Essays, Extracts, and Correspondence. ADVANTAGES OF MECHANICS' INSTITUTIONS. An Address to Working Men, by Edward Baines, Esq. MY FRIENDS,-Light is good in a man's house: how much better in his understanding, and in his heart! We pity tribes who live in wigwams, snow huts, or mud cabins, which the day cannot penetrate. And nothing seems more cheerless than the lot of the Greenlander, who spends six months out of the twelve without seeing the beams of the sun. The blind, burrowing mole, and the moping birds of night, are felt by every one to be among the least enviable of creatures, and perfect contrasts to the lark or the eagle, whose breasts swell as they soar towards the god of day. What light is to the eye, knowledge is to the mind. Alike they please, they cheer, they warm, they vivify, they instruct; they reveal God's creation and man's condition; they raise us above the mere animal, and allure us to the noble exercise of contemplation and thought. A man that possesses knowledge is called an enlightened man ;-as though he had a bright light shining within and spreading its beams all around,-thus resembling a lighthouse, and thus made a blessing to others, as well as happy himself. A nation that possesses knowledge is called an enlightened nation: and its light-the light of civilization-penetrates the dim forests and wildernesses of barbarism, and awakes the dark places of the earth out of their death-like sleep. A class that possesses knowledge is called an enlightened class; and it cannot help illuminating others with its lamp, and showing the benighted traveller some of the dangerous places in life's pilgrimage. Then how good is knowledge !-how much to be desired! Yet it is possible for a man, a class, or a nation, at least in some degree, to shut out light and knowledge. They may close their eyes, and wrap their heads in a mantle. They may "love darkness rather than light," and for the old reason, "because their deeds are evil." There certainly are practices that wont bear the light: and it is no wonder that those who commit them should refuse to come to the light. This wilful darkness, this determined shutting of the eyes, is as base and criminal as involuntary ignorance is pitiable. Its subjects are the enemies of improvement, the enemies of truth, the enemies of their households and neighbours, and, above all, their own enemies. And they are as stupid as the poor ostrich, which, hiding its head from the hunter, thinks it cannot be seen: destruction hastens after them, and its arrows will soon drink their life's blood. Working men, it is well worth your consideration how far you, as individuals and as a class, are subjects of light or of darkness: how far the darkness that may exist is wilful or otherwise; and by what means it may be most effectually and quickly removed. It is evident, from a thousand facts, that the blessed light of knowledge has been spreading among your class of late years, like the rising of a summer's day. How many flashes of in tellect have we witnessed at temperance meetings, in assemblies for discussing public questions, at lectures, and in Sunday-schools! How have we seen young men thirstily drinking in knowledge in the reading-room, from the volume, the magazine, or the newspaper! How many of your class are themselves teachers of the young! How prodigiously has the number of readers, of thinkers, and even of authors, increased among the operatives, since the opening of this nineteenth century! But could we be satisfied that England should close the year 1900 with no more light than it closes the year 1850 ? When men are building their houses of glass, admitting all the rays of heaven, will the working men be content to live in the dusky twilight? When some classes are travelling at railway speed, will other classes drag on with the old stage-wagon? One may see the possibility of a state of society far more enlightened, more virtuous, and more happy than the present. Not that Scrip. ture or experience would justify us in expecting to root up the depravity of human nature, or to make this earth the unruffled abode of truth and goodness. But immense advances are still practicable. And in our own country the class in which most is to be done, is yours. You are not to be blamed for the disadvantages under which you were born: but you would be blameable if you had the means of removing them, and did not. In the education of your children, in the training of your youth, in the management of your families, in the cleanliness of your houses, in the improvement of your own leisure, in the cultivation of your opportunities, in the formation of virtuous and self-denying habits, in the acquisition of useful knowledge, and in attention to the high interests of your immortal spirits,-in all these points the working men as a class may find room for great advances. cannot, indeed, pluck up all the evils of life, so that they shall never again infest the ground; but by diligent and constant care we may do with them as the husbandman does with weeds, -we may keep them under, and leave room for wholesome plants to thrive. God has put so much within our power, that we may make as much difference in our own characters and habits, as there is between the fruitful garden and the poisonous jungle. We Look at a contrast between two families of working men. There is little need to draw upon imagination: almost every one will acknowledge the truth of the picture. In one family we see the very first step a wrong one: the husband and wife marry whilst they are yet boy and girl, and without having made any provision for household expenses : they take a poor, dirty, unhealthy cottage, not half furnished, and begin with debt; the man soon leaves his comfortless hearth for the publichouse; the wife either pines at home or follows his example; they quarrel and rue the day of their marriage; children are born to scenes of wretchedness, in which they die early, or live surrounded by all that can make them rude, reckless, and vicious; the man loses his workthe woman her health; poverty, shame, rags, hunger, filth, disease, vice, and violence accumulate in fearful retribution; undutiful children become the appropriate torment of drunken parents; they all become curses to each other and to society, till early and perhaps violent death closes the scene of earthly horror, and ushers them to the bar at which every human being must answer for his deeds. In another family we see a prudent beginning and a fair start in domestic life: the industrious husband brings his wages to a thrifty wife; the humble home is clean, and there is enough to keep the pot boiling, and gradually to add to their household comforts; on their shelves are a few books, and no bottles; by-and-bye, dear little creatures enliven the scene, and they are decently clad and properly fed; for the mother's relief and their own good, they are sent to an Infant-school and to the Sunday-school, and ere long they can read as well as the father, and better than the mother; they are trained to fear God, to obey their parents, and to shun bad company; they have never learnt the road to the public-house or beer-shop; mean time a little money has been laid by in a savings bank, and the monthly payment made to the sick society, so that when trouble comes (as come it will) they are in a measure prepared for it; the father by his well-tried character and intelligence gets a better situation; the children soon (but not too 800n) bring in a little addition to the family earnings; now the book-shelves look respectable, and a monthly or weekly periodical keeps the family acquainted with what is going on in the great world; the boys enter the mechanics' institution, and spend those evenings in reading which others spend in drinking and riot; industry, prudence, and economy, under a kind Providence, at length make the man the proprietor of a house-a freeholder, and a voter; comfortable circumstances and a good conscience, with affectionate children, smooth his declining years; and this life of honourable usefulness ends in a death of peace and hope. And Now if any one should say that knowledge was the only cause of virtue and happiness, and ignorance the only cause of vice and misery, he would be greatly mistaken. Yet it is quite clear that knowledge and virtuous habits generally go together, and mutually help each other; and that ignorance and vicious habits do the same. A virtuous man naturally loves knowledge, because the exercise of the mind in acquiring valuable information, or reading the thoughts of great and wise men, is pleasurable to one whose mind is in a right state. knowledge, in its turn, gives mighty help to virtue, by creating pure tastes, a pleasant occupation of time, and honourable companionship. So, on the other hand, a man given up to vicious and debasing indulgences is always striving to drown thought, because thought brings selfcondemnation; he hates good and wise men, because their very presence is a reproach to him; he has no relish for books, and if he were to read, he would continually meet with truths that would show the folly of his life. He therefore loves ignorance; and ignorance, in turn, favours low and sensual gratifications, because it is incapable of anything better. Men are placed by their Maker half-way between angels and brutes. Knowledge tends to lift them towards the angels, and ignorance tends to sink them towards the brutes. If these things are true,-if the picture we have drawn of two families is correct in its lights and shadows-though we have intentionally taken rather extreme cases,-if there are such benefits connected with knowledge, and such evils with ignorance, what a powerful interest have working men and their families in cultivating their higher natures, and furnishing their minds with useful knowledge! The object of this Address is to call your special attention, my friends, to the best means that have hitherto been found out of accomplishing those ends. Some years ago, a new kind of institution was devised by a learned and public-spirited Yorkshireman, Dr. Birkbeck, for the special benefit of the working men. It was called "The Mechanics' Institution." You know these institutions by name, and you know that some of the cleverest and steadiest young fellows of your acquaintance belong to them. But too few of you come to enjoy their benefits. It has been said, with some truth, that overlookers, clerks, book-keepers, and tradesmen, join them in considerable numbers, but of the working men there are not half nor a quarter so many as one might expect. What is the reason? Is it that you do not exactly understand the nature of the Institutions, their terms, their advantages, and the welcome you would receive there? The other night Mr. Frederick Warren, of Manchester, told us at our annual meeting that when he first went to the Mechanics' Institution he lingered for two hours about the door before he ventured to go in, and then offered his subscription as shamefacedly as if he had been doing a wrong action! He soon learnt to laugh at this; but others may feel the same shrinking from doing a new and strange thing; and perhaps some may not like to go in their working-dresses. Be assured, my friends, you will find there nothing but encouragement and smiling faces; and no one finds fault with working-dresses, though certainly it is desirable to go with clean hands. Take courage, these are your own Institutions, established expressly for YOU. You have more right to them than any other class. Go with a modest confidence: your little subscriptions will be gladly taken, all your questions answered, and every difficulty removed. But I am going too fast. Perhaps you are not yet convinced that it would be desirable and agreeable to join a Mechanic's Institution. Then let me state the advantages which most of those Institutions present. 1st Advantage.-A LIBRARY, containing hundreds, perhaps thousands of volumes, including many of the best books that have ever been written the lives of great men, the histories of great nations, interesting travels and voyages, accounts of the principal discoveries and inventions, descriptions of the useful arts, the speeches of eloquent orators, soul-stirring poetry, the writings of the greatest divines, and some of the creations of men of genius which convey truth through the medium of fiction. books may not only be seen at the library, but borrowed and taken home for quiet reading at your own fire-sides. These 2nd Advantage. A READING-ROOM, where the monthly and quarterly magazines are taken, and a few newspapers; so that you may learn there all kinds of news, political, religious, literary, scientific, and commercial. 3rd Advantage.-EVENING CLASSES, where a man whose education is imperfect may have every means of making up for his defects. At many of the Institutions there are classes for writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, and drawing; and at some for languages, history, composition, music, and chemistry. These classes are invaluable for young men, who not only acquire knowledge in them, but form habits of reading and thinking that are useful as long as they live. A few of the Institutions have good Dayschools connected with them. 4th Advantage.-LECTURES and PAPERS, sometimes on practical subjects, scientifically treated, and illustrated with experiments and models, such as the steam-engine, railways, the telegraph, the strength of materials, dyeing, the cotton manufacture, coal-mines, ventilation, gas, electricity, architecture, the art of design, &c.; and sometimes on literary and general subjects, possessing an endless variety, but often bringing out men of the greatest distinction and talent; as when an Elihu Burritt, the learned blacksmith, lectures on the dignity of labour, & Professor Sedgwick on geology, a Professor Nicholl on astronomy, on an Earl of Carlisle on the Poetry of Pope, and on his own travels in America. 5th Advantage.-PUBLIC SOIREES and CHEAP EXCURSIONS, both of which are often exceedingly delightful. 6th Advantage-In a few Institutions PRELIMINARY SAVINGS BANKS have been formed, where the smallest savings of the boy or the man may be deposited, and thus the important habit of providence may be acquired. It is to be hoped that these banks will be generally adopted. Such are the direct advantages; but who shall tell the value of the indirect advantages, arising from the improvement of the mind, the preservation of virtue, the fostering of every good habit, and the forming of honourable friendships? Who thall trace the consequences of these things in the happiness of home, success in business, and the useful influence exercised on others through life? And, still more, who shall estimate the negative advantages of these Institutions, in preventing the formation of those vicious habits which make young men the scourge of their families and neighbourhoods? To be a member of a Mechanics' Institution is, in my estimation as an employer, a character for a young man seeking employ ment. What, then, is the cost for which these great advantages may be purchased? The subscription varies in the larger and smaller Institutions, according to the amount of the advantages presented by them, and ranges from 6s. a year in some Institutions to 12s. a year in others— that is, from about three-halfpence a week to threepence a week. For the price of one pot of beer a week (which you would be better without) all these important privileges may be secured! Then would it not be a shame for any man who is in work and has tolerable wages, to hesitate for this paltry sum? In my opinion, every working man ought to subscribe for himself or his children, or for both. Depend upon it, if parents love their children, aye, or even if they love nothing but themselves, VOL. VIII. they will regard it as of the highest consequence to send their children, first to the school, and afterwards to the Mechanics' Institution. He who educates his child, and gives him good habits, bestows upon him the best of fortunes. He who does neither is a traitor to the sacred trust which God has committed to him, and deserves the punishment that will fall upon him, in a thankless, worthless child. To young men who have begun to receive their own wages, my counsel is, to subscribe from the very first to the Mechanics' Institution, and also to lay by something in the savingsbank. Young men start well. The happiness of your lives depends upon it. We are told that Hercules, in his youth, was accosted by Pleasure and by Virtue. Pleasure, full of seductive smiles, promised him all soft indulgences, gay companions, and wanton revelry. Virtue, with a sober aspect, told him that duty must come before enjoyment, labour before rest; she stimulated him to pursue honour; she held out to him a distant but a sure and bright reward. The hero despised the short-lived joys of Pleasure, and followed the noble guidance of Virtue. A higher authority tells us, that Wisdom herself thus speaks: "I love them that love me, and those that seeks me early shall find me.""Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." One word of caution. It is a good thing to begin well; but it would be miserable only to begin. Do not expect to realize, or even to perceive, all the benefits at first. Do not be discouraged if you find that knowledge has its difficulties. Nothing of real value can be won without an effort. That effort is itself a discipline of incalculable worth. Persevere ! Persevere ! In Sow the good seed, and water it. due time "you shall reap, if you faint not." I have ventured, working men and friends, to offer you this Address as a humble New Year's Gift. Accept it kindly. It happens that I hold an office connected with the Mechanics' Institutions of Yorkshire, that may be my apology for drawing your attention to the subject. I have seen so many young men derive good from these Institutions-good of every kind-that I could not help inviting you to partake of their benefits. If you will join an Institution, and fairly try what it can do for you, I would pledge myself that you will become happier-I may even say, better-men. I am, Working Men and Friends, Your sincere well-wisher, President of the Yorkshire Union of Leeds, January 1st, 1851. THE INCREASE OF CRIME. A comparison of the criminal statistics of 1850 with those of a century ago, presents results for which most people are unprepared. From the rapid strides that education has made during that period-the formation of Mechanics' Institutions, and other societies for the improvement of the people-the multiplied issues from the press-the increased activity of all religious K bodies, and the improvements that have taken place in our prison discipline,-it might have been supposed that by this time our gaols had become comparatively empty. So far, however, from this being the case, the number of prisoners in our gaols now is ten, and in some cases twenty, times greater than it was a hundred years ago. Where HOWARD' found tens, when he commenced his prison inspections of England, any one may now find hundreds. At first sight this fact looks startling and oppressive; and startling and oppressive it would be, if we were obliged to conclude that the increase of prisoners was a true indication of a corresponding increase of crime. There are, however, several considerations which forbid a conclusion so distressing to the patriot and the Christian. In a Lecture recently delivered in the Mechanics' Hall, Derby, on the Life and Labours of JOHN HOWARD, by the Rev. JOHN CORBIN, the question was examined with a special reference to the county of Derby. It appears that nine criminals in the prisons of Derby, in 1776, have increased to 220 in 1851. Three of the alleged causes of this increase are more or less applicable to all other counties in the kingdom. We present them to our readers, and they can apply them, with any local modifications, to the criminal returns of their own country, and thus relieve their minds from an oppression which the naked fact, unaccounted for, would very naturally produce. Speaking of HOWARD's visit to Derby in 1776, Mr. Corbin observed: "The number of prisoners in our county gaol at this time was 17: 10 debtors, 7 felons. The audience will no doubt be struck with the smallness of the number then, as compared with the number confined in our county gaol at the present time. The number in both the town and county gaols together was only 21, of whom 12 were debtors, leaving only 9 criminals. The number in our gaol last Friday night was 230; of these, 10 only are debtors, leaving 220 criminals in 1851, against 9 in 1776. "At first sight this looks like a frightful increase of crime, that might well appal us, and lead us after all to suspect whether our fancied progress of society is not a great mistake. There are, however, several considerations which may lead us to the conclusion that this large increase of prisoners in our gaol does not prove a corresponding increase of crime in the county. "1. The population of the county in 1789that is 13 years later than the date of Howard's visit in question-was 124,465; the population in 1841 was 272,217. Now, if we deduct from the former figures the increase of the 18 preceding years, and add to the latter ones the increase of the last 10 years, it will probably be found that the population now is quite three times what it was then. "2. There were other prisons in the county in which criminals were confined; two at Chesterfield, one at Bakewell, one at Ashborne, and one at Wirksworth. "There may have been others in some other parts of the county of which I have not been able to gain information. Now, the gaol in this town is the only prison throughout the county. "3. There has been a great alteration in our criminal code since 1776. "At that time, forgery, smuggling, coining, uttering base coin, stealing sheep or wounding cattle, house-breaking, shop-lifting, or highway robbery, cutting down or destroying trees, was in each case a capital offence; so that if a man was convicted of stealing a thing worth no more than 58., or of cutting a hop band in a hop plantation, he might be hanged for his crime. These sanguinary laws were not a dead letter. In the 23 years ending 1771, no less than 678 persons were actually executed in London alone. Of these, only 72 were for murder, and 606 for comparatively petty offences. There were many humane persons who would not prosecute under such a sanguinary code, lest their prosecution should lead to a conviction, and that to a public execution on the gallows. The consequence was, that many criminals were allowed to escape then, which find their way into our prisons now, under the present much-improved state of the criminal law. "4. The greater number and greater activity of our police force, secure multitudes now who used to escape. The influence of this cause upon the apparent increase or diminution of crime, I cannot illustrate better than by referring to a fact that has just transpired in the borough of Leeds. On the first day of the present year, one of the town councillors called attention to the alarming increase of crime in the borough. This called forth a report from the chief constable, from which it appeared that from July to the end of December, 1849, there were 148 robberies committed, and only 18 detections. In the corresponding period of 1850 there were 135 robberies, and 91 detections. So that when the crimes were most, the prisoners were fewest. And though there were 73 more prisoners to be tried in 1850 than in 1849, there was of crime an actual decrease of 13 cases. "Just in the same manner, the increased vigilance and efficiency of our detective force may bring into our prison now multitudes who, though equally guilty, were in 1776 allowed to escape. "All these considerations taken together warrant the conclusion that an apparently frightful increase of prisoners does not prove that there has been any actual increase of crime in the county. "Prison Discipline especially occupied the thoughts of Howard. The results of his first continental tour of prison inspection, he modestly records in these few words: 'I hope I have gained some knowledge that may be improved to some valuable purpose.' The main difference that existed between our own prison system and those of the continent was this: ours was meant to punish; theirs were meant to correct and reform, as well as to punish. "These two ends should never be lost sight of, or separated. The first object of imprisonment unquestionably is punishment, with a view to deter from crime. Where this is lost sight of, in an extravagant regard to the comforts of the prisoners, our gaols may be made to offer a premium to crime. If, on the other hand, punishment be pursued as the end, with no ulterior regard to the character of the criminal and the interests of society when he is again set at liberty, then the very miseries the criminal is made to suffer may only tend to extinguish the few sparks of right and virtuous feeling that were left in his breast, and to ripen him for future crime. That system is, no doubt, the best, if we could but determine what it is, which would harmonize the interests of society and the welfare of the criminal; which would so regulate the privations and conveniences of the offender as to make both subservient to his improvement and to society's safety. "This is more easily seen and said than secured. Theories of prison discipline may be constructed by the dozen; but how to get them into practical working, so as to secure the ends sought in the best possible manner, is a problem which it requires our wisest heads and best hearts to solve. This much, however, is quite certain, that we never shall gain either the suppression of crime or the moral elevation of the criminal, by shutting him up in idleness, filth, and wretchedness; in cells that will be sure to generate disease in his body, and in company that will be as sure to pollute his mind and corrupt his heart. "Howard found that in order to effect this twofold object of imprisonment, the continental systems enforced labour in all their prisons; and except in capital cases, took care to keep alive the emotion of hope in the minds of the prisoners. Thus while our confinements nursed our prisoners in habits of indolence, and often turned them out much worse than when they entered, theirs encouraged the prisoners in habits of industry, and often sent them forth better men and better members of society. By imprisoning a man or transporting him for life, we drove him to despair and made him reckless. By putting a limit, though ever so distant, to his term of confinement, they sought to keep alive his hope, and to present to his mind some inducement or improvement, especially as improved habits and character were sometimes rewarded by a contraction of the term of imprisonment. These were among the lessons which the philanthropist treasured up in his mind, and brought home with him for practical use another day." THE DEAF AND DUMB. MEDICAL EFFORTS TO CURE DEAF-DUMBNESS. MANY attempts have been made by medical men to confer hearing on the deaf-mute. The results of long-continued, various, and persevering experiments by men deservedly occupying the first place in the profession, upon a very large number of individuals, have demonstrated the utter futility of all such efforts. No object was ever pursued with greater enthusiasm and zeal than was the attempt to cure congenital deafness in the French capital by Drs. Deleau and Itard. No means were left untried, which thorough science and great ingenuity could suggest; and the result is on record. In the Royal Institution at Paris every attempt to remove deafness by medical instrumentality has been totally abandoned, and the whole energies of philanthropists have been most wisely directed into the proper and legitimate channel of education. The same result has been arrived at in this country and by the same process, No respectable practitioner ever holds out hopes of perfecting such a cure, and although now and then an empiric starts up, asserting his ability to cause the deaf to hear, the faculty have hitherto been more in the habit of asking for living proofs than of giving a blind credence to his assertions. In general, it is perfectly impossible to fix on the seat of malformation during the life of the individual, and in the great majority of instances in which the organ had been examined after death, no vitiation of form, which could account for loss of function, has been apparent. It is now well understood, that there may exist changes in the anatomical arrangement of particles so minute as to be inappreciable, and yet thoroughly incompatible with the due performance of function. We have not as yet the means of ascertaining the nature or causes of such atomic derangement; but, even if we had, they are, from their seat, entirely removed from the influence of external remedies. Knowing the utter impossibility of ascertaining the seat of the disease during life, medical men and the scientific instructor have, at the risk of being accused of professional selfishness, uniformly turned a deaf ear to the reported cures of itinerating quacks, and have denied the efficacy of their nostrums. There are, unfortunately, many persons who attach more importance to a floating newspaper paragraph than to the published results of patient, laborious, and scientific investigation; and by such, the conduct of the instructors of the deaf and dumb, in treating with contempt all such popular fallacies, has been freely and uncharitably branded as mercenary. "Our craft is in danger," is a cry which has never emanated, nor ever will, from teachers of deaf-mutes. Nothing would give more sincere delight to them than to have the inestimable gift of hearing and consequently of speech, conferred on all under their charge; but, knowing as they do, that the age of miracles has passed away, they have no such expectations; and they deem it their bounden duty faithfully to give, when asked, their opinion on the subject of such pretended cures, that parents may not trifle away the most valuable part of their child's life in the idle hope of having its deafness removed. Any other line of conduct in teachers would indicate either the grossest ignorance or the most wanton cruelty on their part. But in making such painful intimations it is no less their duty to exhort to submission to the sovereign will of Him who doeth all things well. We trust that the failures which have of late taken place, in attempts to bestow hearing on those deaf from birth, will only make the desperate nature of this privation the more manifest, and have the effect of exciting a greater interest in the public mind, in favour of the deaf and dumb; so that none of them shall be allowed to pass through life without obtaining that education which can alleviate human sorrow, and, by the blessing of God, prepare for eternity. Edinburgh. K. |