SINGAPORE, BOMBAY, CHINA, &c.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 127, 17 October 1846, Page 4

SINGAPORE, BOMBAY, CHINA, &c.

(From the Melbourne Gazette, Sept. 16.) By the Lightning, we have files from Singapore to the 13 th May. Most of the news has been forestalled. There still remains a few items which we lay before our readers. In our issue of the 28th ultimo, mention was made of an expedition, fitting out against Bally by the Dutch. It appears that the latter are likely to have the co-operation of some of the petty sovereigns in the Indian Archipelago. Lombok, King of Salaparang, had sent an embassy, composed of five grandees to the Dutch resident at Batavia. The ambassadors pronounced the intended chastisement well deserved, and offered their assistance and co-operation. They were received with the most marked respect, and were to have been feted on the 29th April, at the palace of Butenzoig. It was said that everything was ready for the onslaught, which would commence on the return of H. N. M. steamer Merupi to Batavia. Piracy is still prevalent in the narrow seas of the Archipelago. The number of Chinese migrating to Singapore during the season up to sth May, was no less than 11,472. It is said that this description of labour can be commanded to any extent. It would be invaluable in the event of a colony being established in the northern part of this island. Mr. Williams, deputed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to examine the coal at Borneo, and explore its mineral resources, had published some sketches of the country, which has excited great attention. A dry dock was talked of at Singapore. The Chinese, who are so very numerous there, had manifested an alarming spirit of combination, and contempt for the constituted authoiities. They are formed into what is termed a " Tan-Tai-Hoi," or secret society, and had, on one occasion, assembled to the number of several thousands, and kidnapped from twenty to thirty of their countrymen. The news from Bombay is to the 18th April. By advices from the camp, Sukkur, dated 28th March, it appears that the Bengal troops, except one detachment of cavalry, had marched on Nowsung on the 17th of that month. Captain Brown, Secretary to the Government, General Simpson, and Lieut. Younghusband, were in the camp, awaiting the arrival of the Governor (Sir C. Napier). From the Ft lend of India, April 9, it appears that letters had been received from j Egypt, which bring the important intelligence \ that the transit across the isthmus had been satisfactorily arranged with the Pasha by a treaty, which binds parties to a certain mode of conveyance, a certain time to be occupied, and reduced fares ; and a stipulation has been made, that when foreigners are employed they shall be Englishmen. The Pasha has so far broken through oriental etiquette, as to admit Lady Pirie, the wife of Sir John Pirie, to his table. It is also stated that he has consented to the transmission of British troops for India through the Isthmus.

Ragged Schools. — Mr. Dickens, in a letter to the editors of the Daily News, calls the attention of those who take an interest in the welfare of their fellow-beings, to some schools which have been established in the metropolis, for those whose tattered clothing would exclude them from other places of instruction. After alluding to the condition of the lowest classes of our fellow-country-men, he proceeds: — "For the instruction, and as a first step in the reformation, of such unhappy beings, the ' Ragged Schools ' were founded. I was first attracted to the subject, and indeed was first made conscious of their existence, about two years ago, or more, by seeing an advertisement in the papers dated from West-street, Saffron Hill, stating ' that a room had been opened and- supported in that wretched neighbourhood for upwards of twelve months, where religious instruction had been imparted to the poor/ and explaining in a few words what was meant by ragged Schools, as a generic term, including,, then, four or five similar places of instruction. I wrpte to the masters of this particular school to make some further inquiries, and went myself soon

afterwards. It wa3 a hot summer night; and the air of Field Lane and Saffron Hill was not improved by such weather, nor were the people in those streets very sober or honest company. Being unacquainted with the exact locality of the school, I was fain to make some inquiries about it. These were very jocosely received in general ; but everybody knew where it was, and gave the right direction to it. The prevailing idea among the loungers (the greater part of them the very sweepings of the streets and station-houses) seemed to be, that the teachers were Quixotic, and the school upon the whole r a lark.' But there was certainly a kind of rough respect for the intention, and (as I have said) nobody denied the school or its whereabout, or refused assistance in directing to it. It consisted at that time of either two or three (I forget which) miserable rooms, up stairs in a miserable house. In the best of these, the pupils of the female school were being taught to read and write ; and though there were among the number many wretched creatures, steeped in degradation to the lips, they were tolerably quiet, and listened with apparent earnestness and patience to their instructors. The appearance of this room was sad and melancholy, of course — how could it be otherwise ! — but, on the whole, encouraging. The close, low chamber at the back, in which the boys were crowded, was so foul and stifling as to be, at first, almost insupportable ; but its moral aspect was so far worse than its physical, that this was soon forgotten. Huddled together on a bench about the room, and shown out by some flaring candles stuck against the walls, were a crowd of boys, varying from mere infants to young men — sellers of fruit, herbs, lucifer matches, flints ; sleepers under the dry arches of bridges ; young thieves and beggars, with nothing natural to youth about them — with nothing frank, ingenuous, or pleasant in their faces ; low-browed, vicious, cunning, wicked, abandoned of all help but this; speeding downward to destruction, and unutterably ignorant. This, reader, was one room as full as it could hold ; but these were only grains in a sample of a multitude that are perpetually sifting through these schools ; in sample of a multitude who had within them once, and perhaps have now, the elements of men as good as you or I, and may be infinitely better ; in sample of a multitude among whose doomed and sinful ranks (oh, think o( this, and think of them !) the child of any man upon this earth, however lofty his degree, must, as by destiny and fate, be found, if, at its birth, it were consigned to such an infancy and nurture as these fallen creatures had! This was the class I saw at the ragged school. They could not be trusted with books ; they could oaly be instructed orally ; they were difficult of reduction to anything like attention, obedience, or decent behaviour ; their benighted ignorance in reference to the Deity, or to any social duty — (how could they guess at any social duty, being so discarded by all social teachers but the gaoler and the hangman !) — was terrible to see. Yet even here, and among these, something had been done already. The ragged school was of recent date, and very poor ; but it inculcated some association with the name of the Almighty which was not an oath : and had taught them to look forward in a hymn (they sang it) to another life, which would correct the miseries and woes of this." In concluding his letter, Mr. Dickens calls public attention to a lecture lately delivered on the subject of these schools by the Rev. .Robert Ainslie, who in the course of it said that "he had lately paid a vist to Windsor, where a school had been established on the ragged school principle. There were upwards of 100 young persons present, from the age of 18 to 10, boys and girls, all behaving with the greatest decorum and respectability, tolerably well clothed — for, educate the mind, and it immediately revolts at the body being clothed in rags ; they were in a shed, not boarded, the floor of earth, with a fire-place to keep them warm and comfortable ; and there be had heard them read, some very well indeed, and answer questions which but a few weeks ago might just as well have been put to the very boards upon which they were sitting. And who had done all this ? Not the Court ! Not the peers ! Not j the dissenting ministers ! Not the wealthy inhabitants of the neighbourhood ! No, it had been done by a poor and humble chim-ney-sweep ; who had himself been a bad and abandoned man, but who was reclaimed, and who now sat there, with his dirty face, teaching and doing more good than thousands of others of ten times his capacity."