The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-01-02 00:00:00

NORTHERN DAILY TIMES.--LIVERPOOL, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21 1856.

Mr. Luff: I move that that letter be referred to the
committee.

Mr. Denton : I second the motion.
Mr. Gardner : The letter is addressed to the vestry,
and it has a right to be read here. (Hear, bear.)
Mr. Chesney : I move that the letter be read.

Mr. WoodrUff: I second the motion.
Mr. Luff: Previous to the meeting of the committee,
notice was sent to Mr. Dignan to attend. Mr. Dignan
did not condescend to come to the meeting, but he sends
a letter, a long document, which probably contains
much that is not fit to go to the public.

Mr. Woodruff : I protest altogether against any motion
to refer that letter to a committee without having it read
here in the first instance. This proceeding would open
a very wide field for irregularity. (Hear. hear.) If
this document is referred to a committee without being
read, the same may be done with other documents. I
protest again it as contrary to all rule, and quite illegal.

. _
Mr. Denton : I consider it very irregular for this
letter to be read. Mr. Dignan sent a letter yesterday
to the committee stating that he intended to submit a
letter to the board.
Mr. Chesney : Very well—he has submitted it.
" Denton : I think before it coma to the board it
le before the committee.
: Would it not be better, in the first
1 any report the committee may have to

The Clerk read a minute of the committee's meeting,
by which it appeared that a letter was read from Mr.
Dignan, declining to attend the committee, but stating,
that he intended to address a letter to the general board..
Mr. Chesney : hey adjourned until that letter from
Mr. Dignan should be read to the board. t
Mr. Bradley : Therefore, now comes the time, I sub-
mit, to refer that letter to the committee before it comes
to the board.
Mr. Chesney : Oh I not at all.
Mr. Bradley : I submit to the discretion of the chair.
man, whether, as I am concerned so much in this matter,
and involved in a charge made against me, it is cor-
rect in Mr. Dignan to take this very unusual course of
proceeding. I submit to you, sir, whether it is not
right and correct under the circumstances, to refer this
letter at once to the committee, to take it into considera-
tion, without its coming in the first instance before the
vestry further than pro forma ? Mr. Woodruff is per-
fectly well aware, that there is no irregularity in such a
course at all, and I am surprised at him to take the
course he has. It only shows the partizan spirit—
The Chairman : Oh, really, I must request—
Mr. Bradley : Ido feel aggrieved in this matter, Mr.
Chairman, and more particularly when I find gentlemen
taking such a position—
The Chairman : Yes, but really I think it is better
not to make these remarks.
Mr. Bradley : Such things ought to be clone in-an
open and candid manner.
The Chairman : It struck me, that I hardly knew
whether I should permit this discussion to be rais
all. Here was a document addressed to me as chairman
of the select vestry, with a request that it should be read
at the board, and it struck me in the first instance, that
it then became as it Were, a public document, and that
for the vestry to say it should not be read, but should be
referred to a private committee, would be rather an
arbitrary proceeding, and there was a question.in my
mind, whether I could permit such a thing to bi done,
and whether I ()light not to insist upon its being read.
But the proceedings of the committee yesterday certainly
make an alteration, because Mr. Dignan says, lie will
not appear before the committee, and will write to the
vestry, and, therefore, the circumstances are changed,
and I think it is now quite in the power of the vestry
to say by their vote, whether they will have the letter
read or not —but it must be put to the vote.
Mr. Satchell was anxious to do justice to Mr. Bradley
as well as to Mr. Dignan. He thought if the letter were
read now it would, to a certain extent, prejudge the
question, as it would go to the public through the
medium of the press.
Mr. Shaw contended that the letter was a public docu-
ment, having no reference to the committee, or to any
individual whatever.

Ir. Owen thought, in justice to Mr. Dignan, the
committee ought to hear what he had to say, as he had
;sailed there by Mr. Bradley.
Whitty would suggest that Mr. Bradley should
'Lw his opposition to the reading of the letter.
Bradley : I think it is dealing unfairly with the
subject to allow the letter to be read until all the matter
has been gone into before the committee, and the corn.
mittee had brought up their report to the board. That
is the usual cour6e. To do otherwise isdealing in a one-
sided manner with the case, and is not placing we in a
fair or proper position.
Mr. Whitty : I do not wish to place you in any unfair
or improper position. There is a special committee
appointed by the board, but that committee has no
power to do anything more than to request Mr. Dignan
to appear here. Of course Mr. Dignran may refuse, if
he thinks proper, and may address any communication
he thinks fit, as a rateplyer, to the board. If the docu-
ment were not read to the board, Mr. Dignan might
publish it to-morrow, or any day he thinks fit. Ido not
at object would be gained by attempting to sup.
:v. It would be a much more candid and fair
d it now at once. (Hear, hear.)
ton : Mr. Dignan has refused to attend, and
' give his reasons.

Vauxhall-ward, and is, or was, an assessor in the ward, and
when the Select Vestry refused to swallow this indigestible
pill, Mr. Bradley turned round, and has since made the Select
Vestry the laughing-stock of the town, by showing that there
was na necessity for the appointment at all.
Fourth,—Pending the decision of the Select Vestry, res-
pecting this appointment of an out-door inspector of relieving
officers, Mr. Bradley, without consulting any one, appointed
the youth Blundell an assistant relieving-officer, in the Parish-
office ; and the act was so illegal, so unprecedented, that the
members of the Vestry who investigated the case dismissed
Blundell, and passed a vote of censure on Bradley. Unhappily,
the connection between the Parish-office and Vauxhall-ward
is not easily severed, for last November the same youth,
Blundell, acted as the secretary to Mr. Roger Haydock's
election committee ; and Mr. Haydock is known to be the
nominee of Mr. Bradley.

Fifth,— It is a fundamental rule of Parochial law that no
out dcor relief shall be administered except in the presence of
three or snore guardians of the poor. Ido not stop to inquire
whether this law be good or bad—right oriwrong in the work-
ing. It is the law, and as such it ought to be respected. It
was framed, no doubt, to prevent the pOssibility of collusion ;
and this law, which in Liverpool affects an outlay of £30,000
habitually outraged by Mr. Bradley, who is known

a year,
to have d
without a s

-door relief for days hi accession, alone

le memberof the N _
s.. It must be clear to every one tl
system so loose and illegal, every inhabitant of Vauxh
might to "the recipient of outdoor relief ;" and when it
remembered that the person who dispenses this relief is the
very Genius of Intrigue; who never does anything without a
motive,—who succeeds in all his little tortuosities and jobhery
by an extraordinary amount of cunning, the only mental power,
sash as it is, which he possesses,—the inference is one which
ought to impresi the ratepayers of tho town:

being present to check
t, under a

his proce.

It is no answer to say that certain members of the Vestry
have not attended the quoruins, and that Mr. Bradley has
discharged the ditties which they ought to have fulfilled. I
talie thy stand'upOn the illeiality of the relief so adininistered ;
I hear in mind the antecedents of the man who administers
it ; and I assert that there can be no proper circumspection
when all the legal fences with which the Legislature and the
Poor-law Board have surrounded the administration of out-
door relief, are thus rudely. broken down, and trampled under
foot, by a person in the position of Mr. Bradley.
The power, too. which he assumes over the paid servants of
the Parish is worthy of a passing notice, as illustrative of this
phase of the question, and one incident will make-it clear. On
the day when the late excellent Mr. Edward Gray expired,
a man who bad served the parish in the most confidential
capacity for more than a quarter of a century,—his fellow
clerks, anxious to pay a small tribute of respect to his memory,
partially closed the blinds of the Parish-office, but Mr.
Bradley, whose consent had not been asked, rudely and
peremptorily. ordered the blinds to be raised. The incident, I
repeat, is small in itself, but it reveals a world of meaning.

A oe, then, we have a member of the Town Council and of
the Vestry, who is proved, in a series of transactions, to have
Treated the Municipal and the Parochial rates as if they were
his own personal property. These proofs, pray'bbserve, do
not rest on my unsupported assertion. They are not matters
of belief, but of Faor ; and the !facts are to be found in the
records of the Corporation, and the books of the Parish.
They cannot be erased ;" no denial, • no vituperation, no
personalities, can invalidate them ; and every person who takes
the trouble to refer to the original documents will arrive at
the conclusion that many a criminal has been executed on
evidence less convincing and crushing.

Before facts so specific and established, a general expression
of opinion in a letter fades into insignificance, and it Appears to
me to be the sublimity of impudence, or affectation, on the
part of Mr. Bradley to simulate all this wrath, when he has
allowed charges so grave and so degrading to hang over his
head for a couple of year3--charges, be it remembered, which
were tangible and could be grappled with—and has added to
the number by his conduct in the eve of Blundell during the
year which has just closed, and by hii illegal expenditure of
the Parochial-funds.

Sustained by such evidence as I have adduced, I think I
am ju,t'fied in rebuking this weak and foolish person in the
language of England's greatest poet—
" Till thou cans't rail this seal from off this bond,

Thou but offend'st thy luncrs to speak so loud."

I declined, as I have stated, to appear before Mr. Bradley's
committee, because, knowing his omnipotence in the Vestry, I
felt that I could not, whatever proof I might adduce, depend
upon a fair and impartial tribunal. It was reported, for
instance, in the 'published proceedings of tho last Vestry
meeting, that when Mr. Bradley had secured the nomination.
of his committee, he cordially shook hands with all his
supporters on the occasion, and thanked them for their exer-
tions. I should be extremely, weak to submit myself to the
adjudication of his sympathisers—to the tender rnerciesof men,
some of whom have been placed on the Vestry by himself, and
who have been voting during the last few months, that what
was white on one particular Tuesday, was black the fortnight
after. lad tress this letter to you el New Year's Day—a day
of felicitations—and I hope that Mr. Bradley's friends will
have generosity enough to return the compliment by shaking
him with equal cordiality by the hand, when they hat heard
this communication, for he will require, in my judgment, all
the com fort they can give him.

In- conclusion, I must express my conviction that Mr.
Bradley's position in the Council is sustained by the machinery
which he puts into action through the instrumentality of the
Vestry; and if he were once ejected from the last named
body, he would disappear at the expiration of his .term from
the former

That the double nuisance would thus be estin.
uish'd, effectually and for ever, is as eertaia as the natural

law that effect follows cause
It may seem absurd to waste this long eommunir
man so mentally and morally small as Mr. Bradley; but it
must he remembered that he almost exclusively controls the
oxpenditure of £120,000 per annum of the public money—a
fearful power to confide to such hands; and I think I have
rendered a service to the community at large by this portrait
of the TOWN's ALMONER.
I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Jan. 1, 1856. JOHN DIGNAN.
Mr. Luff : He appears to have a high opinion of the

.tion on a

Vestry. • -
The Chairman : What is your pleasure'to do with this
letter?
Mr; Chesney : Now you had better refer it to the
committee !
Mr. Wensley: It is almost useless to refer it to the
committee, as Mr. Dignan declines to attend.
Mr. Woodruff moved that it be inserted on the minutes
in the nmal course.
Mr. Chesney seconded the resolution.
Mr. Denton : I am astonished that you would ask
such a thing—
Mr. Woodruff: Mr. Denton may express astonishment,
if he thinks fit.
Mr. Denton : It is an insult.
Mr. Woodruff : I do not feel that it applies to me,
and therefore I do not consider it an insult.
Mr. Gardner moved that it be referred to the com-
mittee to report on.
Mr. Rawle seconded the motion.
The latter course was understood to be adopted.
Mr. Bradley : I shall refrain from saying one word
about a document of that kind, knowing, as I do know,
that it is to be placed in the hands of a committee to
report upOn. Then will be the time when I shall make
some observations upon the character of Mr. Dignan.
The business of the vestry then terminated.

WATSON v. BAINES

--to--

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN DAILY TIMES.

Sir,—ln your report of my case against Messrs. James
Baines and Co. for wages, heard on Saturday last, you
ought, in justice to me, to have stated, in opposition to the
grounds of defence against my claim, that I based my right
to wages on the constant, unusual, and unwarrantable
interference of the Captain of the Oliver Ding, and his
taking the keys of the store room from me frequently,
without assigning just cause, the first instance occuriug two
days after sailing from this last May. This, (repeated several
times) and being called to other duties not properly belonging
to me as purser, and the want of assistance in getting to hand
stores ag -s

they were required, which, from-the first,
thheld by the captain's orders, and occasionally had to be
rendered by some of the passengers, prevented me from
keeping as correct an account of the consumption of the
stores as under other aid ordinary circumstances I should
have done ; and although the stores unaccounted for appear
large, yet, after due allowance is made for breakage and
other casualties, the deficiency is by no means unusual in
voyages of the ordinary duration between this port and
Melbourne and home again.
I did complain of the hearing, and do so still. What if
I was, as suggested against me, incompetent for discharging
my duties? it was the bounden duty of the captain to super-
sede me, instead of continuing my services to the termina-
tion of the voyage, and then, and not before, set up that
ground as the reason for 4lot paying my wages ; and this,
in my opinion would have been more in accordance with the
authority and power which a captain is empowered to use in
all cases of unti ness. Had I been deprived of my office,
the subsequent repudiation of my claim would not have
appeared so inconsistent as it does now. I have filled the
office of purser previously, with satisfaction to, my employ-
ers, arid 1 think the foregoing explanation, which I trust
you will insert in your columns, will show why my accounts
were imperfect.—l am sir, yours obediently,
Liverpool, December 31, 1855.

LEONARD J. WATSON

WINDSOR THEATRICALS.—The next theatrical pe;form•
ante at Windsor Castle is to take place on the 10th of
January, when the entertainments will consist of Mr.
Planche's drama of "A Wonderful Woman," and Mr.
Oxenford's farce of ",Only a Halfpenny." Mr. Charles
Mathews was, we believe, to have appeared at the following
repiTsentation on , the 24th. lair. Kean, has, however,
received a communication from him, in which he states,
that he is expressly forbidden by Mr. E. T. Smith to
perform at Windsor, in consequence of the royal patronage
being withheld from the theatre of which he is the lessee
and director.

TOWN COUNCIL-YESTERDAY

__;*,.___.

A special meeting of the Council was held in the Town-
hall, at eleven o'clock, yesterday, in conformity with the
Municipal Reform Act, for the discharge of certain formal
business. The Mayor, John Stewart, Esq., presided.

The Mayor was appointed a trustee under a local act of
9th Geo. IV., for enabling the trustees of Mrs. Ann Moly-
neux's charities, in Liverpool, to grant building leases, and
for better vesting the estates in them : for confirming
exchanges, and other purposes for the benefit of the
charities.

The Mayor, Mr. Flemming, and Mr. Gregson were
appointed three trustees under the local act of 7th Geo. IV.,
for establishing St. James's Cemetery.
The Mayor and Mr. Aldermen Bennett were appointed
the two members of the Council to execute the p3wers given
to the Mayor and senior alderman by the local act of 10th
Geo. IV., cap. 15, relating to the school for the indigent
Blind of Live-- the chapel attached thereto.

as commi

appointor

it of forty-one members of the Council

Iners to carry into execution the local act of sth

Geo. I

the better regulation and encouragement of

pilots, &c., the only changes that were made were At
John Lawrence, Mr. Aiken, Mr. Sheil, and Mr. Haydocli

in the room of

Mark Wood, A,

WALLMEY EMBANK

:enderson, Big-

The Mayor, Mr. liornby, and Mr. Alderman S. Ilolme.
were appointed three commissioners under the local act of

10th Geo. IV., for the embankment on the north east side

of the Leasowes, in Wallasey and Great Meols, in the county

On these appointments coming under consideration,
Mr. Alderman J. Holme said, that though they were a
special council, and though he knew .that the business
ought to be confined simply to the appointments in the
paper, yet he would with their permission make one or two
remarks on the subject of the Wallasey embankment, for
he was sure that the importance of the subject not only
would justify him in making those remarks, but would
cause the council to readily listen to them. (Hear, hear )
He was perfectly willing to incur any responsibility of a
reasonable nature.in undertaking the duties of a commis-
sioner under the act, but having been for some years a
commissioner, and having frequently visited the embank-
ment, and having some practical experience of the great
difficulty in the establishing and maintaining sea-embank-
ments, he thought it right that the council, and through
the council the public at large, should know their position
with reference to the embankment in question. He
regretted to say that the total amount of rates which they
were authorised to levy under the Act of Parliament,
ted altogether only to about £3,300 per annum. Of
that amount the Corporation of Liverpool contributed one-
half, or about £1,660 ; •Mr. Viner, the largest landowner
there, contributed about £9OO, and the remainder, £7OO or
£750; was contributed by the various landowners who were
possessors of land under certain levels of the tide. During
the time he was absent from England,be found to his great
regret when he came home, that very serious damage
had been done to the embankment by a heavy
gale of wind during a high tide last winter, and he bad
been appalled to find that it required no less than £SOOO to
repair the damage done and to make an extension of the
embankment, in consequence of some of the sand banks
being washed away. The result was this, that they bad to
incur a debt of £4500, a year and half's amount of the
rates, and they could do nothing but increase that debt in
case any unforeseen casualty should atise—a casualty which
impossible for any man to say how soon it might
Lrise. It was of no use blinking the question, and he
should state at once that without making the real circum-
stances known, he, for one, would dare not incur the
responsibility attaching to the duties of the commissioners.
He found, als ), that a large mass of clay had been swept
down, which everybody should know was detrimental to the
navigation of the river. The sand banks, too, bad been
decreasing year after year, between New Brighton and Hoy-
lake to an alarming extent, and when they knew that those
sand banks had formerly served as an embankment against
the sea, and when they were aware of the power of water
when it once acquired the mastery, and that on that shore
strong north-westerly would raise a 22 feet tide to 26 feet,
he, for one, had no hesitation in saying that if they were
again visited with such a gale as they had been a few years
since visited, on the 7th of January, the damage that
would be done would be almost irreparable. Fle should also
mention that when the embankment was first made there
were 300 yards of fore shore, and that that fore shore, having
been since washed away, the great difficulty which the
surveyor had to contend against was in mabitaining the foot
of the embankment_ In consequence of the action of the
tide a great part of the embankment bad sunk three or four
feet, and they had accordingly been obliged to add to the
tnp of it. It was originally formed of sand, and it was
then coated with clay, and paved with a pebble pavement,
and when he saw that it had cost £O,OOO to repair the
damage done in a single year from a small hole being made
in the embankment, he could not conceal from himself that

it was

the period was not far disfant when the public bodies of
the town would have to make a sea wall, in all probability

commencing
distance wot:

nbe and ending at Hoylake. The
and the cost would

Id be about eight miles,
'400,000 to £500,000, and in expressing
:ould say that he had not arrived at it
without serious reflection. The time was not far distant
when that large expense would have to be incurred for the
safety of-the port, and probably next session of Parliament
they would be required to go for extended powers
for the purpose of raising a much larger sum than
they were empowered to do under the present act. The
corporation had not much land at the other side of the
river, and, therefore, had not a very large pecuniary
interest there, but he would not shrink from saying, that
the Dock Committee, as the owners of enormous property
there, should join the corporation in the expense of erecting
such an embankment as would make this great port, its
shipping, and its property, quite secure. No one would,
for a moment, suppose that he could doubt the judgment
and talent of their most able corporation surveyor, but his
time was so occupied now—(he, Mr. Holme, knew as a
fact, that he was frequently working till eleven o'clock at
night at his house, and up again at it at five o'clock in the
morning)—that it was impossible for him, whatever might
be his ability, or energy, to pay that attention to this subject
which its importance imperatively demanded. It was
impossible for him, unless they gave him a deputy-
surve3or to attend to the bus-floss of the council,
to pay that attention to the Wallasey embankment
which it should receive ; and as the subject was of such
importance that it should be promptly attended to, he would
suggest that the surveyor be relieved of that responsibility,
and a gentleman of first-rate talent, and accustomed to the
construction of large sea walls, employed to attend to it.
lie did not care whether Mr. John Hartley, Jun. or not,
but it was necessary that they should have the best talent
which the country could produce, for the purpose of making
an embankment which would be a bulwark against the sea,
and preserve this port from the perils which sooner or later,
under the present state of things, would unquestionably
take place.

amount to from Xs
that opinion he el-

The matter was allowed to drop.
In the appointment of forty-one members of the council,
to be commissioners under the acts relating tol the
churches of St. Paul and. St. John, the only new appoint-
ments were Mr. Aiken, Mr. Farnworth, and Mr. Law-
rence, in the room of Mr. Arthur Henderson, Mr. W. J.
Horsfall, and Mr. Mark Ward, out of the council.
The twelve members appoir.ted last year as com-
missioners to inspect and audit the dock accounts, and
the members appointed commissioners under the Income
and Property tax, were re-appointed.
A memorial forwarded by Mr. B. J. Thompson, very
numerously and respectably signed, was read. The
memorialists complained of the inconvenience which
persons crossing the river experienced from the ferry-
boats starting by the baths' clock, which did not always
correspond with St. Nicholas' and St. George's clocks,
and prayed that an illuminated clock might be so placed
there, that all could see it.
Mr. C. Stewart suggested that St. George's and St.
Nicholas's clocks should be made to keep the same time,
and if the boats started by either of them, the inconve-
nience would be remedied.
[St. George's clock is at present kept by the parish.
and St. Nicholas' byithe corporation, and, as a matter of
course, they never by any chance agree.]
On the motion of Mr. Alderman S. neitne, seconded by
Mr. Alderman Dover, the memorial was ordered to lie on
the table.
!4'," This concluded the business.