The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-03 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES.---LIVERPOOL, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1857,

shows its love to GOD, our Father, by the
practical, effective love of man, our brother ;
religious with that religion which does not
consist of mere forms, and feelings, and excite-
ment, but in practical goodness, in justice, and
truth, and mercy.
We have heard that the popular Baptist
has got two rivals, one a Rev. Mr. GulNass,
of the Church of England, and another a Mr.
NORTH, who belongs to the Free Church of
Scotland, and who has been figuring in the
pulpit of the Rev. Dr. CANDLISH, of Edinburgh,
and edifying his hearers with great unction.
As we have said, we repeat, that in the opinion
of many who count themselves wise readers of
the signs of the times, we seem to be approach-
ing some great changes and developments in the
religious world.

A WEEK ago, the Town Council, at their
special meeting, passed a resolution condemning
the Pike water as totally unfit for dietetic
—that is to say, for domestic purposes ; and, in
qualified language, they called upon the Water
Committee to cease supplying the washings—or
rather the droppings—of the cesspools and
refuse from the farm-yards and villages in the
Pike district—until such time as some process
of filtration should have been discovered, which
might, perchance, render the water somewhat
better than it has really been hitherto. On one
point the whole of the Town Council, and, we
may add, the whole of the inhabitants of Liver-
pool are agreed—namely, that this water is
totally unfit, as the resolution declares, for the
requirements of the inhabitants. Yet, in the
face of this resolution, and with the full know-
ledge of the feelings of the Ratepayers on this
subject, the Water Committee persist in
thrusting their nauseous stuff down our throats,
nolens volens.

We are now approaching the middle of
summer, when we may expect to find animal
and vegetable organisms progressing towards
the full development of their various natures
with extraordinary rapidity. We all know the
Pike ; and the Pike water teems with the most
dangerous and disgusting of both. Yet we are
doomed to use it—and why ? Because a few
jobbers, taking advantage of the ignorance, real
or pretended, of our Corporation, ten years ago
succeeded in fastening this incubus upon the
people of Liverpool for their own mercenary
purposes. The water must be used, forsooth.
Must it ? Certainly ; but not for do-
mestic purposes, if we can prevent it.
We consider the statements of certain Pikeists
almost beneath our, notice ; for instance, the
great dictator of the Council asserted the other
day that the cost of the scheme did not
.exceed
730,0001., his authority being the treasurer,
when he knew very well that the actual expendi-
ture exceeded one-and-a-quarter million sterling,
as has been most clearly shown by Mr. JEFFERY
and others. We are totally at a loss how to
deal with such statements. The amenities,
as they are called, of civilised society prevent
us characterising them as downright deceptions,
and we can find no other term which would
convey our own impressions to the reader.
However, we have no wish to open up the whole
question. In the meantime, at all events,
Our present business is with our present upply
of water. We have wells proved to be capable
of yielding 7,000,000 gallons of water daily for
the domestic requirements of the inhabitants,
these wells being the property of the Corpora-
tion. In addition, we find that in every large
manufacturing establishment there are wells
yielding more or less water, as the case may be.
In fact, there are several hundreds of these,
from which a supply is drawn exceeding largely
that procured from those of the Corporation.
But, assuming it to be about the same, we have
thus a supply of water from our scrapings in
the red sandstone rock, exceeding 14,000,000
gallons daily, and this from only a limited area.
We have every respect for theory. Science
owes much to the vagaries of the human mind.
As regards astronomy, we have had the theories
of a ZORASTER, a TYCHO BRAD, a D'CARTE,
and a NEWTON of eternal fame. One and all
of those great philosophers have enlightened the
world with their views on the subject of the
starry heavens. Yet, strange to say, when the
Jesuit missionaries visited China some years
ago, and when they, by their knowledge
of the physical sciences, and by their address
succeeded in having one of their number, Pere
Verbiest, appointed president of the tribunal of
mathematics at Pekin, the worthy Father of
the Christian Church was lost in amazement
when he found an enormous globe amongst the
other astronomical instruments of that institu-
tion, the date of which was 2,000 years anterior
to the Christian era; yet every star and
constellation was indicated on that great work of
art, with the same accuracy as any of our most
modern globes exhibit. Those men had not
the theories of D'CARTES, NEWTON, or any of
the other philosophers who have benefited
creation by a fanciful exposition of the grand
arcana of nature. Yet the theory of YAU and
CHUN is as substantially correct as that of those
philosophers who we are doomed to worship,
otherwise stand arraigned before the world as
heretics to fashionable science.

We have had the opinions of geologists from
Dr. BUCKLAND down to THOMAS SPENCER—
both, by the bye, being stipendiary philosophers
of the Corporation. We have also the views of
a man of world-wide reputation—Mr. ROBERT
STEVENSON, and we have paid for the same•
This giant of an engineer declared that no well