Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-08 00:00:00

THE DAY'S NEWS.

We are glad to perceive, that the government
are in earnest respecting their threatened prose-
cution of the British Bank Directors. The
Attorney-General has filed ex officio informations
against the leading delinquents, in this moustre
swindle, and upon these informations the
Governor and the two Managers have been
arrested, and held to bail. No pains
will be snared to make the whole of the board
who took part in the nefarious proceedings so re-
cently exposed, amenable for their conduct, and
the ➢reparations for this important inquiry have
already been commenced. The announcement of
a reward of £2OO for the apprehension of Mr.
Humphrey Brown, late M.P., indicates that vigo-
rous measures will be adopted to pursue any who
may be disposed to quit the country, and too much
praise cannot be awarded to those who have had
the management of the bankruptcy in tracing the
history and unraveling the facts associated with
these monster bubble. The Attorney-General,
having at last taken the business in hand,
the demand of the public for retributive jus-
tice will, no doubt, be satisfied. The interests of
justice will not allow us, says a London cotem-
porary, to tell all we know of the proceedings
which have taken place under the direction of the
law officers of the crown to bring the delinquents
in this great fraud to the bar of public justice.
Several of them have been already secured in
London and Paris ; and we trust to hear that most
of the chief offenders—against whom these pro-
ceedings are properly directed, will be forced to
atone for their delinquencies at the bar of criminal
justice before a month shall have elapsed. 'There
is no danger of a premature disclosure in stating
this much. It is already known that proceedings
have been commenced, and there is nothing to fear
on the score of defeating justice in the case of
those amongst the accused who have been " out of
the way for some time past.
Of local news we have hardly an item worthy of
notice. Mr. W. H. Russell, the Times correspon-
dent at the seat of the Russian war, delivered his
first lecture to a very select audience at the Phil-
harmonic Hall, on Saturday. An abstract of it
will be found in another portion of to-day's paper.
A case in connection with the conviction of the
second mate of the James L. Bogart, for man-
slaughter, some months ago, was heard
at the Birkenhead County Court on Saturday.
An attorney of this town had received some
money from the Lords of the Treasury, as compen-
sation money for loss of time, board, wages, &c ,
to one of the seamen of the J. L. Bogart, who had
been detained for the prosecution- Of the sum
received by the attorney, the seaman had not
received much more than one-half, and he sued for
the remainder. Of course the verdict was in favour
of the plaintiff.
At the Court of Queen's Bench, on Saturday,
Mr. Brett moved for a criminal information against
James Goodwin for a libel on the Board of Guar-
dians of West Derby, contained in a letter
addressed to the clerk of the board, in which he
asked if the contractors were allowed to send in
inferior articles; if not, why did they allow Mr.
Birch to do so, and why did they not proceed
against him for breach of contract? And if it was
the allowing contractors to send wine to the board
that induced them to do this. The guardians
answered that if he had charges to make they
should be happy to hear him. Mr. Goodwin wrote
another letter, and asked,who kept the throe brood
sows at the workhouse. He had refused to make
good the charges. There was a denial of the truth.

Rule granted:
Some sections of the clergy of the Established
Church are memorialising parliament not to esta-
blish the principle that divorced individuals can
marry during the lifetime of those from whom they
are divorced. They say if such a principle becomes
law, they will become punishable for conscientiously
refusing to adhere to it. The petitioners thus put
themselves precisely in the position of those
clergymen of the ChurA. of Scotland who seceded
and formed the Free Kirk. The law said one
thing, their consciences said another, and as the
law would not yield, they left their livings.
Whether their brethren of the Church of Engand
I,eit do the same, if placed by the Divorce Bill
*in the same predicament, we cannot undertake
to say.
The official declaration of the poll at Leeds on
Saturday did not alter the numbers previously
reported, the majority for Beecroft over Mills
being six.
Amongst the Parliamentary papers issued on
Saturday, was one of an interesting character res-
pecting the income Tax. From the report
it appears that in the year ending April 5,
1256, the number of persons in Great Britain
assessed to the income tax in schedule D., profits
and gains of trade, professions, and labour, was
250,891, and the amount of the tax levied from
them was 4,802,943/ These assessed on incomes
of 1001., and nnder 1501., constitute nearly hale the
whole number, and contribute to the tax 634,632/
According to the return it would appear that
there are in England and Scotland only 24.7,716
-persons with incomes derived from the
above sources, under 1,0001. a year ; and
20,916 of these have incomes under 1001. There
are 5,271 persons with incomes from £l,OOO to
£2,000, and forty who enjoy the princely revenue
of £50,000 a-year, or upwards. These proportions
are pretty nearly what the Irish return gives, but
the total amount of the tax under Schedule D in
i2Bo,2lo—ahout one-seventeenth
Ireland is only
of that of Great Britain. Official salaries and
pensions repreiented in the United Kingdom by
100,808 persons, _constitute £1,066,841; 39,735

officials have salaries from £lOO to £l5O ; and 66
have £5,000 a-year and upwards.
It is said that the Morning Herald, Standard, and
St. James's Chronicle, have been bought by the Con-
servative party, at a figure scarcely below that
proposed when these three journals were offered
for sale by auction. The event has created no
slight flutter in Conservative circles, where it has
been determined, with " bold emprise," that
Government and Radical journals shall not have
the road any longer wholly to themselves.
At Northampton, on Thursday, a banquet was
given to Lord Althorp, one of the county members,
and to Mr. Vernon Smith and Mr. Charles Gilpin,
the members for the borough. One of the
speakers sought to extract from Mr. Smith some
little information about the Government measure
of Parliamentary Reform, but the right hon.
gentleman was not to be so caught. No more
definite statement could be wrung from him than
the declaration, that the measure would not be a
" sham."

A drawing-room was held at St. James's Palace
en Saturday. It was crowded.
Despatches in anticipation of the Overland Mail
have been received. The paragraphs referring to
India are of serious import. They announce the
mutiny among the native troops to be spreading
into alarming proportions, and of one regiment, it
is said, several officers and men have been killed.
From Hong Kong it is still "no news." Accounts
from Australia report the sailing from that colony
of many ships, in addition to those which have
reached England within the last few days, with
gold to the value of about £686,000.
Our intelligence from the Continent does not
possess any features of importance.
From France we are informed that the election
movement is making some little progress, but the
names of the candidates for Paris have not yet
been officially published. We may here mention
that the various lists given by the Belgian and
London papers are entirely imaginative, as up to
yesterday the republican party had not come to an
understanding. In some departments the rush of
candidates is ludicrous; thus in the Somme, no
less than 51 candidates contest the seat lately held
by the proprietorof the Patrie, M. Delamarre, who,
in this instance, will, however, obtain an easy
triumph over his numerous antagonists.
The treaty regulating the frontier between France
and Spain is sanctioned by the Spanish Senate. It
is said that the approaching census will show a
population of 18,000,000 in Spain, which certainly
will indieatc growth.
A curious piece of intelligence comes from the
East. Greece, which for reasons of economy, as
its Government alleged, had discontinued its
embassy at Paris, has been peremptorily ordered
by the protecting Powers to re-establish it. Either
Greece is an independent State, and it so she
can withdraw her embassy if she likes, or she is
a mere dependant of the protecting Powers, and
in that case requires no representation at their
Courts.

From Constaninople wef learn that the four
powers favourable to the union of the Principali-
ties have reco:nrnended a postponement of the
elections, appparently with the hope that the
delay will allow the Unionist party to get some-
thing like that fair play which the Kaimakan has
hitherto denied them. Lord de Redeliffe left the
Austrian internuncio to resist the recommendatio n
by himself.

WHEN Mr. HORSFALL appeared before his
constituents for re-election in Alarch last, he
called attention to the grievances which are
endured by the commercial community in conse-
quence of the extravagant powers vested in the
Board of Trade. He depicted with much truth-
fulness the objectionable constitution of the
Board, and promised to bring the matter before
the attention of the new Parliament. He has
redeemed his promise, and although unsuc-
cessful in carrying his motion for the
appointment of a Select Committee to inquire
into the origin, the past and present constitution,
the powers and duties of the Board, with a view
to its better adaption to the requirements of the
country, has certainly done some service to the
cause of trade and commerce, by the able and
lucid statement which he made in recom-
mending his resolution to the attention and
support of the House. No one who reads his
speech can deny that the history of the Board
of Trade, from its first formation until

within a very recent date, shows most
clearly that the whole affair has been, as Mr.
BCRKE termed it, "a job ;" and that as a
Ministry of Commerce it was more a hindrance
to the progress of trade than anything else.

The first position which Mr. HORSEALL laid
down after he had given the history of the
Board from its earliest formation, in the time of
the Stuarts, was, that its present constitution is
that of incompetence and injustice. A reference
to the ruling parties in this department of the
public service will show that he was right in the
first of these charges.• It has. now a Railway
Department, a Mercantile Marine Department,
a Department of Science and Art. To its care
are committed the patent laws, as well as the
registration of design laws, and several other
subjects of minor legislation, besides supervising
the Consular correspondence of the Foreign-
office. Such are the duties. Who are the men
to superintend and watch their faithful
execution ? The President is a nobleman who
has never been engaged in any branch of
commerce. He can boast of being a Peer, but
never had anything to do directly or indirectly
with the merchant princes of the United
Kingdom. His deputy, Mr. LOWE, is a perse-
vering and plodding Australian lawyer. How,
we ask, is it possible for two such gentlemen to
superintend all the important departments of
the Board of Trade which we have enumerated ?
It cannot be.

On the point of incompetence, Mr. HORSFALL
adduced an apt and telling illustration in his
anecdote of the impediments thrown in the way
of trade by the refusal of the Board of Customs
to increase the number of landing-waiters
at Liverpool, until sufficient influence was
applied to Sir ROBERT PEEL, who, after hearing
the complaints which the merchants of Liverpool
had to make, told them that the matter should
have his personal attention, The right hon.
baronet kept his word, and the grievances '
complained of were remedied by the appoint-
ment of such an addition to the number of
landing waiters as the augmented commerce
of the port of Liverpool required, As another
proof of the incompetence of the Board of Trade,
Mr. HORSFALL alluded to its interference with
private bills and to the fact that its decision