The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-10-23 00:00:00

of the conspicuous share they have taken in them.
Tho prodigals are exceedingly pleased at the
recital of the immense success which has attended
the Rivington Pike scheme, and never blush
when they alluded to dock jobbery and gaol
trickery, candlesticks, cruelly handled mermaids,
lions, and other external embellishments of St.
George's Hall. The evils of Corporate perversity
do not end here. OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S biographers
say that their author's school made him " a vaga-
bond, a novelist, and a poet." We will not even
hint so much when speaking of our Municipal
Representatives. They are, on one side, simply
spendthrifts and novelists. They are reckless of
the present, and heedless of the future, and toler-
ably good novelists. They can make a local weak-
ness appear a national virtue, paint a hand going
into their neighbour's pocket so as to persuade him
that he is the victim of an optical delusion, give to
the acts of the petty-fogging jobber the dash and
daring of knight errantry, and describe the suicide
of integrity between the public and their servants
in strains which would almost make the stoutest
amongst us weep at the indignity to which " that
" thing called morality" is exposed in this vulgar
age. If they had but a conservative Press—a
small Mother GAMP—to give them an opportunity
of laying down their plots, under plots, and dis•
playing their descriptive powers, with well paid,
fat, burly Editors, round faced buckish Reporters,
and millionaire Proprietors, what an intellectual
Liverpool we should be !

Un-fortunately for the Newspaper Press, as an
estate, we have a Conservative Press in Liverpool
possessing all those characteristics for which Mr.
Alderman DOVER contends as the true types of
literary and political excellence. They are so
chaste in their style, so independent and gentleman-
like, so practical, and so much to be relied upon
as guides in all the matters of every-day life, that
Mr. Alderman DOVER would not only support the
few we have, but he would increase their number.
For our own part, we should like to see a bouncing
Conservative journal in Liverpool, with Mr. DOVER
as the chief contributor, Mr. J. BECK LLOYD as
the tale writer, with THOMAS BOLD for his hero,
and Mr. J. R. JEFFERY as the " Liberal Elector, or
" the Man what would not be Duped." A
spirited paper 'BO conducted wouli deserve,
and would, no doubt, receive the sup-
port of the " Conservative party." It
would soon become a " great fact." It would
become popular if it were only for the extreme
caution with which it would keep clear of .gas
impositions, dock jobs, watch schemes, gaol selling,
and all that the less " Conservative" newspapers
will and do write about, when they know how. All
the candidates in the field at this moment, with
the exception of one, would give it their support,
for they seem to have forgotten that the people of
Liverpool will have cheap gas, an abundance of
water, and increased dock space, at less than the
corporate rates, if they cannot secure moderation
in any other way. We have lived to see docks
made on the banks of the Mersey by private
capital and enterprise, and we do not know what
that important movement may lead to. The ship-
ping interest are all-powerful, and it is high time
economy were enforced in the management of the
docks. _ _

Competition must be brought to the aid of
the working classes and industrious poor, who
require cheap light more than any other sections
of the community, and an open conduit may be
made to supply us with water at one-half the cost
of the Rivington scheme. The future, therefore,
is pregnant with events which a continuance of our
present reckless administration of local affairs must
bring upon the Borough ; and with such weighty
changes impending it matters but very little to
the electors of Lime-street, Everton, and Kirk-
dale Wards, what conversations take place
between certain gentlemen some years prior to
their becoming rival aspirants to Municipal
honours. It is quite evident that Mr. J. BUCK
LLOYD did „promise Mr. J • R. JEFFERY that he
would pair iVith somebody on a division for Mr. T.
BOLD'S election as Alderman, and that he did not
pair, but voted for that gentleman's elevation. The
last meeting of the Council, of 18.3, took place on
the last day of October, and Mr. BOLD was elected
an Alderman on that day. But it was not until
the first of November, the very day of Mr.
J. BUCK LLOYD'S election, that Mr. J. R.
JEFFERY discovered that Mr. LLOYD had voted for
Mr. BOLD. It was too late then to oppose Mr.
LLOYD'S return ; and Mr. J. R. JEFFERY would have
acted very unwisely if he had broken up the
Committee before the proper time had arrived. But
we may safely leave Mr. JEFFERY to answer his
opponent, as we suspect he will this evening.
Our business is to see the best men returned to
represent the Wards in the Council. In London
the Common Councilmen are nearly all tradesmen
and shopkeepers. There are Tories among them,
but they are shopkeepers or directly engaged in
trade. They feel the Rate Collector's hand when it
falls too heavily upon them, and if they
do job, it is with the funds derived from a rich
estate. They do not rate themselves without mercy,
and then boast of their protracted connection with
a jobbing system.
Mr. J. R. JEFFERY will go into the Council
pledged to oppose all prodigal expenditure, to ex-
pose jobbing, and to act with those few independent
and moderate men now in the Chamber, and who
stand so much inneed of help to stem the torrent of
corruption, which is incessantly flowing through it.
Mr. J. BUCK LLOYD has not done this, and if he
had not had Mr. JEFFERY to have fallen back upon,
and amuse his hearers, we should like to know whet
he could have said in the way of self-recommenda-
tion. He uttered nothing whatever about gas in his
unusually long speech. He talked largely of a
report of the Borough Estate Commission, pub-
lished in 1833, which any person calling at the
Town Hall might get a sight of. The Borough
property may have been very splendid at that
remote period; but the public want to know what
state it is in now, and Mr. J. BUCK LLOYD voted
against this infornation being supplied, when it
was moved for by Mr. ROBERTSON GLADSTONE.
Sending his hearers to the corporate accounts for
this information, was something like directing a
man in a hurry to get home, through a
i well de-
signed labyrinth. We have no hesitation n saying
that those very accounts have puzzled Mr LLOYD
before now, and his referring to them as he did,
was not without its object. All that gentleman
said concerning the docks, was equally evasive.
He contends for increased accommodation, hut he
said nothing about the 4,000,0001. project, or the part
he took in helping it forward as far as Parliament
would allow it to go. He did not breathe one word
about the Borough Gaol job, and, in fact, if ho had
been without Mr. JEFFERY to lean upon, he would
have been as badly off for a story as Sir GEORGE
BONHAM, whose eloquence and oratorical powers
made so deep an impression on the public.