frini
v i CHANNEL i s l a n d s :
I ■> I i
slenderly endowed schools; in others they have no
endow’ments : but in no parish is there any want of
schools for instruction in French, English, and arithmetic.
Sunday schools also, are sufficiently provided ;
but their efficiency is considerably impaired by the
exclusive adoption of the catechism of the episcopal
church. I have frequently walked into the country
schools; and have always found the masters painstaking,
and tolerably intelligent.
There is also an endowment of about 76/. per
annum, for aiding students in their studies in the universities
of Oxford and Cambridge.
Jersey has many institutions and societies, for the
amelioration of man’s moral and physical condition.
The chief of these institutions, is the hospital, so
called,—but which would more properly be denominated
poor-house,—since there is no general medical
establishment attached to it. This institution is very
inferior in its internal management to the same institution
in Guernsey, of which I shall afterwards have
occasion to speak. It contains no educational department
; no teaching of trades to the young ;. no perfect
separation of sexes ; and in its general arrangement,
is miserably defective, both as regards the physical
and moral condition of those who are its inmates.
And worse than all this, the subsistence of the poor
is farmed out to an individual, whose gain arises from
the difference between the expense of feeding those
committed to his charge, and the sum he is allowed
by the States for that purpose; a system, which I
need scarcely characterise, as utterly unworthy of the
age. Even the remuneration of the medical attendJERSEY.
1 1 3
ant, is on the same bad principle; he has no fixed
salary; but is paid merely by the quantity of physic
which he administers. I by no means intend any
reflections upon the individuals who are so circumstanced.
The medical officer I know to be incapable
of any but the most honourable conduct; nor do I
know anything to the disadvantage of the individual
to whom the poor are farmed; but these are temptations
that ought not to be presented to any man; and
no establishment should be conducted on such a
system, that the interests of those in the management,
is placed in direct opposition to the objects of the
institution.
But in Jersey, the curse of party spirit is upon
every thing,-—throwing a chill, even upon the best
emotions, and paralysing the exertions of the philanthropist:
for the most noble project that ever was
ripened by wisdom and humanity, would be blighted
in Jersey, by the indifference, if not by the open
hostility of the party with whom it did not originate.
Jersey has also many private benevolent institutions
; comprehending both the physical and religious
wants of the inhabitants,—among others, a provident
society,—and two infant schools,—all of these recently
established; but all of them, upon the whole, prosperous,
and most deserving of being so; both on
account of the objects wdiich they entertain, and of
the zealous and excellent management under which
they are placed. I must not omit to mention, that a
savings’ bank is about to be established both in Jersey
and Guernsey, in consequence of an order in council
recently transmitted to the islands; and that the legis