The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-01-28 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES.---LIVERPOOL, WEDNESDAY.

Russians, and to have massacred all the prisoners
who fell into their hands.

Our Paris advices inform us that the Finance
Minister has signed a projet du loi for imposing a
tax of a quarter per cent. upon railway shares and
other industial undo takings. The bill has been
laid before the Council of State.

We are led to believe that things are not so smooth
with the Austrians in Lombardy as the amnesties
of the Emperor and the reported enthusiasm of
the population would indicate; for the Imperial
Goverume it has been making serious representa-
tions to that of Sardinia, on the subject of the
democratical demonstrations in Turin and Lom-
bardy against the presence of the Emperor- From
Naples the accounts are gloomy—distrust, fear, and
rigour in the Government, and another revolt is said
to have taken place in Sicily.
Letters from Madrid of Sunday's date state that
the Queen continues to go on well. The Gazette
publishes a decree authorising the Minister for
Foreign Affairs to .offer to public competion a con
tract for a steam service between Spain and the
Antilles. The steamers are to be four in
number, of 1,500 tons burden. and 400 horse
power. The adjudication takes place on the
14th of February. The electicns for the Cortes
will, it is expected, take place in April, anti
it is alleged that the Abolitionists intend to
take part in them. General Oribo has been
arrested, but, according to these of toe ministerial
party, it was for matters totally unconnected with
Before being token to the military prison,
the general, at his request, was conveyed to the
residence of the Duke of Valencia (Narvaez), to
request an interview with him ; but it is not stated
whether or not the Duke granted it. The latest
reports from Belgium inform us that the Cham-
ber of Representatives has been occupied with
the discussion of a bill proposed by the govern-
ment to change the mode of composing the juries
which confer academic degrees. So many amend
ments and sub-amendments were brought forward
that the original measure seemed in danger of
disappearing altogether. In that situation, M.
Henri do Brouckere proposed to continue for three
years longer the present system, which empowers
the government to form the juries in question
of professors selected from those of the univer-
sities of the state and of the free universities,
with a president not belonging to the body of
professors, and selected by the government. The
Minister of the Interior opposed the amendment,
declaring that the maintenance of the status quo
would not allow sufficient .moral liberty to the
government in presence of the virtual rejection of
the bill. M. de Brouckere, however, presisted,
declaring, in the name of a portion of the Left,
that his proposition was a compliment paid to the
spirit of justice which animated the government.
In the end, the amendment of M. de Brouckere
was adopted by 51 votes to 38. _ _ _

We see it stated that the settlement of the Swiss
dispute goes on without any hitch. The condi-
tions that the King of Prussia will insist on ere
stated by a Berlin paper; but as the terms are yet
to be settled, with the assent of Switzerland, it
seems idle to give the character of finality to any
conditions at present named by Prussia.

The Princess De Llieveu died at Paris on
Monday night. By her decease Russia has lost
one of its most sk-lful diplomatists, and a great
celebrity in the politico-social world has disap-
peared.
Austria is about to make an important reduction
in her army, to the extent, it is said, of 70,000 men,
induced. by the present state of pacification of
Europe, and the approaching evacuation of the
Danubian Principalities.

O'DONNELL'S butcheries at Madrid have not
answered the unholy purposes of their perpe-
trators. Unhappy Spain has recently been tra-
versed by Marshal CONCHA, and all he has seen
and heard of the true condition of the country
has convinced him that his Royal Mistress must
tion for the maintenance of her throne. This is
the result of reaction No. 1, and such incidents
are well worth recording. The exploits of the
coup d'etat butchers will cost the Peninsula fully
200,000,000 reals. The 57,000,000 reals found
in the Spanish exchequer disappeared immediately
after the massacre of Madrid. It went to corrupt
and reward the army. The produce of the Mire
loan has been devoted to similar objects, and the
British creditors of Spain have been openly
plundered of the money which ought to have
found its way into their pockets. The general
welfare of the unfortunate people, whose confiding
character leaves them exposed to the worst designs
of political and military monsters, has been
thrown back a quarter of a century, and the
cravings of want, approaching to famine, aggra-
ted a hundredfold by a species of treason which,
if continued, must necessarily overthrow the
reigning dynasty.
O'DONNELL soon found that he had aroused
the moral disgust of the world by his merciless
effusion of blood, and his reign of power termi-
nated with his shameless use of the sword. He
was crushed by the dead weight of Europe's
abhorrence of his name, and yet, strange to say,
that Queen ISABELLA and Marshal CONCHA fly
to this same O'DONNELL when they find the
Throne in danger, and that nothing short of
becoming moderation in the government of the
people can save the existing dynasty from being
overthrown. Spanish politics have always been
a puzzle to our greatest statesmen ; but here we
have a state of things which are without a
parallel, even in the history of Spanish sucees-
sion. The facts to which we allude carry
madness, on the part of the Sovereign, and
treason of the most unmistakeable type on the
part of her Majesty's confidential adviser, on
their face: If tyranny is to be abandoned, in
order to ensure the Throne, why apply to
O'DONNELL to take part in a new administra-
tion ? He has no ideas of government beyond
martial law, and he could not govern a province
without an overwhelming display of bayonets.
He is less feared by the people than by his
Queen, and from the moment he returns to
power the Sovereig,n will be as much enslaved as
her subjects. The prevailing impression in
England is that Spain is in a most effete and
hopeless condition. And so she is in a social
Point of view. Her terribly corrupt rulers have
swept the national hearth of all its solid comforts,
and have made away with all the necessaries of
life wherever it was possible to do so ; but still
the Spaniard lives, glowing with patriotism, lofty
aspirations, and full of hope that he may one day
play the honest and important part Nature has
assigned to him. His identity cannot be denied.
His geographical position gives him immense
influence, and must again raise him to power in
the councils of Europe.

As a nation deeply immersed in debt, they
have a great moral duty to discharge, and we
know of no people who feel so keenly the disre-
putable position in which the peculation and
want of public honesty on the part of their

Governments has placed them in the eyes of the
world. The Spaniards do pay their debts into
the Treasury ; but the rulers of Spain have not
the integrity to apply the national funds to the
use for which the subject is so heavily taxed.
We are, therefore, to blame for the serious losses
experienced by the British creditor. We suffer
revolutionary demagogues to create commotions,
for the purpose of getting their hands on the
public purse of a country, which owes us
millions o f money. We stated broadly that the
sole object of the last butchery in Madrid was to
get hold of the 57,000,000 reals, which were
lying at the time in the Treasury at Madrid, and
which ought to have been handed over to the
London and Paris agents of the Queen's Govern-
ment, to pay the dividends on Spanish Bonds.
A very few months has shown that we were not
far wrong. The money then in hand, and the
large sums since raised, are gone, and now
O'DONNELL is to be restored to power to see, we
suppose, if the bayonet can be used to extract
more cash from the wretched Spaniards. Should
he succeed, we shall not b 3 surprised to hear of
the formation of a coup d'etat joint stock 'com-
pany, with a capital of 1,000,000/., for the pur-
pose of carrying on, and sharing in, the political
business, which has proved so extremely profit-
able in the hands of the demagogues and
butchers of the Peninsula. The O'DONNELLITES
will pardon us, but we think their Chief ought
to divide spoils with those who have a prior
claim and deeper stake in the welfare of his
country than he has.

THE Parliamentary Session about to be com-
menced will be one of singular historical import-
ance. Great questions affecting the industry and
material interests of the community will be dis-
cussed in the absence of the authors of those acts
which govern them, and party who made
certain principles their watchword. Free Trade,
Taxation, and our Monetary Laws will be
brought before an assembly which has outlived
opposition and exists by compromise. In such
a conclave there can be no immediate dread of
defeat on any side. Everything which assumes
the shape of a proposition will be adopted.
Every bill which is respectfully introduced and
courteously seconded will be passed sooner than
provoke any unnecessary agitation, or break in
on the unanimity of the Legislature. That
measures for the subversion of the rights of pro-
perty, and demolishing the principles of local
self-government, should be left to a body so
constituted is rather an alarming and bitter
reflection for those whose substance and Consti-
tutional privileges are to be assailed. Liverpool,
with her corporate property and local government,
stands first on the list of the innovators. The
House of Commons profess to have laid aside
faction, and in doing this they have also laid
aside all fundamental principles ; and while they
claim the right to pursue an independent course,
their votes invariably go to swell the majority
A Parliament so strangely defective, and so
far enfeebled by decomposition, cannot do justice
to a whole community. We must, therefore,
prepare to do the work which our representatives
in the House of Commons neglect or cannot
perform. Mr. ROEBUCK declared, at the meeting of
the Financial Reform Association, that the gentle-
men who had met in the Concert Hall to discuss
the question of taxation were doing what Parlia-
ment ought to do for them. And let us now get
ready to expose the centralisation designs of the
Board of Trade, and the gross imposture which
Mr. LowE hopes to get the Legislature to sanction
as a boon to the shipping interest and to com-
merce. There are but very few really inde-
pendent men in the lower House--not enough
to raise a party above the influences of the ruling
spirit of " compromise." The people must,
consequently, look after their own parliamentary
affairs, and create that opposition to injustice and
centralisation which their representatives have
long since abandoned. We yet enjoy the free-
dom of speech ; and before this has been swept
away by the ruling genius of " compromise," al]
classes should unite in one hearty and determined
protest against the subversion of any one of the
landmarks of public safety, and the Constitutional
rights of the subject. The advocates of all
manner of Continentalisms are using this privi-
lege with untiring zeal, and they are writing and
talking us into a tame surrender of everything
like civil freedom and good old English inde-
pendence.

As our architects remodel our houses, and
give a new social face to the country, our politi-
cal craftsmen seek to uproot our institutions, and
give a dark, despotic aspect to the political con-
dition of the nation. Compromises are impos-
sible where there is no common understanding
on essential points. The men who throw aside
principle, and vote for all sorts of things, must
be made to fee' convinced that great and little
measures have a uniform tendency, and will lead
to one common end. Mr. LowE's Liverpool and
corporate spoliation bill, as revised by the official
harpies of Manchester, may, in this age of mutual
tiggling of party, find a majority who will
" compromise" the property of this Borough,
and give away the essence of the British Con-
stitution and public justice, The dangers to
commerce are equally imminent in the question
of taxation; and regarding labour, and the produc-
tive interests of the empire generally, there is room
for uneasiness in the course about to be taken
with respect to the renewal of the Bank of
England's Charter. The Parliamentary business
cut out for the people is, then, of a very serious
and diversified character, and such as will admit
of no silent assent, or tame "compromise." The
Ministry must meet the country, as the creation
of a Whig, Conservative, Tory, or Radical majo-
rity. Those who advocate the landed and other
productive mainstays of the realm, cannot bend
to the whip of a usury Minister. The Free
Trader who seeks to extend our commerce with
all nations cannot vote for war budgets in time
of peace, and endanger hie economic principles

by countenancing an expenditure which must
leave fresh embargoes on trade. The Radical
cannot forget the claims of labour, and suffer
our daily bread to be taken from us by a single
turn of the bank screw.

There can be no such universal " compromise"
while the public are left to do their own parlia-
mentary business, and undertake to look after
their rights and pockets. Centralisation and
municipal plunder may have their legions of
blind supporters, but the corporation families
of England are large enough to guard their pri-
vileges and substance; and if the Manchester
Town Dues Bill should be taken up as a Minis-
terial measure, and carried into law as a " com-
promise" bantling, the success of such a juggle
must be ascribed to a want of becoming spirit in
the municipalities of the country, and a most
dangerous want of regard in the House of Com-
mons, for the great fundamental principles on
which the power, majesty, and dominion of the
country are based. We do not apprehend any
such positive dereliction of duty on the part of
our corporate towns. Liverpool, at all events,
will not surrender her legal rights without a
desperate struggle, and Manchester may go too
far before the mischief her railway and dock
jobbers, and her corporate officials, are likely to
do, is made intelligible to her citizens. They
have embarked in a cause as hopeless as that of
a Cabinet, which believes it is possible to exist,
and carry out an anti-constitutional policy, by
making concessions to able foes and most
besotted supporters. And it is rather too bad
that Liverpool should be put to so many thou-
sands of pounds of expense, for a second time, in
defending her lawful property against the
jealousy and rapacity of a neighbouring town.
The Town Dues " Abolition" Bill of this year is,
however, to be a ‘.‘ private bill," in which case it
may be possible to make Manchester pay the
cost of a successful opposition.

THE DOINGS OF THE WATER COMMITTEE.

SHYLOCK, the Jew, whose character is so well
pourtrayed in Shakespere's " Merchant of
Venice," would not be satisfied with less than
the literal fulfilment of his bond—" the pound
of flesh." The majority of the Liverpool Cor-
poration seem to be similar, in their official
capacity. They pertinaciously insist upon
their pound of flesh—their pet project—the
Rivington Pike Water. And as Shylock turned
a deaf ear to all the importunities of his insol-
vent creditor, so also do our local senators treat
with indifference, bordering on contempt, the
warnings and the determinedly expressed convic-
tions of the ratepayers of Liverpool, regarding
the washings of the impure streams congregated
and impounded at the Rivington hills. Nothing
will induce them to change their plans or mode
of supplying the Borough and its suburbs with
that important and most essential of all domestic
requirements—pure and unadulterated water.

their adoption. They plan and scheme, concoct
and re-concoct designs, so that they may give the
unworthy job which they have perpetrated
something of the appearance of what is just,
necessary, and reasonable.
We have already joined issue with the
Water Committee of the Town Council upon
the question of the quality of the Pike water.
We have demonstrated that it is impure, and
that the nature of that impurity is such as to
inflict positive and serious injury upon the health,
and, therefore, the comfort and the happiness
of every inhabitant who is compelled to use it.
Our positions and opinions were fortified by the
minute and carefully prepared analysis of the water
by some of the most eminent chemists of the
day. Moreover, we reviewed the opinions of
Dr. TAYLOR, who received bottles of the precious
liquid, as carefully sealed and guarded as were
the contents of CooKE's stomach, and from the
Doctor's own work on poisons, and his carefully
prepared theory of water, we proved, in a man-
ner that no single Pike advocate has yet had the
courage to question, that the very water which
this eminent Professor, and world-renowned
poison analyser, pronounced good, was full of
impurities, and that the use of it by the people of
Liverpool would, sooner or later, tell a fearful
tale.

Before reverting to the grounds set forth
as to the use of the Pike water for purely
domestic purposes, we would take the opportu-
nity of mentioning one or two cases which have
recently been communicated to us. They clearly
demonstrate, not only the impurity, but the
deadly character of the ingredients contained
in the water in question. A day or two
ago, a gentleman, on whose veracity we can
depend, with the view of testing the real purity
of the water, mixed a glass of sherry with
the Rivington water. He had no sooner
done so than immediately the surface of the
diluted sherry was covered with an oily substance.
This at once confirmed his impression that there
was something wrong with the water, and that,
for all drinking purposes, he had completely
spoiled his wine by the admixture. Another
case, which tells even more against the Pike
water, is that of a gentleman who is fond of
keeping gold fishes as an ornament to his
parlour. He lately supplied them with the Pike
liquid, but to his mortification the piscatorial
tribe did not survive the change twenty-four
hours; for in less than that space of time they
were lifeless in the glass globe where he kepi:,
them. Not satisfied with one case, he proi:ured
half a dozen of others of a similar character,
when the results were precisely tb.'e same. Nov,
perchance the sagacity of the Chairman of
the Water Committee—his knowledge of the laws
of chemistry—and his perfect acquaintance with
all the component parts of the Pike water—will
enable him to explain how it was and by what
means these very significant results occurred. If
he cannot do so, no doubt his " Lieutenant" on
the Committee will, and, like Don Quixote, be
ready to stand up in the Council Chamber on

Wednesday next, quoting chapter and verse
proving the correctness of all his Pike Water
arguments. We give them a full week to pre_
pare their answer ; for, from what has already
transpired, the Water Committee are sorely
puzzled how to reply to our arguments, facts,
and the legitimate conclusions arising therefrom.

If what we have heard be true, the Council
Chamber on the 4th proximo will, more
resemble the interior of an overgrown apothe-
caries hall than the place of meeting for the
Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors of the
borough. Inquiring messengers, it is said, have
gone forth on a voyage of discovery to every city,
town, village, and hamlet in the United King-
dom, using surface water, to procure bot-
tled samples to meet their mighty compeer
from the hills of Rivington. The office of
a wine taster is a delicate and difficult
one, but he who ventures to preside at this
singular " meeting of the waters" will be a hero
in his way; and if he decide in favour of the
Water Committee he will have earned a reputa-
tion that will justly entitle him to be known
henceforth by the style and title of—THE
EMPEROR AQUARIUS. With regard to the ab-
surdity of these homceopathie peregrinations,
their inutility, and the injustice of the entire
scheme, we shall have more to say to-morrow.

THE HOP DUTY.—We (Sussex Adverticr), understand
that, in compliance with the resolutions passed at the late
hop duty meeting, held at Robertsbridge, the committee
appointed at that meeting have applied to the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, soliciting an interview on the subject of
the hop duty, and that an answer has been received from
the right hon. gentleman, fixing an early day next week to
receive a deputation.

DRATH OF Tile REV. DR. MEDHURST.—Ours is ti e
Melancholy task of announcing the decease of the Rev. Dr.
W. H. Medhurst, who expired on Saturday night, at half
past eight only o'clock, two days atter landing in his nativf
country. This distinguished missionary departed this life
at his lodgings, 17, Cambridge street, Pimlico. He arrived
in London on Thursday, in a state of extreme exhaustion ;
and he was obliged immediately to betake himself to bed,
from which he never rose, Dr. Risdon Bennett saw him
on Friday afternoon, and again on Saturday, but medical
skill was unavailing. He became insensible on Saturday
mo.ning, and continued in this state until the hour of his
death ; but he appeared to be quite free from suffering, and
his last moments were perfectly trancpil. His age was
sixty one.—Patriet.

THE MAIL STEAMER VIVID.—A letter from Ostend.
dated Saturday, in the Independance Belge, says :—" This
morning, at about four o'clock, the Royal Belgian steamer,
Rubis, Captain Dufour, on the way from Dover to Ostend,
perceived a vessel making signals of distress off Dunkirk.
On getting near the commander found it was the English
mail steamer Vivid, which left Ostend yeeterday evening
for Dover, an'► which had broken the axle of its wheels.
This accident had caused such a complete derangement in
the machinery that the Vivid could get no further. Com-
mander Dafou• hastened to lend assistance, and after many
efforts snceeeded in taking the steamer in toward bringing
it on to Calais, where they safely arrived at eight o'clock)
a.m. Some minutes afterwards the Rubis left Calais, and
arrived here at eleven o'clock.

Tins CABINET.—A Cabinet Council was held yesterday
afternoon at the official residence of the First Lord of the
ireasury, in Downing street. The ministers present were
Viscount Palmerston, the Lord Chancellor, Earl Granville,
Earl of Harrowby, Sir George Grey, Earl of Clarendon, Mr.
Secretary Libouchere, Lord Pan mare, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Sir Charles Wood, the Right Hon. R. Vernon
Smith, Lord Stanley of Alderley, the Right Hon. M. T.
Baines, and the Duke of Argyll.

PROBABLE PEACE WITH PERSIA.—We believe we may
state that official information has reached our government
of the probability of the court.. of Teheran agreeing to our
demands. The Turkish Minister 'at that capital has sent
a despatch to his government, informing them that, having
heard of the fall 'of Buehire, tho Persian government
" decided" to make peace upon the English terms. Di
its reaching Constantinople, this intelligence was im-
mediately forwarded, by telegraph, by Lord Stratford, and
its authenticity may be relied on. We may therefore hope
for a speedy settlement of the Persian difficulty. —Morning
Post.

DEATH of THE PRINCESS DE LLIEVEN.—A despatch from
the French capital states that the death of the above lady, so
well known to diplomatic, political, and fashionable circles,
took place on Monday night, at her residence in Paris. We
have already stated that her illness —arising from Eflam-
mation of the chest—had assumed a dangerous form. Two
medical attendants, Professor Audrat and Sir J. Oliffe, had
been in constant attendance noon her for some days.

FL'AGING A SOLDIER.—On Monday, at Portsmouth, a
mal who has only been 195 days in the Royal Marine
Artillery corps, and been confined several times for had
=duct, incurred a debt of Bs. for slops he hag " taken
up ;" this sum the captain of his company said should be
put against his account on the books of the corps, whereupon
the man used an insulting expression, and said he wouid do
no more soldiering until he was paid; this led to a court
martial last Friday, which adjudged hlm to receive 50 lashes
on Monday. Oa his being taken towards the place of
punishment under escort, he broke away from bis guards,
and rushed upon Colonel Parke (the commander of the Corps)
as he was stooping to pick up a paper he had dropped, and
gave him a tremendous blow in the face, knocking him to
the ground and cutting his face- very severely. The man
was speedily overpowered and led to the halberds, where
the 50 lashes were inflicted. He will now be tried for
striking the colonel.

THE SOUND Duas.—A letter from Copenhagen states
that the conferences on the Sound Dues had been suspended,
owing to M. Tengoborski, the Russian Commissioner,
having been obliged to leave suddenly for Paris, where his
wife had fallen ill,

A deputation of the Beer Trade, consisting of Mr, W
Ashmore (chairman), Mr. H. Mason (deputy chaira)P- ",
Messrs Curtis, Frostick, Goldie, Cane, Ilaweia, "Ny
,
Grimley, and Manders, and Mr. J., Bishop t-
Berwick,
an interview with the chaucellor.of the " ,secretary) had
.-
at his official residence in Downi,--
street. exchequer yesterday