The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-04-30 00:00:00

THE- DAY'S NE IrS.

The total destruction by fire of the Liverpool
-Sailors' Home, early yesterday morning, accompa-
nied by loss of life (the extent of which not
yet fully ascertained), will long mark the 29th of
April, 1860, as a black day in the calendar. It
would be premature to enter into the discussion
of various most important questions raised by the
occurrence .of this dire event. It will be time
enough when the whole factS of the case have
been duly investigated. In another column we
give a full account of the catastrophe, in so far as
the particulars have yet reached us.
We need here only .refer to the ample report
e Bite to-day of the great volunter demonstra-
tion at Birkenhead, on Saturday. Its perusal will
satisfy every one that the great volunteer move-
ment has taken as deep root and sprung up
into as firm and fair a form in Lancashire
and Cheshire as in any other district of the coun-
try. The permanency of the volunteer move-
ment is the most anxious wish of every true
patriot; and we cannot doubt*but that such an
occasion as that we chronicle to-day is eminently
calculated to promote and to confirm this great
national organisation for the defence of our shores
against all comers.

With so many instances- of frOid, upon the
'most gigantic scales. both at home and abroad,
ontLis almost inclined to make light of such com-
paratively trivial cases as those *high occupied
the attention of . our Police-court on Saturday,
and which we report elsewhere. The adultera-
tion of food,. moreover, is a genera.? fact so well
known amongst us that an occasional conviction
"under the act no longer startles us. The article
of pepper, in particular, is not one likely
to raise much interest. in the public mind.
Sooner or later, however, the community
must be aroused to a sense of the duty it owes to
itself; for this process of wholesale adulteration
of articles of general consumption is a wide-
spread and deeply-seated disorder, which strikes
out many destructive roots and brings forth many
bitter fruits, the effects of which we too often
deplore, without reflecting on the producing
cause. It is an evil that eats like a canker at the

core of our great commercial- community, and
aims its poison at the very vitals of society in
general.

. .
These who delight in depicting the depravity of
human. nature may at present find illustrations

enough, and on the largest seals.

In free and

constitutional England, the newly discovered bank

frauds nave too vividly revived the 'memory of
past events which have thrown their shadows

upon the history of our commerce. In despotic
Austria, the very Throne itself has been shaken
by the rascality of its highest officers. And now
in republican America, we find an indirect charge
of fraud, or something very like it, brought
against the present occupant of what the Ameri-

cans call " the most honourable and responsible
office in the world "—the President of the' United
States, Mr. Buchanan. An inquiry has been
directed as to whether the President has, by
money or any other improper means, sought to
influence the action of the le islature; whether
he has refused to execute the late; 'whether he
has not been connected with certainadministra-
tite ahnses; and how far and to kat -'6tte.iit he
has employed money to influence elections. The
President attempts to resist all inquiry, but the
house insists, and it is more than probable that
when the investigation is completed further pro-