A Terrible Storm passed over Dublin on the afternoon
of the 18th. The day had been unusually fine; but
about three o'clock an extraordinary fall of the mercury
was observed. At a few minutes before four the storm
commenced; the peals of thunder, accompanied by
lightning, followed each other with scarcely any interruption,
and breaking with a tremendous crash over the
city. The wind veered round fully half the compass,
came with the force of a hurricane from the north, and
drove the hailstones with such violence as to shatter
almost all the windows in the line exposed to its fury.
Trees were torn up by the roots in the College Park,
and other places in the vicinity of the city. Some houses
in the south suburbs were unroofed, and almost all the
glass was shivered in the galleries of the Dublin Society,
the Round Room of the Mansion-house, the Rotunda,
the conservatories of the public gardens, and other
places similarly exposed. The hailstones were of
enormous size, as large as grapes, and some others much
larger. Indeed the storm presented, on the whole, all
the characteristics of such a phenomenon in the tropics.
During the storm the Lord-Lieutenant and Vice-regal
party had to fly for shelter from the flower exhibition of
the Horticultural Society to the Round Room of the
Rotunda; and at the same time the storm was
committing great ravages among the sheds of the Royal
Dublin Society's Cattle Show, where Lord Clements
and a party of his friends were observed exerting
themselves to rescue some persons from beneath the fallen
structures. Happily no lives were lost, but the sacrifice
of property was immense. The police of the city made
a return which shows that the loss suffered by all classes
from a storm the duration of which was only to be
measured by minutes, approached in the aggregate to
£27,000.

        SOCIAL, SANITARY, AND MUNICIPAL
                         PROGRESS

Education, Religious or Secular, is a question which
Mr. Fox's bill appears to have brought into active
discussion, especially in the manufacturing districts.
On Easter Monday, the Lancashire Public School
Association held a great meeting at Manchester. The
Mayor was in the chair; and several members of the
Corporation, and a number of the clergy of the town
and neighbourhood, were on the platform. A petition
to parliament was adopted, praying for the establishment
of "a system of education, excluding all theological
doctrines and sectarian influences, supported by
local rates assessed on the basis of the poor's-rate, and
managed by local authorities especially elected for that
purpose by the ratepayers, so as to afford to all, especially
to the untaught and neglected, opportunities free of
charge for a thorough training in useful knowledge,
good principles, and virtuous habits."—The Rev. Hugh
STOWELL, who is a Canon of Chester, affirmed that
education, to be advantageous to the people, must be "a
Christian education." In the course of a vehement speech
the Rev. gentleman cited the case of "infidel France,"
as an illustration of the fatal effects of the want of a
religious education.—A long, a stormy debate ensued, in
the course of which Dr. John WATTS reminded Mr.
Stowell that the National education of France was
entirely in the hands of the priesthood, up to the time
of the great Revolution.—A number of Irishmen, who
had early obtained admission, and formed a body close to
the platform, created much disturbance by trying to
hoot down the supporters of the motion; but the firmness
of the mayor succeeded in preserving tolerable order.

Three important meetings have been held at Leeds
during the present month. The first was summoned by
the working men of Leeds, to consider the subject of
public non-sectarian education; the second was called on
a memorial signed by Dr. Hook, among others, to
consider the extension of Education on some basis of
impartiality towards all sects; the third was demanded by
Mr. Edward Baines and the advocates of Voluntary education,
to consider the objections against State interference.

At the first of these meetings, on the 11th instant, Mr.
Hamer STANFIELD denied the dictum, that religion is
a bar to the progress of education; such an assertion is
injurious to the cause of religion. "I care little," he
said, "for the statistics with which the opponents of
national education so profusely treat us. When I see
figures piled upon figures, I am forcibly reminded of
the manoeuvres of a fish called the cuttle-fish, which,
when closely pursued by its foes, discharges an inky
sort of fluid, which muddies the water, and enables
it to escape."—Dr. Smiles drew a strong picture of
the lamentable ignorance prevalent among the working
classes. About one-half of our poor, he said, can neither
read nor write. The test of signing the name at marriage
is a very imperfect absolute test of education, but
is a very good relative one: taking that test, how stands
Leeds itself in the Registrar-General's return? Thus,
in 1846, of 1,850 marriages, 508 of the men and 1,020
of the women, or considerably more than one-half of the
latter, signed their names with marks; of 47 men
employed upon a railway in the immediate neighbourhood,
only 14 men can sign their names in the receipt
of their wages; and this not because of any diffidence
on their part, but positively because they cannot write.
And lately, of 12 witnesses, "all of respectable appearance,"
examined before the Mayor of Bradford at the
Court-house there, only one man could sign his name and
that indifferently. "I have seen it stated," said the
doctor, "that a woman for some time had to officiate as
clerk in a church in Norfolk, there being no adult male in
the parish able to read and write. For a population of
17,000,000 we have but twelve normal schools; while
in Massachussets they have three such schools for only
800,000 of population. Every broken tradesman in this
country thinks himself, and is thought by others, good
enough to set up for a teacher. The Sunday School
machinery, excellent in its kind, is valueless to impart
secular education; and it is inefficient in its special
religious aims in strict proportion; for it is a notorious
fact that the great obstacle which a Sunday School
teacher meets is the dense ignorance of the child in
rudimentary secular knowledge.—He argued with great
force and eloquence, that, in these days, the diffusion of
wholesome knowledge among the people was essential
to the very safety of the state: "Of all the signs of the
present times this seems to me among the clearest—the
steady advance of the democratic element in society—
(cheers). It is absolutely inevitable; and the fact is
universally admitted—by some with joy and exultation,
by others with profound sorrow and alarm. It is only
a question of time, or perhaps of opportunity. The next
great revolutionary wave which rolls across Europe may
bring the suffrage within the reach of the whole adult
people of England, as it has already placed it within the
possession of those of Germany and France, who a little
more than two years ago seemed far farther from it than
we were—(hear). To the already enfranchised classes I
would say, educate the people in time, that you may
have an intelligent and reasonable people to deal with
instead of a blind, ignorant, and exasperated one; and
to them not enfranchised I would say, get education,
that you may obtain the means of employing your new
power to the greatest possible advantage, and for the
common benefit of all (loud cheers). While the education
of the rest of Europe is advancing with such rapid
strides, and giving new life to the productive activities
of the Continental states, it seems clear to me that if
England does not educate ahead of them, she must inevitably
lose her present supremacy among the nations."

At the meeting called by Mr. Baines he proposed a
resolution against Mr. Fox's bill; but an amendment,
moved by Mr. Hamer Stanfield, was carried by a
considerable majority, and afterwards a resolution in favour
of secular education, founded on local management and
taxation, and under local control, was passed almost
unanimously.

There were also meetings at Hull and Derby, with
similar results.

The Mayor of Manchester has established a Fund for
a Public Library and Reading Room for the Working
Classes of that town. Sixteen, eighteen, or more firms
have subscribed each £l00 towards this excellent design;
and, altogether, the funds promised will be little less
than £3000. The Hall of Science in Camp-field,
originally built (not many years ago) for the Socialists, is
designed to be the depository of the library; and Sir
Oswald Mosley, Bart, (till recently the lord of the