full report of the meeting would be impossible, and un- necessary, as the daily press - has already exhausted, to s great extent, the course of the proceedings. But a few incidents may' be' interesting. One of the most striking men present and engaged in the proceedings was an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, the Rev. H. Fawcett of Trinity Hall, whose blindness (incurred we understood by an accident- in shooting some twelve months ago) added admiration to the charm of his clear, flowing, and vigorous eloquence. The views which he as- sociated in two papers he read—on the necessity that may arise for protecting labour in our colonies againstthe competition of immigrante, and on the fact.that the interests of the employer and employed are op- posed just as much as those of the buyer and seller—were original and suggestive, and seem to develop sides of each question apt to be for gotten in the view of the philanthropist' who promotes emigration, mid believes that the interest of master and servant are identical. A vigorousr "No ! No !" which greeted Lord Shaftesbury's suggestion at the closing Meeting, that the objects of the Association were practical and not theoretical, was attributed to Mr. Fawcett, and doubtless many members would agree that such an Association may address itself to cul- tivate social economy as a pure, as well as an applied science. Vice-Chancellor Page Wood spoke a long and able address on the questions of Jurisprudence,—the codification of the law ; the registration of titles, instancing a case in which, having bought a small plot of land et a fair price, the examination of the title and other law expenses added a fall half to the cost; and also the limited powers of the charity com- missioners. This last subject of charitable trusts he also illustrated by a paper read in the section of Jurisprudence ; and it is to be hoped that some legislative action may arise from the discussion of the question at Bradford. Many subjects were referred to the consideration of the Council or its Committees, and there may thus arise a twofold advantage from-the meeting, in its action on the Legislature towards improving the law in social matters, and in its influence on the audience. The appoint- ment of a standing committee of the local officers at Bradford to report to the next meeting on social economy in Bradford was bailed by one gen- tleman in our presence as a very important practical advantage to the town.
The Educational section was the most popular. The limit of twenty minutes to each paper was so generally exceeded that a division of the papers took place. Mr. T. D. Acland entered largely into the proceedings of the Middle Class Examinations, and the opinion was expressed by Mr_ Howson, that it would be an important advantage to.schoolmasters-in directing the education of their pupils, if the plan and subjects of the Oxford and Cambridge Examinations were assimilated as far as possible. Mr. Baines and others discussed again the question of 'Government aid to education, urging the deficiencies of the present system, and unwilling to recognize as a fact the alleged greater progress made under that system than under the simply voluntary one. The question of " red tapeism" in the Committee of Privy Council was referred to the Council of the Association in a resolution ealling their attention to the exceptional cases where the aid refused by the definite rules of the Privy Council might be justly and advantageously bestowed. The case of Ragged Schools was brought forward by Miss Carpenter, who has advocated " The Claims of Ragged Schools to Pecuniary Educational Aid," in a pamphlet published by Partridge, and the report of whose Red Lodge Girls' Reformatory School shows the success of her efforts to have been lessened only by the necessity of further classification of more and less depraved girls into different establishments. A. remark which fell from Mr. Monckton Milnes, that drunkenness gives birth to crimes against the person rather than against property, pointed to a fact which might be well pursued by the advocates of the Maine Law, who held-a meeting on Friday evening for the furtherance of their object of carrying a permissive bill to enable any parish or township to prohibit, by the vote of a majority, the retailing of- intoxicating liquors. Perhaps the most interesting subject at the present time was the question of Strikes discussed on Friday in the Social Economy depart- ment, under the able presidency of Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth. Mhny pa- pers were read, and the proceedings were varied by addresses from work.. ing men, detailing the history and circumstances of• strikes with which they had been connected. The general result at which the section ap- peared to arrive, was the necessity for a regularly established calm and considerate intercourse between masters and men on the points involved between them. The evenings were appropriated in different ways : two to the pur- poses of the Bradford Mechanics' Institute, viz., the distribution of prizes and the annual meeting ; and two• to soirees of the members, at one of which the prizes gained by the candidates at the recent Middle- Class Examination were distributed by Mr. Napier; and'a very delightful specimen of the Bradford musical talent' was given in the singing of ma- drigals. Various interesting meetings were-held in the course of these evenings in the rooms connected with the hall. The industrial employ- ments of women were discussed. Miss Twining's- plan for visiting workhouses was ably set forth by Mr. Cowper ; a meeting of delegates from Chambers of Commerce was held; and Dr. Hodgkin delivered-a lecture on the social, physical, and moral evils of tobacco. Those and other similar meetings, as well as the general proceedings of the Association, indicate it to be no mere dilettantist assembly of sentimental philanthro- pists; but a collection of earnest, active men, reporting for mutual in- struction the practical results of their own local exertions, and conferring on the active steps which their united efforts might take towards definite social progress, and able, by their representations, to produce to some ex- tent that external pressure which Mr. Adderley more than once told his section was needed‘to produce active influence on the Legislature.
The proceedings were concluded on Saturday. Two papers were read in the Great Hall in addition to those we noticed last week. On Friday the Honourable W. Cowper; M.P., read a paper ort Public Health, the
Earl of Shaftesbury occupying the chair. ITe beganly pointing out that until recently no attention was paid to impurities that could not be seen. Persons scrupulously careful about the cleanliness of their dress- and food would yet sit in ball-rooms and theatres where the air was vitiated by the exhalations of gas. Now, however, we recognized the necessity of providing means for the escape of such impurities.
" With reference to the refuse of towns the theory is clear, but the prac- tice is lax and careless. Every animal and vegetable is nourished by assimi- lating to its own use particles of the material substances, such as air, water, and food, which are continually circulating through its organism ; but by a general law the substance which has been so used is rendered unfit for a repetition of the same use until it has been decomposed and has entered into a. new combination. Care is, therefore, required to hasten and render harmless the decomposition of the refuse which might accumulate near the habitations of animals and men. Nature is fond of moving in circles, and the elements which rose from the earth for the nourishment of plants, and thence nourished animals, and thence nourished men, will, if restored di- rectly to the earth, afford nourishment and fertilization to the soil whence they proceeded, while, if allowed to wander in the air, they will exercise a poisonous influence. So also water brought from livers or wells for distri- bution through a town should, after passing through the houses, complete its -sanitary course by 'washing the refuse into the earth, and ultimately regain its original purityby percolating into the river or spring. At Rugby and at Watford this law of nature is strictly observed ; an .apparatus of pipes and hose conveys the liquid sewage from the streets to the farm, which it irrigates with profit." In the ease of large towns this method was impracticable, the land in the neighbourhood-not requiring such. abundant irrigation as it would furnish, while the practice of pouring.all refuse into the nearest river was indefensible in every way.
"I am still in hopes that so wasteful and clumsy a proceeding may be rendered unnecessary, and that, if the attention of competent persons be drawn to so important a matter, means of deodorization will before long be discovered by which those salutary processes which the soil is adapted by nature to produce will be artificially attained without too much inconvenience or undue cost."
Touching then on the adulterations in food, Mr. Cowper said he did not care whether penalties were inflicted or not on tradesmen who sold alum-whitened bread or copper in their pickles, the really important point was that their proceedings' should be known, and then the public should take care of itself. He then passed on to an examination of the statistics of mortality.
"The facts we possess at present support the theory that unhealthiness prevails in proportion to the density of population; but this, like other branches of the subject, requires elucidation. An examinationof the soils on which epidemics mostly prevail would, I believe, lead to some remark- able conclusions, for the different influence exercised over certain diseases by clay and gravel soils has been too much overlooked. But the light we now possess is sufficient to prove the startling fact, that in England alone a hecatomb of victims, at least 100,000 of our people, are being annually sacrificed to ignorance or disregard to the laws of health, and that in addi- tion to these 100,000 deaths, far more than amillion of persons are suffering from serious illness from the same cause. The military school at Chelsea affords a striking example of the results of sanitary improvements. Dr. Balfour improved the ventilation, apportioned the diet- more judiciously, and secured opportunities for cold bathing, and by such measures las suc- ceeded in reducing the mortality, which on an average of ten years had been 9.6 per 1000, to 4.8- per 1000 on an average of eight years, and the number reported unfit for-military service from strumous and other diseases has been reduced from an average of 121 to 4-6 per 1000. But statistics, clearly as they speak to the mind, do not reach the heart, and draw no tear from the eye. One personal visit to the single room with stained walls and sickening smells, where a whole family swarm for bare shelter, inhaling sickliness at every breath, drinking green and stagnant water, and swallowing damaged food, will stir up a more fierce and indignant desire to come to the rescue and do battle on their behalf than the largest array of incontrovertible figures."
Many of the sections sat on Friday hearing papers read or discussing those which had been already heard. In the department of Jurisprudence " Charitable Trusts" occupied a great deal of attention. In the section devoted to Social Science the condition and prospects of Mechanics' In- stitutes were discussed nt length, and a paper was read by Mrs. Hertz on " Mechanics' Institutions for Working Women." Others were read by Mr. M'Burnie, Mr. George Hough, Mi. R. Baker, and other gentlemen. In the educational section Mr. D. Chadwick read a paper on Working Men's Colleges.
At the meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, on Saturday, the paper read in the Great Hall was on Social Science, by Sir J. K. Shuttkworth. Commencing with a comparison between the apparent stability and really slow changes-of external na- ture, it appeared to be part of the economy of the development of that human species, that. migration, civilization, and conquest should, for some remote and unseen purpose, cause the admixture of these varieties. Sir James then glanced at the successive races of men who tenanted England for a time or permanently, in its early history—the Britons, the Romans with their occupation of four hundred years, the conquests and colonization of the Saxons and Danes &c. He traced what modern England owed-to each,. especially attributing to the Saxons the idea of the importance of-individual man, the member of and father of a family. The. Norman Conquest consolidated the central power, increased the vigour of public administration, and the compactness of the force of England for all external national objects. He subsequently referred to the rise of Sunday schools, and the subsequent spread of education among the working classes. In the last quarter of a century literature had been cheapened for the use of the masses ; the press had become the great instructor of the people on all social and political topics ; an earnest practical effort had been made to foster in the working population habits of prudence by savings banks,—in which thirty millions sterling were accumulated;—by .temperance leagues, by societies for mutual instruction and mechanics' Institntions,—by advice, remonstrance, and example.
The sections sat as-usuaL That on Social Economy was presided over by Sir J. K. Shuttlewortb, and strikes were discussed at great length, various papers on the subject being read. Dr. Watts, after stating the politico-economic principle that wages were dependent upon supply and demand, said that attempts by trade- societies to obtain the same wages- for inferior workmen, to limit the number of apprentices, and to exclude men who had not served a certain specified apprenticeship, were mischievous, and must in the end defeat their own.object. Mr. Malcolm Ross read a paper " On the Evil and Impolicy of Strikes, and what might be substituted," in which he pur- sued the same politico-economic argument urged by Dr. Watts. Mr. Henry Fawcett, MA., delivered an address On the Political Economy' of Strikes." After laying down the law of wages as depending upon the relation of capital to population, he endeavoured to argue that there were disturbing causes which interfered with the absolute operation of the principle, and gave rise to these strikes, and Said that he arrived at the conclusion that there was this tendency in strikes, to equalize wages in different employments, and it had also the tendency to give the labourer a share in the extra profits of the employer, when they were raised by a temporary cause. The strikes might be directed, but they could not be checked. .
In the other sections papers were read on " The Healthiness of the Anglo-Saxon Race in Australia," by Dr. Holland ; on " Juvenile Beg- gars and the Industrial School Act," by Mr. Oliphant ; on " The Re- lation of Ragged-Sehools to the Educational System of the Country, and their consequent claim to the full share of the Parliamentary Grant,"• by Miss Carpenter ; and, in the department of Jurisprudence, on "A Declaratory Code," by Mr. Webster. The concluding business meeting was held in the Great Hall after the reading of Sir J. K. Shuttleworth's paper. Mr. Hastings, the general secretary, read the report of the council, which stated that 1356 persons had enrolled themselves for the present Congress, and that 176 papers had been read in the various sections. Of these 22 related to jurispru- dence and amendment of the law, 38 to education, 27 to the punishment and reformation of offenders, 30 to public health, 50 to social economy, while the remaining eight were read at special meetings.
Lord Brougham moved the adoption of the report in a speech received with much applause, and the President then announced that the next Congress would be held at Glasgow:
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