Mr dellicoe Elicits an Awkward Reply.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, 17 December 1891, Page 2

Mr dellicoe Elicits an Awkward Reply.

During the past few days,, the libel action of J. S. Evison (editor and manager of the Catholic Times) against E. Thornton, president, and J. W. Henrichs, secretary, of the Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Typographical Association, for the recovery of £600 damages has been heard. Archbishop Bedwood the proprietor of the Catholic Times was crossexamined by Mi* Jellicoe as to his opinion of his editor, Mr Evison, and to in endeavouring to get an unfavourable reply put the following question :— Supposing you were referred by me to - some ' other person, such as the persons alluded to by. Bishop Luck as" "the scum of society," would you consider it a degradation or not ? "Which elicited the following reply:— l do not see that that is relevant. I would not like to endorse any statement without knowing the circumstances. A man may be a Freethinker and yet at the same time be a very respectable man from a worldly point of view. Otherwise our Prime Minister and other great lights of the Colony would be very small indeed. The London Sphpol Board. ♦ — ' The London School Board on Ist October resumed its sittings and the chairman (Mr J. B. Diggle) made his annual statement as to the work done by the board, extending his review to the twenty one years that haya elapsed since the Education Act was passed in 1870. He pointed out that in the period of twenty years the population of London had increased by 28*8 per cent., and the civic wealth of London by 65 per cent., so that, whereas in 1871 a precept of Id. in the pound* of rateable value produced £88,200, in 1891 it produced £137,800. In 1870 the School Board began theig work with not a single school under their control. In 1891 they possessd 410 schools, affording an* accommodation for 428, 000 children. In 1871 it was estimated that there were 104,000 children for whom school places fivere not provided. In 1891 a school place existed .for each child subject to the law of compulsory attendance. The cost of obtaining this large public school property had been £8,43, 9,000, of which daring the same period £1,130,000. had. been repaid, leaving an unpaid debt upon this account of £7,809,000. The yearly payments, for interest on and repayment of this loan amounted to £396,500, which was equivalent to a rate of 3d in the pound of the present rateable value of London. The experience of the last twenty years showed "that in London nonboard schools not only showed, no signs of extension, but were slowly and surely decreasing in numbers and influence The day ragged schools had almost entirely ceased to exist, and the dames' School had also largely ceased to exist. The children who had passed through the schools in these . years probably exceeded half a million.. During these years there had been an ex ti'aordinory di mm uati on of j uvenile ,crime ; for, notwithstanding ' the growth of the population in 'the interval, the number of juvenile offenders was only 8.872 in 1891, as against 9,998 in 1870. In the matter of school attendance no improvement had taken place. ,In 1871, ant of every 100 children-upon the school roll, 78 were in. average 'attendance ; and in fB9l. of the same number, 77 were in. average attendance. He believed that the true ■ cause of irregular attendance lay in the social condition and necessities jof wage earning people ; and tfiat the I time would cdiiie .when we should ■ have to consider .those 1 .necessities more in detail in' applying to their children a -more rafciona^^stetn" of education than we had * hitherto attempted to do. For these reasons 'he had never looked upon the abolition of the school fee as in .the slightest degree likely to promote vegularity ot attendance. Indeed,

Oic policy of the earlier school bcs.rd^ for London had a wholly differe^J aim, — People.