Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-17 00:00:00

discuss it, quite agreeing with Mr. Mansfield, that
it has puzzled wiser heads than those of our local
magistracy, or even of the infallible association,
whose views are represented by Messrs. Caine and
Cropper. The great fear, however, to be dreaded in
the present excited temper of the public mind, is the
application of ill advised and empirical remedies
which will only exasperate the symptoms of the
disease. " Fools will rush in where angels fear to
tread," and, instead of awaiting a solution from the
brains of sages and philosophers, this moral cancer
may be abandoned to the rash treatment of quacks

and crotchet mongers, and in that category we have
but too good ground for placing the philanthropists
to whom we have referred. They are no doubt very

well meaning, conscientious persons, but extremely
perverse and wrong headed, and as Professor
Sedgewick remarked the other day of the Cambridge
Pro-Proctors, evidently birds of precisely similar
feather, " Who are more mischievous and dangerous

in a community than your conscientious, wrong-

headed men P "

We understand this Society, which_ Messrs.
Caine and Cropper have the glory of founding,
started into existence about a year ago, and

has ever since been undergoing a process of bap-
tismal regeneration. It began its career with the
title of " The Society for the Suppression of Vice,"
which was soon dropped for that of " Vicious
Practices," but largely indulging itself in such evil
practices as detraction and slander, the con-
scientious twitdiings of its members, it is supposed,
have once more induced them to change
their name into " The Society for the Sup-
pression of Vicious Resorts." Under that
latest designation we propose to review its past
exertions, What, in truth, has it done, to
entitle it to public esteem and confidence ? It
has succeeded iu shutting up " the Hop," and
we are told that prostitution has increased, and

that the • streets are worse than ever. This
state of things is attributed by the society to Mr.
Mansfield's order prohibiting informations against
the coffee shops, but a much more ]ogical inference
would be, that it arises' from their own mischievous
meddling. What necessary connection can there
really be between the immunity of the coffee-shop
keepers from police informations and the increase of
brothels and prostitutes ? The effect of Mr. Mans-
field's order may have increased the consumption of
coffee and crumpets in those particular places, but we
really cannot see how an increase inthe consumption
of such innocent comestibles necessarily leads to
a corresponding inerease of profligate women.
Such, however, is the reasoning of the Society for
the Suppression of Vicious Resorts. Brothels, in
which robberies are committed, have, it appears,
sensibly declined ; but this little crumb of comfort
Mr. Mansfield- ruthlessly. snatches from the society
by ascribing it to the rigour with which he himself
has administered the law against them. We will not
adopt the energetic language of the stipendiary magis-
trate in denouncing the proceedings of this society,
but we may express our regret that such moral and
religious men should, in their collective capacity,
have been guilty of so many acts which are usually
associated with the character of the " artful dodger."
We do not impute to them anything so gross as
money payments to the police, but the roguish-
Mr. Mansfield alluded to was probably
subtle form of corruption, such
as we can readily imagine to have been seen
in the exercise of a sinister and illegitimate influence,
from whatever cause arising, which might warp the
evidence of the officers, cause them to fence with

a more

questions, equivocate and tell only partial, ex-
aggerated,, or distorted truth. Messrs. Caine

and Cropper, in their reply to Mr. Mansfield,
deny having influenced the police, and yet,
in the same breath they admit having gone to Major
Greig and incited him to lay informations. The
Head Constable seems to have at once transmitted the
momentum he had received to his subordinates, and
the machinery so biassed began to work. And here
we take leave to think that Major Greig committed
a grave indiscretion. He ought not to allow the
force under his command to be set in motion at the
will and pleasure of any irresponsible body like this
society, but have referred ,them to the Watch
Committee, whose instructions, or those of
the magistrates, he ought alone to carry out. It
was natural enough that a " dead set" being sud-
denly made at these coffee shops should astonish
those not behind the scenes. The magistrates, it seems,

asked questions, but could get no 'straightforward
answers from the police. Stranger phenomenon still,

there was an attorney to get up their case, and eminent
counsel to conduct it. It was clear the borough fund
was inapplicable to such expenses. Were the police
so zealous all at once to abate the social evil
as to be paying for all this costly legal machinery
out of their own' pockets ? Hence the conclusion
of Mr. 'Mansfield that there was something unfair,
un-English, or to use his own words, " roguish and

corrupt," about the administration of justice. It
was not surprising that these elaborate efforts
to procure convictions should frequently result
in miscarriage and failure. Some magistrates
interpreted the law one way, some another. At
length, after several acquittals, there was an appeal
to the Queen's Bench (by Major Greig, another
phase of the phenomenon), which confirmed the
refusal of the magistrates to convict, and, to
the confusion of the Society, made that certain which
was before doubtful, namely, the right of these
wretched "Creatures to resort to such places for
refreshment. After this decision, it seems to us that,
if the Society had any residuum of common and
practical sense left, they would have taken some
tea, and made arrangements for their quiet dissolutione
and decent interment. They chose, however, to call
indignation meetings, and evince their keen apprecia-
tion of " vicious practices " by making rabid speeches
and concocting reports, full of misrepresentations and
scurrile invectives against Mr. Mansfield, the ac-
quitting magistrates, and their legal adviser.
Having thus signally failed before tribunals so

high and so low as the Queen's Bench and the
Police Court, we find they have recently, by a
process as sneaking as it is arbitrary, got by a very
dirty back door into the intermediate Court of Quarter
Sessions. Not having the courage to meet their adver-
saries face to face before the magistrates, they have
thought fit to prefer bills of indictment against the
coffee-shop keepers behind their backs. Nor is it very
surprising to hear that those bills have been found
by a grand jury, charged by the counsel of the
society, sitting as deputy-recorder. Certainly these
novel prosecutions have been inaugurated at the ses-
sions by circumstances remarkably auspicious, arid
it was, no doubt, a brilliant thought, for which this
artful society ought to have full credit, to seek, in
such distressful weather, and in such extreme needs,
the shelter of that fiiendly and congenial tribunal.
There for the present we must leave them, but as it
is not unlikely that the coffee shopkeepers,, with the
view of securing a fair trial, may desire to have their