The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-03-07 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION

An .Evening Edition of the NORTHRRN DAILY
TIMER is now Published every Afternoon, at Three o'clock,
containing the Markets, together with all the News of the
.Day, up to the hour of going to Press.

WILL POSITIVELY CLOSE ON THE 15TH.
FIRST EXHIBITION of the FRENCH
SCHOOL of the FINE ARTS in Liverpool, including

MAD'LLE ROSA BONHEITR'S
GREAT PICTURE OF
"THE HORSE FAIR,"

Is NOW OPEN at the Liverpool Academy Rooms. Old Post-office-
place, Church-street, Admission "ts Catalogues. &I. Gentle-
men's Season Tickets, ss. Ladies' Ditto. 3s 6d.—Open from Ten
till Vise o'clock.
The Exhibi.ion is now onen in the Evening, from Seven
to Nine o'clock. Admission, 6d.

B. FRODSHAM, Secretary.

ilottrn Cmttg

FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1856

THE majority obtained by the Government on
the division on the Church rates Abolition Bill, is
probably one of the most signal triumphs we shall
have to record in the present Session on any ques-
tion embodying a popular principle, or possessing
a germ of long deferred justice. The objects of
the present bill are precisely similar to those sought
in its prototype of last session. It will do away
with the right of the Established Church to
enforce the payment of church rates by the
subject, and the power of a vestry to render their
payment obligatory on Churchmen. This is pre-
cisely the change a great majority of parishes seek•
as Sir WILLIAM CLAY clearly proved. The hon.
baronet brought forward returns, showing, that
out of 238 rural parishes, 109 were opposed, and
129 did not object, to a rate. But there were
only 99 cases out of the 129 where a rate had been
levied, and out of this there were only 47 instances
in which it had really been paid. This proves,
very conclusively, that without taking into
account the large number of parishes in Corporate
and other towns, a very large majority are passively
opposed to the church incubus. For this
encouraging change we are fortunately not indebted
to any very protracted or angry discussion. The
decision of the House of Lords in the Braintree
ease, in which it was laid down that a church rate
was only valid when passed by a majority of rate-
payers, removed all doubt as to the power of
Vestries, and opened that door of which the
public have availed themselves to such a remark-
able extent.

The highest legal tribunal in the land, the
decisions of which are binding on both branches
of the Legislature, having recorded their judge-
ment in favour of those who object to compulsory
rating, what becomes of the Parliamentary
opposition to a bill, which proposes simply to
extend the benefits of the decision of the law
Lords to dissentient Churchmen of all sects of
Dissenters? Such an opposition is as unlonsti-
tutional as it is unprincipled. Such proceedings
smack rather too strongly of Machiavilianism for the
present age. And the Legislature should really
weigh a little the social and sacred importance of
subjects on which they record their votes. If the
country was called on to support a pauper estate, a
poor institution,,or a bankrupt class, the generous
forbearance, and unbounded liberality of the
British public would be found as ready as ever to
contribute towards its relief. But where we have
to deal with a Church whose revenues are estimated
at from six to nine millions a year, a paltry income
of 700,0001. per annum, derived from church rates,
assumes a character very much akin to the " fri-
" volous and vexatious." If Lord JOHN MANNERS'
statistics are to be relied upon, it is quite evident
that Churchmen constitute six-sevenths of the
opponents to those imposts, for the noble Lord tells
us that, of the 700,0001. they yield annually, 600,0001.
is contributed by them. If, therefore, there is a
majority of Vestries, which, in populous towns, are
composed principally of Dissenters, the noble Lord
must see very distinctly that the opposition which
he complains of is based on principle.
The Dissenters care not one groat about the
amount of money exacted from them ; but they
claim, as a civil and religious right, to be released
from the payment of a tax. for the support of a
wealthy Church to which. they do not belong. They
look upon it as a species of grasping avariciousness
which ill becomes any class of Christian religion-
ists, seeking to draw around them the love and affec-
tion of the multitude. They set up no right to
compulsory taxation, and ask for no arbitrary power
whereby to compel men to support the thousands
of little and great temples of worship, with which
they have studded this and the whole of the Bri-
tish Isles. They have a religious contempt for
money clauses in an Act of Parliament, where the
preaching of the Gospel is the sole object they
seek to promote. They look for the success of their
mission in the amount of work and labour they
perform, and not to a dusty and ill defiued statute
law for a certain number of loaves and fishes. To this
they oppose the voluntary system ; and while

Dissenting Churches are left to struggle with the
winds and waves unaided, and seek no legislative
succour in moments of bitter trial, they simply
ask that, as they do unto others they may be done
by. But here we are treating of a cause which is
almost without a constituency. The most that the
defenders of Church rates can boast of is 47 rural
parishes which really pay rates, 178 members of
the House of Commons, a great majority of whom
must necessarily have voted for their retention in
direct opposition to the feelings of their consti-
tuents. The whole 178 members who voted were
surely not returned by 47 parishes. The next
general electionmay, however, correct this anoma
loos state ofthings, should the present attempt to
obtain relief be foiled by parliamentary tacticians.
Sir GEORGE GREY stated broadly that the bill

was introduced to put a stop to further agitation
on the subject, and that it was now proposed only
to do away with compulsory rating in parishes
where rates had been refused for a sufficient time
to show that the ratepayers were determined in
their opposition to them, the Government reserv-
ing to itself the privilege of proposing amendments
in committee, to the effect, that those who were
exempted from the payment of rates should not
have any voice in the levying or application of such
imposts. This will exclude all Dissenters from
Vestries when any question connected with the
Church has to be considered. This Lord JOHN
RUSSELL urged, " would tend to the separation of
" the Established Church from the mass of the
" people, and after such a step the Church could
" not maintain its dignity, property, and position."
There is much truth in these predictions ; but we
question if Dissenters will be as anxious to
interfere in Vestries when Church rates are

abolished, as they are at present. They do not
seek to be chosen Church-wardens and Vestry-
men for the sake of being catechised. They only
seek the honours and responsibilities of such offices
that they may protect their pockets. And once
they find that they can button them
up and walk away in safety, it would be difficult to
show any grounds to justify a belief that they
would take any part whatever in the management
of Church affairs. They do not envy the Church
of England its dignity, and as for its property,
that is wholly beyond their reach. They will
never touch the six or nine millions a year which it
enjoys. They will leave time and conscience to
deal with such matters, while they endeavour to
supply to the masses that accommodation which is
now taken up in our National Churches by pews
for the rich, which are by no means as well filled
by their tenants, as the Dissenters would wish to see
them. We need not, however, offer any further
remarks on this head, until the question of Church
property, and its equitable re-adjustment, is brought
substantatively before the Legislature. The
present measure is simply an act of justice, which
has been long withheld, and, if it is meant to be
one of relief, it is hoped that it will be made
as universal in its operation as possible, and that
we shall not have the entire discussion re-cpened
in the session of 1857, in order to obviate the
difficulties arising from the short-comings in the
bill of 1856.

OF all the questions which are to confound our
" collective wisdom," the rights of women appear
to be the most likely. All that men can say, in
rhyme or song, the excesses of devotion, or extra-
vagance of adoration lavished upon the fairest
portion of creation, are not enough to satisfy them
that they engross every thought, and direct every
action, of their bewildered lieges and humble ser-
vants ! They forget that we think them angelic,
beautiful, soft, kind ; and leave them fully one-
half of this delightful planet to themselves, to
turn it inside out, and make it go faster, up or
down, roundabout, or any way they please, than
that which man reserves to his pitiable self. In

vain do Benedicts prostrate themselves at the shrine
of their domestic divinities, and join in the
chorus—

" The lords of creation, men we call,
They think they rule the whole,
They are much mistaken after all,
For they're under a woman's control:
This has ever been the way :
Did not Adam, the very first man,
The very first woman obey?"
Here is an admission which, coupled with the
passiveness of the bachelor, and the incessant
solicitude of the " single young man" to be
enslaved, ought to satisfy Venus herself, and malt()
the dame of Ephesus dry up her tears, and be of
good cheer. Still, as we have no wish to bring
Babel about our ears, we will freely admit that
there is, in the petition of the fair Amazons, which
appeared in our columns on the 25th ult., much
that is grievously falBo, much that is intolerably
cruel and unjust !
Why should a woman, who by her talents and
industry earns a respectable income, be brought to
beggary by her drunken and dissipated lord ? Why
are the proceeds of her unremitting toil, attention
to business, and economy, to be swept away to
pay debts which she or her children had no part in
contracting, and which can only be discharged by
taking the bed from under her? Again,
why should the poor woman be denied
that privilege which is conferred upon the
rich, of releasing herself from a union
which promises nothing but misery and disgrace ?
In the abstract all this is wrong. But then there
are two sides to the matrimonial tableau, and here
we come, we are proud to say, among the brighter
where we can revel a little in
rays of hope,
agreeable realities,—where the mal-vivant holds an
isolated position in the world's multitude. Those
against whom women would enforce their rights,
fortunately for society, are comparatively few ;
and it would be rather unfair to ask the
laiger number of those whose wives will have
sovereign sway ; who will do such naughty things
as run in' debt, and commit all those offences with
which husbands are charged, to submit to the
wrongs of which the ladies complain. It is rather
hard to expect that that passive mortal, man, will
submit to all the eccentricities of a bacchanalian
Empress, or a wantonly extravagant muyer casera.
There is, in fact, a road to ruin for men as well as
women, but then the latter exclaim, with Mr
OTAFFERTY "It iS not so much for the length of the
" road I care, as the width of it." Now, the ordinary
path of life is neither too wide, nor too long, for the
millions that have to travel it. But the portals of
the law are too wide, and too far off for the
thousands who abandon their self-respect, and
bring poverty and desolation on their innocent
offspring, and their unhappy partners.
How to remedy these defects, is indeed a
question which it would be well to solve and set at
rweisl
lt ;1
ena odt
ttoh
aa
nt
ywt
he
ianpgpeh
lrikee
an
revolution,
v othatit i t
ion,but neglecting
it i
sthem
just
possible we might remove a vast amount of suffer-
ing that exists in married life, in which morality
does not hold the unimpeachable position it ought.
Many industrious and highly exemplary
women
are wholly ruined by profligate husbands ; and a
far greater number of really honourable, and
struggling men, are brought to want by equally
abandoned wives. For this state of things, the