Vlb e Vro ()burs.
The Birmingham Journal of Saturday contains a very interesting re- port of a public dinner given by the Birmingham Athenic Institution on the previous Monday. The nature of the institution is explained: by the Journal- " About three years ago, four respectable young men, desirous of cultivating their minds, and avoiding the gross irregularities to which, unfortunately, too many youths of the present day are subject, resolved upon establishing a society by which they could engage their attention during their leisure-hours in useful mental pursuits and rational amusements and recreation. They accordingly collected together some twenty young men of their own age, submitted their plans, and formed themselves into an institution bearing the name which heads this article. They divided themselves into reading, writing, arithmetical, drawing, and other useful classes; to which they added arrangements for the enjoyment of the old manly English sports, dancing, &c. For some time they continued on a small scale, aiding in improving each other ; until, finding their number increasing, they took large rooms in Great Charles Street, which they tastefully fitted up, and forthwith issued an address declaratory of the objects of the institution.'
Their next step was to choose a patron ; and they applied to Lord John Manners ; who, after making due inquiries, consented to fill the post. Lord John also accepted their invitation to dine with the mem- bers, on Monday the 26th August, at their rooms in Great Charles Street. He was accompanied by Sir John Hanmer and Mr. Monckton. Milnes ; and his Lordship took the chair. In proposing a toast, Mr. Newton, one of the officers of the institution, gave some account of its origin. He alluded to previous societies in Birmingham, of which he had been a member—the Mechanics Institute, the Athenmum, and a society established by the Reverend John Garbett, for the instruction and education of the working-classes ; all of which had successively failed. And why had all those societies failed ? why had not the work- ing-classes supported institutions intended for their benefit ? The answer was plain—it was short, but it was conclusive. Because they could not. They were overworked. Their animal spirits were destroyed, their physical energies impaired, and their mental faculties weakened by " work, work, work." Suppose a poor young man toiling all day in a manufactory in intense heat, and literally wasted off the earth with steam, smoke, and toil ; suppose such a man sent from the mill or the forge at eight or nine o'clock at night into a school to learn from a book—why he would be asleep in three minutes. He could not learn ; it was not in human nature that he could do so. He wanted rest and recreation; and unless they could curtail the labour of the people, and combine rational amusement with learning, they need not hope that education would succeed, or be productive of its legitimate results. The wonder would be if education had progressed under such circumstances; and nothing but inattention on the part of the doctors could prevent them from finding out the impossibility of effecting a cure by the exclusive use of their nostrum. While all the other institutions which were purely of a literary character hail gone down, the Athenic Institution, although established under every disad- vantage, and supported alone by working men, had risen, and was daily pro-, greasing. And why was that the case ? The answer could only be found in the principles of the society. It was based upon the only principles suited to the state of the working-classes,—namely, that of affording education through re- creation and relaxation. They had discovered that the minds of the people were beaten down with care, labour, and anxiety, and unfitted for mental study.. They gave them amusement, restored their spirits, and then gently instilled that learning from which they would otherwise have recoiled. He knew that there were thousands of the working-classes who would not go to public-houses for amusement if they could find a substitute ; but they had none, and it WWI to supply that deficiency that he and his friends were most anxious to see societies like the Athenic established in all the towns of the kingdom. He read with no small pleasure, that Baron Alderson had stated that he knew a county in which the Lord-Lieutenant had been seen playing with his tenants and poor neighbours at the field-games. They had heard of similar advances in other parts of the country; and he could not but feel the festivity of that evening would be viewed as another and not less honourable and important advance towards the glorious work of peace and conciliation. Lord John Manners made a speech of some length. He deemcd. ;J1 such institutions indispensably necessary in these times— It was in his opinion, necessary for the hard-working men of Birmingham to enter a protest in an intelligible manner agair.a. the modern dogma which would seem to assume that no recreation was necessary for the working population of England; which seemed to have adopted for its motto that which he bad fancied would have been held in universal execration—" All work and no play." lie had called it a modern dogma, because history proved to a demonstration that every nation of antiquity deemed it a matter of the highest importance to pro- vide for the recreation and amusement of the working class. If they referred to ancient Greece, from which they had very appropriately derived the names of their principal officers—if they looked to ancient Rome, or any of the other great empires—they would find that they bad invariably adopted every possible provision for the rational amusement, recreation, and health of the people. In those times they had days set apart for athletic exercises, and there was nothing left undone to encourage that wholesome system of relaxation necessary to the physical energies of the people. But to leave those times and nations, and come to their own country, what, he would ask, was the characteristic epithet applied to it ? France might be "fair," Florence might be "beautiful," and another might be 'witty, but England was designated " merry England." Another important object connected with such an institution, was that of uniting together the different classes of society— It was his firm conviction founded upon something like a careful examina- tion of history, that in days long gone by, when the unhappy separation of the classes which now existed in this country was not known in the land, there was by far more peace, more real happiness, and more complete security for all classes, than had or could ever exist under such a class-system as now pre- vailed in society. Their usages were hostile to anything like a cordial amal- gamation. How often were they able to come together in amity and affection, as they had done that evening ? How often had they seen the three classes meet at the one table, partake of the same enjoyment ? And yet, as they laad, eten heard, in the days of Feudalism the Barons of England were accus- tomed to sit at the same table and partake of the same fare with those beneath them. He knew very well, that it was deemed unphilosophical to revert to those day s and times and the ancient customs of their forefathers : but, believ- ing as he did, that in those ancient days the Peer lost nothing by his conde- scension, and that the poor were great gainers by it, he saw no reason why they should not dwell with pleasure on those days, and why he should not, if he could, encourage and support any legal, just, and prudent associations which would have the effect of restoring at least some portion of that fine feeling which existed amongst the people in bygone days, which would elevate the character of those who ought to be considered the pride and glory of their country. That some effort was necessary to produce a change for the better, no man could doubt. No one could cast his eye around the surface of English society and not be convinced, that unless something amounting to a cordial union took place between the various classes of society, the state and condition to which they would all be very soon reduced must be unsafe and dangerous. He saw no evils that could arise from such a union ; but he saw many that would arise if such a feeling as he had described were not created. He declared his dissent alike from those who thought education un- suited to the working-classes and from those who thought that a mere smattering of knowledge would make a country great and good ; and, as an idea of what be deemed suitable studies for the Athenie institution, he promised to make it a present of a series of volumes lately published by Mr. Knight, calied the Englishman's Library. He exhorted the managers to persevere in their excellent course of steering clear from all politics. At the close of his speech, Lord John regretted the ab- sence of Mr. Smythe, who was prevented from attending by his going abroad.
Sir John Hanmer and Mr. Mines also delivered speeches ; dwelling strongly on the necessity of union between the several classes of society.
The meeting passed off in the most agreeable manner. The Chair- man vacated his seat about half-past ten o'clock.
Two of the Earl of Stradbroke's gamekeepers, at Benham Park in Suffolk, have committed suicide. One of them, Easey, destroyed him- self on Saturday, by placing the stock of his gun among some rushes, so that with his feet he could fire it off into his mouth : his head was shattered to pieces. The other gamekeeper, Cruxey, shot himself in his cottage on the following day. The poachers had been very suc- cessful in robbing the preserves ; and this, it is supposed, preyed on Easey's mind. It is said that Crnxey had further injured Easey's por-
tion of the preserves by taking away eggs to put into his own ; and this may have induced him to kill himself on the death of his fellow- servant, fearing that his delinquencies might be discovered.
Joel Fisher, the old soldier who killed his wife, was banged on Wednesday, near Taunton. Several applications were made to the Go-
vernor of the prison by persons afflicted with king's evil and rheuma- tism, for permission that the hand of the dead man might be rubbed over the parts affected, with the idea that they would be cured 1
The Gateshead Observer represents the return home of James Cock- burn Belaney after his acquittal as marked by the reverse of welcomings ; and some of the witnesses in his favour did not escape annoyance-
" One party, (Mr. Hall,) it is said, was stoned from the village [North Sun- derland] half-way down to the Sea-houses, where be resides ; sod on Wed-
nesday, an effigy was elevated on a pole, and, after being paraded for some time round the neighbourhood, it was set fire to in the presence and amidst the shootings of some hundreds of the population, in front of Belaney's house, on
the road to Bamburgli. It was afterwards thrown, half-consumed, into a park or garden adjoining his residence; and the people concluded their 'labour of love' with a tremendous hurrah. A letter which appeared in the Times news- paper of Saturday last, signed G. S.,' strongly condemnatory of the Jury who tried and acquitted Belaney, has been reprinted at Alnwick, and exten- sively circulated. The excitement in the locality of North Sunderland, where Belaney and his unfortunate and much-respected wife were so well known, and where her friends mostly reside, is described by a correspondent as being still very great."
There has been an incendiary fire at Barrington, near Cambridge ; and another in Wiltshire, at Stratford-sub-Castle. The destruction of property was not very extensive at either. A field of cut and stand- ing barley has been fired near Guildford.
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