Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-08-09 00:00:00

CHARLES N4rIER, recommended that from 20,000 to

I 30,000 men should be enrolled as a reserve, under

I the title of -"Royal Naval^ Vaunteers
_ .

It was

proposed to give the men £6 per annum, with a

deduction of £1 for a pension fund ; and it was
further recommended' that, at the' age of 50 to 55,
they should be entitled to a pension of 6d. per day.

These men are to enrol themselves for five years

are to be trained, eitler on shore or on board of

man-of-war, for 28 days each year, and to be paid

during that period " non-continuous service" pay,
according to the rating they might :At the
expiration of their term they may, if they please,
re-enrol themselves for a further period of five years.
If, however, unhappily, this country should be at
war, each volunteer would be liable to be called

upon to serve for three years in any part of the

world he might be in, and, if necessary, upon the
assumption that the war continued longer, for five

years

Each volunteer, under . a penalty of

£2O, must answer the call for 28 days' train-
ing, either on shore or' afloat. We 'highly
appro:•e of this VolUnteer Reserve Naval Corps,
and by its formation,—thanks to Lord DERBY'S late
direction of the affairs of this country,—we shall,

after all, be found semper paratus, notwithstanding
the inert expediency and truckling policy of the
great Whig fainily compaet, with the admixture and
fusion of- the Manchester party. The- plan was
approved of by Sir F. BARING, Sir C. NAPIER, and
Sir J. ELPHINSTONE.

It is to be hoped that contact and association on

board of men-of-war, during the twenty-eight days'
drill, -will remove a great deal of that prejudice in
the merchant service, against enlisting in Her
MAJESTY'S service. When the 'men see the comfort,
cleanliness, order, and discipline which obtain on
board of Her MAJESTY'S ships, they, will not '►fie so
reluctant, to join. as heretofore, especially, men-, of
steady and good. character. The reason; perhaps,,
why merchant seamen prefer the commercial, marine
'is, that they are enabled to come on shore, and to
Squander in folly and dissipation their hard-earned
wages, and then, after a career of most vicious animal

indulgence, ship again as soon as their money
and substance are expended. Altogether, we consi-
der the acceptance of the Report of the Royal

In the

Commissioners as a very important nio-,-c
right direction, for establiohing a most necessary and
efficient naval force. Every merchant-commander

will have to enrol on his ship's Articles the names of
those sailors who belong to the Royal Naval Volun-
teer Corps. It is to be hoped that men-of-war's
men and merchant-seamen will understand each
other better than they have hitherto done. Lord C.
PAGET observed that a navy could not be extempo-
rised, and quoted from a pamphlet written by
the Prince DE JOINVILLE, who says—On a vu quel-
quefois le genie d'un homme improviser en arnthe,
jamais un marine—" Sometimes we have seen the
genius of a man extemporise an army, never a navy.''
The statement, as his lordship, Lord C. PAGET, justly
added, is undoubtedly true.

IF a daily newspaper wished to keep up in its lead-
ing columns, in all its recurring details, the tale now
being told, day by day, by betrayed constituencies
who have posted up to Westminster to meet the
malefactors, it would have to fill its second or third
editions with editorial comments. There is no pause
in the narration. Each of its transacti.z., though
of itself calculated to challp.B-. a world of considera-
tion, is fairly trodden out of notice by its successor,
and cheats us of the passing moral. We are hurried
on from Wakefield to Gloucester, from Gloucester to
Aylesbury, from Aylesbury to Norwich, from Norwich
to Huddersfield, from Huddersfield to Preston, from
Preston to Beverley, at a pace which leaves us no
time to recruit our exhausted sensations, or to record
the incidents of the progress. The picture has no
relief. It is altogether too glaring, too monotonous,
too overwhelming. We are tempted to lift up our
hands and eyes for a moment, and pass on to a
spectacle more sober, more 'diversified, and less
exacting on the violent emotions. We cannot, how-
ever, bring ourselves to affect the callous insensibility
of the Times. Much less can we shut our eyes to
the lessons and warnings •which this unprecedented
narrative of electoral strategy forces upon us. Above
all, we hope no Constitutional journal will lose the
opportunity of shrieking into the ears of Liberalism
through the length and breadth of the land, that it„
not in its best phases, but in its, worst, has been sole
author and hero of this tale !

The history still halts at the two last-named
places, Preston and Beverley, where it gives every
sign of being attended with the usual catastrophe
with which we
.understanding
all become so sadly familiar--
the same good understanding between the briberss

and the bribed,—the same unfearing confidence, and
in several places the same treachery
At Preston, bribery

seems, by' long custom; tv
have become an established and a settled. tradition-
When an election is announced, men calculate upon
it with as. much regularity as upon their weekly'.

wages

—for that year it becomes a certain though a

fluctuating item of their income

JOHN TURNER.

t. 41 expected patrons that though he had yo.ted
for bIWsTFELL at the previous election, hufelt that
he had not received an, adequate recompence for his

services; and with the Confidence of a huckster who

is ;well 143 in. the_market7value of his property, does
not hesitate to intimate his little'dissatisfaction to the'
Liberal hgent4. - True, when he was referred magni-
ficently to the Liberal Committee-room, for a solid

answer to his complaints, and was, asked his latest
" quotation" for votes, his ostensible d.erxia:nd proved.

to be of very modest dimensions

Tb.is man, it

appears, had drunk or squandered away his clothes
into pawn. The -one touching anxiety- which hi_a
lain heavy on his soul ,vas, how he could present

himself in his proper " respectable" guiSe; as a free
and independent voter—as of course all Preston

voters, especially Liberal ones, are—at the Borough

hustings

The price of attaining this grave pitch of

respectability our virtuous citizen estimates at 6S•"

a very • moderate tax on the GRENFELD

exchequer indeed

There

was an

authority,

we all know

`rho, , in

a very celebi•ated

witness-box, once fixed the opening limit of gentility

at the keeping of a gig; and. Mx., CARLYLE has ever

since amused or terrified the World with his jeers at

gigthanity

We commend to the latter gentle-