is a purlieu of the town, leading out of the High Street, and is the
chosen settlement of the Irish Romanists. It consists of a series of
courts and alleys which, for closeness and filth, are probably without a
parallel westward of St. Paul’s. Being a _cul de sac_, unlighted,
irregularly paved, and indifferently supplied with water, its best
disposed inhabitants find it difficult to cultivate the habits of
civilized life. The majority give the matter up, and seek in alcoholic
and other stimulants, an antidote against wretchedness, malaria, and
disease. Nowhere are the evils of overcrowded chambers more apparent.
Single rooms frequently shelter two, and even three families. Its
choicest district exhibits a return of forty families to eighteen houses;
of one hundred and sixty persons, exclusive of lodgers, sleeping in
thirty nine rooms. The entire population, inclusive of Palace Place,
must exceed one thousand five hundred souls. Prior to the erection of
the present School, it was impossible for ladies to penetrate its
recesses. The Police entered its retreats in couples. In 1847 the work
of reformation commenced; since then a steady progress has been made. At
first, the school was emphatically a ragged school; its scholars were
literally running wild and half naked in the streets; they outraged alike
propriety and decency. Gradually, a change has been wrought.
Cleanliness and obedience are rule, where formerly dirt and turbulence
prevailed. Gifts of serviceable clothing to the elder and most regular
pupils of both sexes have introduced some appreciation of tidiness and
self-respect. Above all, the systematic visitation of its Ladies’
Committee and their friends, has been productive of most humanizing
effects. Slight attempts are recognizable, on the part of the residents,
to render their locality less decidedly objectionable. They have, at
least, before them a higher standard, which a few are endeavouring to
reach. The teaching of the children has thus reacted on the mothers; and
though from the constant importation of fresh immigrants the battle must
be fought uphill, there can be but little doubt on which side the victory
will rest at last. But with the Homeric hero it is fair to wish for
light. Granted the day and the contest must be successful. It is the
ignorance of the Irish, that is the nurse of their misery; lighten this
darkness, and as the clouds of superstition and prejudice roll away,
whatever germs of good, and they are many, now lie undeveloped in their
hearts, will blossom beneath the genial rays of knowledge, and bring
forth fruit in season. Already thirty children have gone from this
school to earn their own living in the states of life to which it has
pleased God to call them; and if in their different situations they are
practising, as the reports of their employers testify, the virtues of
honesty, sobriety, and industry, of gentleness and modesty, there can be
no undue assumption in attributing this happy issue far more to
discipline and precept, than to nature or example.
The average of attendances during the past year is about sixty-five,
though this number has, at times, been considerably exceeded. The
expenditure for rent, books, master, &c., is £114, of which only £61 is
obtained by regular subscriptions. But it most assuredly becomes all who
have at heart the interests of Scriptural religion, who desiderate the
spread of Gospel Light, and love the truth as it is in Jesus, to combine
in strengthening by both personal and pecuniary aid, an Educational
Institution, abundantly blessed in the rescue of many children from
heathenism, vice, and crime. It is planted in a Missionary Field of no
ordinary importance; stretched before our very doors, almost as much
untilled and unsown as the sterile wastes of Paganism. One isolated spot
it has, whence all that is green and refreshing in its barrenness
proceeds—its District School. Shall _its_ vegetation wither for lack of
Alms and Prayers to water the young and vigorous shoots?
Nor has the attempt to extend the National System of Education to the
Eastern portion of the Parish proved less satisfactory.