TASMANIA.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 373, 21 May 1861, Page 3

TASMANIA.

{From the Laumeston Examiner )

MURDER RAMPANT. The atrocious murder by Hamilton ot his wife at Hobart Town has thrown' into the shade the insane and ruthless slaughter oi Scotty at Pingal. That the public should be familiarised with such deeds of honor may well awaken suspicion and create distrust in every rank of society. The wretched hero of the Fingal tragedies is a debased being, wreaking indiscriminate vengeance on all vv! om his diseased imagination accounted foes, and on their immediate connections. But Hamilton's case differs from this: he kills the wife of his bosom, the woman he had pledged himself to cherish and protect. Their union had not indeed been happy, and we are disposed to admit that the female was exasperating, violent, and even insultingly unchaste. It is reported that both man and wife had been prisoners of the crown; yet they occupied a respectable position in society for persons of their class, and were superior to the common run. We have here another instance of individuals who were accepted without regard to their former position, and who had regained a place in social life that indicated esteem and confidence, voluntarily resigning the distinction, and by word and act declaring themselves unfit for the position the amenities of life had accorded for them. The woman was of la* morals, and the man of loose habits. He had descended fiom the dignity of human nature and repeatedly inflicted corporal punishment on his wife. She may have provoked this by her tongue and behaviour, but a remedy was within reach short of murder. The man who lifts his hand to a woman, except in self-defence, is an innate coward, and deserves to be spumed by every citizen. Guilty of this unmanly outrage he has no guarantee that when provoked by passion he will stop short of murder. In the case of Hamilton many altercations had arisen, but to induce his last acts towards the deceased a demon must have possessed him. When men give way to unreasonable passion they cannot know to what it will carry them. Think of poker and tongs as weapons to punish a victim whose back was already broken. Hear the imploring cry of the mother to her child to undo her garments and bring a drink of water to her parched lips, with which the little one was unable to comply in consequence of the darkness in which the house was left. What agonizing moments must have followed, until the spirit fled to give an account of the deeds done in the body to the Great Judge of all! We might lift the veil and show horrors beyond this at the mere mention of which humanity would shudder. But we abstain. The lesson inculcated is that the wife beater is in a fair way to become a murderer, and that the best among us who know their own hearts have daily need to repeat the prayer " Lead us not into temptation."

ASSESSMENT.

A large number of the inhabitants of Launceston have reposed implicit confidence in the integrity of the Municipal Council with respect to the assessment, and have been disappointed. Alterations have been made, but only wnere particular influences have been brought to bear, and as a whole the assessment roll is most unequal, and we may add iniquitous. Those who make a fuss, who give the most trouble, who trade in grievances and like the scum are to be found on the surface of every kettle of fish, succeed in their object, but those who rely on the eqiuty of the Council discover that it is vain to put trust in any such article. It is notorious that rents have fallen from thirty to fifty per cent.; that the real return, after deducting repairs, insurance, allowance for deterioration, and non-occupation is at least twenty-five per cent, on the nominal rent, and that therefore there ought to have been a careful revision of the assessment roll. But this has; not been done. There has been an anxiety to tax to the utmost and far beyond fair bounds the already over-taxed citizens. In multitudes of instances there are properties rated at amounts largely exceeding what they are or could be let for. Although somewhat expensive, the plan we recommended some time ago, was the only juft course —the re-valuation of premises by competent men. This the burgesses had a right to expect in the altered circumstances of the times. As the roll stands it is a mass of inconsistency and manifest injustice. STATE EDUCATION.

Public opinion in Englandf seems to be changing on the subject of State education. Its enormous and growing expence has done something to open the eyes of many, and when the question is honestly examined it is seen to be indefensible. At a meeting of the National Association for the.Promotion of Social Science, Sir James Kay Shuttleworth gave the following statistics :— We are now expending in Great Britain at least two millions annually in the support of elementary schools. The annual local cost (without accounting for the expense of training colleges, of inspection, and of administration) for each elementary day scholar in an efficient school in Great Britain in 1859 was £L 7s. ljd., or at th» rate of 6^d. per week for forty-eight weeks in the year, for 748,164 scholars, who, on the average, were in the inspected and aided schools. Of this the parents paid weekly rather more than l£d. The whole income of the inspected schools aided by government in the year ended December 31,1859, w«s £1,014,682. In the schools which derived no aid f rom government the proportions of the school pence to the subscriptions probably exceeded those of the elementary schools inspected and aided. If the estimate were correct, the government paid £413,673 annually, the middle class and upper class by subscriptions and endowments£B4l,6l4, and the workingclasses£7s9,394 towards the loo*l support of elementary day and evening schools. We might estimate the population of Great Britain at 22,000,000. and adopt the prudent calculation that one in eight ought to be at school, either for full time, or for half time, till the age of thirteen, If from this eight we deducted 50,000 pauper children educated in workhouses, and a fourth part as belonging to those classes of society capablo and willing to provide for tho education of "their own children, the smallest number of children for whom we would haveto secure an efficient elementary education exceeded two millions. A meagre estimate for educating this number would raise the minimum annual outlay to about £3,000,000. We then required at least £1,000,000 per annum more than that which was now estimated to be expended on public elementary education.

A f cry modest demand, which has start-

led not a few in the parent country. Sir John Parkington's pertinent comment on this is—

Shall we a-ot a proper system of education introduced into Engla .d ? We shall not as long as we continue to trust to a central department that which was solely the duty of every locality, evciy parish, to do for itself. No rational man' will deny that the present system has nroduced benefits ; still I for one believe that it is not sound in itself, and the people of England will not be educated as they ought to be until a sound and better system Ds adopted. I know there is not among this vast multitude one man who will dissent from what I say, when I tell you frankly that whatever system of education we may adopt —whether it be of centra! grants—whether it be of our local rates and local administration —no national system can or ou^ht to exonerate parents from that first duty of educating their children. This is the spirit of the m olution that I have to propose to you .— "That this meeting views with deep interest and satisfaction the efforts made by the working classes themselves, in many places of the United Kingdom to better their moral and social position.

I do not believe that 30,000 of the working men of Glasgow would have sought to attend this meeting it that° were not a principle in which they concur £700,000 a-year are now contributed by the working classes of the country towards their own education. I entreat you to go on in this spirit; the only extent to which the state is justified in supplementing education is to the extent of the inability and deficiency created by the poverty of those to be educated. It is your first duty to educate yourself—it is your first ddty to educate your children ; let me implore you to bear it in mind.