The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-09 00:00:00

THE DAY'S NEWS.

After a rapid passage of eighty-Live days from
Melbourne, the clipper ship, Morning Light, arrived
here yesterday morning. Her run from the
Equator to Liverpool was ono of remarkable
rapidity, namely—twenty days. By our advices
per the Morning Light, we have a variety of gene-
ral news. In Victoria the New Colonial Parliament
had been called by proclamation to assemble for the
despatch of business on the 21st Nov., and the
non-official members had been plotting together
for the purpose of forming an opposition party.
From New South Wales we learn that lengthened
explanations had been made in the Legislature, of
the circumstances which attended the formation of
the Parker administration; but it appears that
*either the tone of Mr. Parker's speech nor of
Mr. Cowper's rejoinder had indicated any strong
conviction that the miserable party squabbles and
shifting about of offices, over which the Legislature
of New South Wales had been wasting so many
months, had come to a conclusion. Mr. Parker
declares what his Ministry proposes doing " in the
next session, if they remain in office long enough
to carry their views into effect," while Mr. Cowper
declares his implacable party feeling to some extent,
even at the expense of his personal credit, by
declaring that before Mr. Parker asked him to
take a seat in the new Cabinet, he had
made up his mind to do nothing of the kind,
although he asked Mr. Parker to give him
time to consider his proposal. According to
what appears in the latest Sydney journals
the speeches of both Mr. Parker and Mr. Hay
explain that when the resignation of the Cowper
Administration was accepted by Sir W. Denison,
Mr. Hay was first sent for, but declined to attempt
forming a Ministry. Mr. Parker was then sent for
on Mr. Hay's advice. Mr. Parker's endeavour was
to terminate the pre-existing feud by putting Mr.
Donaldson and Mr. Cowper into one Ministry—the
vendetta was to end with a marriage. Mr. Donaldson
consented to act with Mr. Cowper, but Mr. Cowper
refused to act with Mr. Donaldson. Mr Cowper
" could not see his way clear ;" and, moreover,
had been very much distressed by hearing it said
at street corners, " Donaldson and Cowper have
been bad boys, and Parker is sent to whip
them"—so he preferred that the vendetta
should continue rather than give countenance to
so scurrilous a saying. The negotiation between
the "two high contracting powers" does not indeed
seem to have been carried on with that solemnity
which the uninitiated would have expected, for
Mr. Cowper, in his explanation of what occurred,
declares that, on asking •for a little time for con-
sideration. as he could not immediately give
his thoughts to the matter, being busy about

ILIC _ "Cs C
no, we want you to ga home and go to bed"—
whether as a supplementary punishment to the
threa'ened whipping or not being left unstated.
Accounts from Adelaide, South Australia, state that
the Constitution and Electoral Acts arrived in that
city via Melbourne. on the 25th October, meeting
the Governor, Sir Richard Macdonnell, on the very
day of his return from his trip up the Murray, who
at once proclaimed the act in force, and the first
responsible ministry was formed the same day,
under the premiership of Mr. Finnis, the former
polouial Secretary, whose colleagues, under the
hew dispensation, are the same who served with
im under the old. We may further observe
that taking the verdict of the South Australian
press as indicative of the South Australian com-
munity generally, a very liberal spirit towards Mr.
Finnis's Government appears to prevail,—a
circumstance the more remarkable because the
majority of the members of that Government have
held office for many years—from a period antece
Ictont to the time when liberal Constitutions for
the colonies were " laid upon the anvil." To
have held office long under an irresponsible
system, and amid all the impediments to
popularity which the presence of the nominee
plement occasioned, and now to take office
under the new regime amid no rejoicings
that their day of power has come to an end, but
maintaining the reasonable confidence of the pub.
lie—showing altogether the front of men equal to
the occasion,—this says much for the first respon-
iiible Ministry of South Australia. In Tasmania
a new Ministry had been formed with Mr.
Chimp at its head, and Messrs. Smith, Chap-
man and Anstey as his colleagues. A public meet-
ing had been held in Melbourne to aid the
movement for raising a monument in commemo-
ration of the patriotic and heroic deeds of Sir
William Wallace, the Scottish Chieftain.

The Continental intelligence this morning is not
of much importance. The representatives of
Prussia and Austria at the conferences relative
to the Mouths of the Danube have arrived at
Trieste. Letters from Constantinople of the 30th
ult., announce, that the capture of Herat has
excited great enthusiasm amor gst the Turcomans
in favour of Persia. The King of Khiva has sent an
ambassador extraordinary to the Shah. Omer
33ey, governor of Sulina for Turkey, has left for
the Mouths of the Danube, taking with him a
garrison for Sulina and for the Isle of Serpents
Another account informs us that Russia has ap-
plied to the Shah for permission to occupy the
province of Mazenderan, which forms the southern
coast ef the Caspian Sea. This seems to be done on
the principle of compensation. If the English take
territory from the Shah, the Russians, too. musthave
some. It had been expected during the late war be-
tween Russia and Persia, that the Russians would
claim this province as an indemnity; but they at that
time preferred Persian Armenia. Mazenderan is a
beautiful tract of laud, though as yet little culti-
vated. Its tenure by a European state would
exercise the greatest influence on all Central Asia.
As this news comes exclusively through Constan•
tinople, we must await its confirmation.
A Vienna letter of the 2nd says :—" The secre-
tary of the Austrian legation in Switzerland has
arrived hero with very important despatches from
Baron de Menshengen. They give details on the.
preliminary negociations which have taken place
at Paris between Dr. Kern, the Swiss envoy, and
Count de Hat zfeld, the Prussian Minister at Paris.
It appears that, to the great regret of the Federal
Council, no direct conclusion can be come to on
account of the pertinacity with which each party
maintains its pretensions. Switzerland might
ersily have come to a direct understanding with
Prussia, had she been willing to give way on
.the
insists
on of the domains. If Switzerland
on rejecting the Prussian demands, it will be
necessary to have recourse to the arbitrary decision
of a conference."
Madrid advices of the sth state that the sums

kept back from the salaries of the government
functionaries will be suppressed in the next bud-
get. The municipal election commenced on that day;
the Conservative party appear to have a certainty
of success. Everything is tranquil in the provinces.
There is not any important domestic news
Several of the leading towns throughout England
have held meetings to express their disapprobation
of the wars against China and Persia. In Bir-
mingham Lord Ward sets forth to the inhabitants of
that great hive of industry the advantages of their
school of practical art, while in the same town Judge
Marshall advocates the claims of temperance. In
the north, Bradford delivery- an effective testi-
mony on behalf of the early closing movement ;
and in Scotland the freehold agitation is exciting
universal interest, and is becoming a national
question. Dr. Begg and Mr. Duncan M'Laren
appear to be the apostles of the latter movement.
The friends of the Manchester Education move-
ment held a meeting on Friday night in the Free
Trade Hall of that city. Among the leading gentle-
men present, were—Sir J. Pakington, Sir J. P. Kay
Shuttleworth, and several others of distinction in
the city and surrounding districts. Letters of
apology from Lord Stanley and Mr. Cobden were
read: the former expressed his cordial concurrence of
the movement, and promised his support to Sir John
Pakington and Mr. Cobden's Bill. Mr. Cobden's
letter set forth that no moment was ever more
opportune than the present for bringing into pro-
minence the question of popular education. The
extent of juvenile delinquency, and the amount of
crime in this country, are of such growing magni-
tude that they had arrested public attention,
and can no longer be treated with legislative
indifference. He also thinks that it is
impossible that these qualities can be discussed
without opening up the wider field of enquiry to
which attention is directed, and asking how we can
assail that fountain of ignorance from which issue
those ever widening streams of crime, vice and
misery, which are overflowing the land. Sir John
Pakington, in the course of his speech, expressed
his conscientious belief, that the plan which, by the
bill, they were about to recommend to the }idol),
tion of the legislature, was one which every friend
of education—the most rigid secularist, and the
most religious and conscientious clergyman—
might conscientiously and cordially adopt. He
expressed himself ready to cooperate heart and
hand with Mr. Cobden in tie promotion of the
measure.

THE Memorial which the Council propose to
consider to-day is one of the most numerously
and respectably signed documents ever presented
to the Liverpool Corporation ; and we would
direct the special attention of the Pikeists to the
fact that it contains the names of most of the
medical practitioners of any note in the Borough,
many of whom are known to have cautioned
their patients against using the Pike water, even
in its present comparatively harmless form. Over
three thousand names are attached to the Memo-
rial, and these represent fully four times that
number of the inhabitants of the town, and the
public are anxious to see how a representative
body will treat the right of petition and the
simple prayer the Memorialists have put forward.
We are inclined to think that the Pike jobbers
are so far involved in the shameful working of
the scheme that they must put on a bullying or
contemptuous face, and go on as they have from
the first. A large majority of the Council are
tainted by the support they have given to the
Water Committee, and while they feel more or
less ashamed of their connection with the unpar-
donable scheme, they dare not turn back. Their
sins are too great even for a corporate confes-
sional, and they doubt the efficacy of municipal
absolution. The Burgesses, however, offer for-
giveness to the really penitent. They have no
wish to see the crime of poisoning added to the
sins of inlihpr,

We would therefore call on the Council, or
rather the Pike poison-side of that Divan, to
accept the charitable offer of their constituents,
and abandon the wicked tenour of their ways.
Mr. HAWKSLEY is a broken reed, and Professor
TAYLOR an ignis fatuus, a sort of chemical Theos
who comes from peat swamps and rules over bog
water. Such deities are at a sad discount in
these mundane times. We have not the poetic
genius to render their names tolerable to the
readers of sonnets. Men of sense should be
done with them, and leave them to their glory.
Mr. HAWKSLEY has lost his way in hydraulics, and
Dr. TAYLOR in chemics, or they may only have
forgotten the precise objects for which they were
employed. The Pike engineer has given us about
one-third of the quantity of poison for the supply
of pure water he contracted for, and now he tells
us that " pipes will burst." If he knew this, and
their perishable character in a hundred other
respects, or has found it all out before they have
undergone anything like a full test, how dare he
attempt to use them in the first instance, and
endeavour to induce the Corporation to believe
that they will bring us the contract supply ? And
what does Professor TAYLOR mean by informing
us that the colouring matter he found in the Pike
drainage water was " decidedly objectionable,"
without giving us a chemical analysis of that
portion of the fluid ? He gives us no informa-
tion about this " decidedly objectionable" ingre-
dient in his first report, nor does he think it right
to divulge it in his subsequent communications.
He instructs the Council as to what cannot be
done to make it safe to drink ; but he does not
say one word about its true chemical qualities,
or the quantity in which it is to be found in the
mixed water he was employed to analyse !

This, we say, is not the way in which Dr.
TAYLOR should deal with a question of life and
death. As for Mr. HAWKSLEY, he will be forced
to abandon his pipes and go back to an open
conduit. The Ratepayers are not done with this
gentleman just yet, We have only heard that
1,150,000/. has been actually expended on the
Pike job. We know nothing of what the cur-
rent expenditure and accruing liabilities of the
Water Committee are. Mr, HAWKSLEY does as
he pleases, and it appears that the Committee
must follow him. How long is this system of doing
the corporate business to last ? Are the Pike-
ists to go on for ever just as they think proper ?
This day's meeting of the Town Council will
decide this question. If the gentlemen who
oppose the Pike scheming and support the memo-
rial of the inhabitants are defeated in their very
reasonable demands, the Ratepayers out of doors
are bound to rally round them, and sustain them
against an overwhelming phalanx of jobbers,
who do not hesitate to risk the public health to
carry out their designs. And is it not too bad
that a large number of these Pike jobbers are