The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-04 00:00:00

variance with facts; for, had I not witnessed l virtues we have never attempted to deny them
in their individual capacity.

be, however, a great improvement that the
property and earnings of the separated wife
shall be protected from the grasp of a profligate
husband. The preponderance of reason appears
to us, clearly to be in favour of allowing the
parties who have been guilty, to contract a
legal marriage. It is the best thing that can
be done. It is making the best of a disastrous
occurrence. It is bringing good out of evil.
We do not think it would lead to many schemings
for divorce, through the commission of crime.
If we remember aright, the Jewish law in the
Old Testament, compelled the violator to marry
the woman he had humbled. This was the
compensation he owed her, and it acted rather
as a check than an incentive to vice. In
Scotland the subsequent marriage of the parties
legitimatizes the children who may have been
born out of wedlock. We know that this
may be abused, as any, and all laws may be ;
but we are satisfied that, on the whole, the
operation of this law is wise as it is merciful.
Without compelling the marriage of those who
have sinned, and who will probably continue
to sin, surely it would be well to leave a door
open for them to a legitimate union, after the
law has divorced one or both.
When a husband has obtained a divorce from
the marriageltie, it seems he is to be allowed
to marry again ; but the same liberty is refused
to the wife, after she has obtained a similar
divorce against an unworthy -husband .
We cannot feel the justice of this ; we cannot
respect such law making. We feel some shame
when we hear of a number of gentlemen, the
highest peers of the realm, standing up in their
places in Parliament, and claiming a privilege
for themselves, which they refuse to the other
and the weaker side. This is the sort of thing
that is calculated to give an immense impulse
to the political movement for the Equal Rights
of Women. This is legislating rather against
than for woman. If it is said that woman more
readily forgive male infidelity, the explanation
is more honourable to them than creditable to
us; it is one of the last things that should be
taken advantage of, to trade upon the generosity
and affections of woman. Gentlemen ought to
scorn such base advantage, and be ashamed of
the monopoly of iniquity. Besides, we take our
stand on higher ground—the ground of moral
law. -We hold that both sexes are equally bound
to moral fidelity, and that conjugal infidelity is
equally criminal in both. Our laws and our
practice virtually, teach that vice in the woman,
is not vice in the man, at least not equally
vicious; that the seventh commandment is by
mistake applied to all men, and was more
specially meant for woman. One consequence
is, that our young men claim a privilege in vice,
and the high and mighty peers of England that
might now do something to correct that error,
and abate that monstrosity, only confirm and
rivet both. The falseness and unfairness of our
marriage laws, are not restricted to our domestie
relations, but exert a tainting, demoralizing ,
influence on our national character.

It is not likely that the Commons will make
any considerable alterations in a bill which has
been so earnestly, and indeed ably, debated by
lords and bishops, In so far as this bill is a
beginning in the right direction, we are thankful.
It will prove a great relief. But we hold that
no bill or act can be final and satisfactory, till
we recognise the equal claims of man and woman
to relief—till moral law shall dictate the spirit
of our legislation—the process be made prompt
and unexpensive—the arrangements simple—and
redress, as much as may be, equally within
reach of poor and rich.

A little learning is, indeed, a dangerous thing,
as the poor Ratepayers of Liverpool know to
their sorrow and cost. A few individuals with
little learning, but large presumption,
recently palmed off certain specious theories
respecting the water-bearing capabilities of
the new red sandstone formation on which
Liverpool is based. Men, who ought to have
read " the testimony of the rocks," presumed
to obtrude their fanciful notions on a subject
of which they in reality knew nothing, and
their specious theories, clothed as they
were with mystifying phraseology, appeared
plausible, they accomplished their purpose, at
least for a time.

There is, in reality, as much cant and humbug
in what is popularly designated science and
philosophy, as there is in Mormonism or any
other ism. We defy all the geologists in
Europe to dispute the fact that the new red
sandstone formation has never yet been explored.
That the deepest sinkings in that conglomerate
are probably to be found in Liverpool. Yet even
these are but trifling, notwithstanding, however,
we have the fact patent that in every instance
where fresh borings or sinkings are made, so
surely water will be found, and chemical
analysis has proved that this water, for
domestic purposes—in fact, for the use of man
—is unequalled by any other.
Mr. BINNEY, of Manchester, one of the
ablest and most unostentatious geologists
in the country, when giving his evidence
before Mr. STEPHENSON, said, if the people
of Manchester had only known the
quantity and quality of water they could have
procured from the sandstone underneath their
feet, they never would have thought of
constructing reservoirs at Woodhead, or
impounding the top waters of the Mersey in the
vale of Etherow ; and, he added, emphatically,
" geological theories on this vlbject are at

very recently, the immense supply of water
which a very small sinking is capable of
yielding, I could not have believed it." Such
was Mr. BINNEY'S honest and straightforward
opinion on this point, and it is of value at
the present time.

It is a mere truism that "no man can see
farther into a millstone than he who picks it,"
and, assuredly, a mere superficial geologist can
know no more of the red sandstone than those
who have been boring through it for a series of
years. Truly practical men declare, that no
human being can yet form even an approximation
to the quantity of water which can be obtained
by judicious sinking and boring in our new red
sandstone rock.

Yesterday, we exposed some of the fallacies
on this subject, promulgated by great men, Mr.
STEPHENSON, viz.—A paltry boring, costing the
Corporation about a couple of hundred pounds,
sufficed to demolish the precious conoid
theory of this most eminent engineer.
No well sunk in the red sandstone
rock, said Mr. STEPHENSON, can yield more
than about a million gallons of water
daily, and on this declaration the Pike Advo-
cates rested their claims to consistency.
Unfortunately, however, for Mr. STEPHENSON'S
theories, Green-lane well was sunk. It is only
a trifle, by the bye; but it is enough for our
purpose. The supply of water from that well
exeeeds 3,000,000 gallons per diem! What
does Mr. STEPHENSON think of his theory ?

The Chairman of the Water Committee is
constantly in the habit of telling the Council
that the people are perfectly satisfied with
the Pike water, and that no complaints are
made about it. But he forgets to add that
the inhabitants know very well there is no
use of complaining, for no redress can be had
from the committee or their servants. If he
would pay a visit to our office, he would pause
ere he reiterated such a statement. If he has
no complaints, we have them in abundance,
and we have had samples of his precious Pike wash
without end. Knowing the unprincipled and
reckless denials usually given by certain red-hot
Pikeists to every statement made by us against
their filth, we have taken care to fortify
ourselves with documents which challenge con-
tradicti o n.

I, MARY KERSHAW, of Mersey-street, Liverpool, do
solemnly and sincerely declare, that I am servant with
Mr. Higgins, in Mersey-street, and that about a fortnight
ago, I was drawing water from the water-tap, and saw a
large snail drop from the water-pipe into the jug which I
held; that on several subsequent occasions I saw snails
come from the water pipe ; that on yesterday morning, in
drawing water from the pipe, three snails came from the
water-pipe into the jug; that I took a drink from the jug,
and found a snail in my mouth, which caused me great
sickness.

And I make this solemn Declaration, conscientiously
believing the same to be true, and by virtue of the provi-
sions of an act made and passed in the sixth year of the
reign of his late Majesty, King William the Fourth, intituled
" An Act to repeal an Act of the present Session of Parlia-
ment, intituled An Act for the more effectual Abolition of
Oaths and Affirmations, taken and made in various depart-
ments of the State, and to substitute Declarations in lieu
thereof,-and for the more entire suppression of Voluntary
and extra-judicial Oaths and Affidavits,' and to make other
Provisions for the Abolition of unnecessary Oaths."
The mark [X] of MARY KERSHAW.
Declared and subscribed at Liverpool, in the County of
Lancaster, the contents having been first read over,
and explained to, the declarant, who appeared to
understand the same, the thirtieth day of May, one
thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, before me,
ROBERT EVANS, a Commissioner to administer oaths
in Chancery in England.

This is but one of the many cases which
have been brought under our notice; but it is
surely sufficient to silence the ad captandem
assertions of sundry gentlemen who, secure for
the moment under the shadow of the Town-hall,
venture, as Mr. WILLIAM EARLS did yesterday,
to throw out insinuations against this journal
as unmerited as they are destitute of truth.
The chairman of the Water Committee has
at last had the manly honesty to declare that
he 'knows nothing at all of the question—that
he is now, and ever has been, entirely at the mercy
of his own servants.

Some time ago, we ventured an opinion,
that Mr. COOPER'S position as chairman of the
Water Committee was not one which he had
personally ambitioned—that, in fact, he was
the mere creature of untoward circumstances,
compelled to say and do things contrary to
his own honest convictions, and, as our facetious
friend (?) Mr. WILLIAM EARLE observed, " We
are always correct."

Mr. EARLE need not be reminded that there
are many truths said in jest. We believe the
Water Committee would now willingly do all
in their power to redeem the fearful and fatal
error which they committed when under the
fascination of the Pike adventurers. We will
not irritate our opponents now that they
are humbled by any attempt to perpetuate
angry or vindictive feelings

Mr. COOPER admits that the water is
supplied in the proportion of one-third Pike
to two-thirds well water—just the reverse of
what we were led to believe was its

composition some few weeks since. We again
repeat that we will not trample on the Water
Committee. They have now only to follow
the honest and earnest advice given to them
some few days ago, and resign a position which
their Chairman yesterday frankly declared they
are totally Unfitted to hold. They will thus
prove their/ disinterestedness awl patriotism—,

NEW YORK EMIGRATION.--In this trade there are many
eminent houses, possessing first-class favourite :vessels
well known in the trade, and Messrs. Tracy and Baldwin's
" Black Ball" line of American packets are not the least
amongst these. They have despatched some of the most
successful vessels i❑ the trade, and so extensive has their
business become in Ireland, that they have deemed it
necessary to open a branch office in the town of
Tipperary ; and in order to secure to their customers
that advantage which emigrants would be entitled to
if they came to Liverpool, they have appointed Mr. P.
Beary to represent them in Munster. This gentleman
has been 20 years connected with the trade in Liverpool,
and his great experience and knowledge of the trade
readers him au important auxilary to this house. It is of
great value to emigrants, from Ireland, to have a gentle-
man on whom they may depend, and this in their own
locality. The character of Mr. Beary, and of the house
he so ably represents, is a guarantee that emigrants will
meet with the best treatment, and every attention, with
perfect safety.

THE LIVERPOOL WATER QI.T.RSTION.—The Pike battle
is still raging amongst our neighbours across the channel.
Oa Wednesday last there was another grand field day in
the Town Council, when a proposition to lay down a
second set of pipes, in order that the inhabitants may still
have their famous well water for drinking, and that from
Rivington for other puposes, was rejected by a large
majority. This was a defeat for the Anti-Pikeists ; but,
on other hand the Pro•Pikeists admitted that the Rivington
water is discoloured and vitiated by boggy matter ; and
it was agreed that measures should be taken to ascertain
whether it can be purified by filtration or otherwise.
This concession is important, but dues not reveal the
whole case. The corporation has had the water
from Rivington at its command for some months,
but has never yet ventured to furnish it pure and unadul-
leraled to the inhabitants. They have supplied it mixed
with the well water, some say half and half, others only
in the proportion of one-third ; and this mixture it is,—
not "our pure Rivington water," as the Mercury (for-
merly the strenuous opponent, now the advocate of the
scheme) called it the other day—•,vhich has created so
much dissatisfaction amongst the inhabitants. If they
gave the genuine thing for a single week,—supposing it
to be as bad as it is said to be, we should not be at all
surprised to hear of the people storming the Town Hall,
or at the very least, tarring and feathering some of the more
prominent of the mere handful of individuals :who would
have succeeded in forcing the scheme upon the town. It
would seem that the corporation is now the proprietor of one
of the most costly and most needless jobs that ever was per-
petrated. What with the purchase of the old works and
the construction of the new one, they have spent nearly a
million and a half upon it ;—what further expenditure it
will entail, or when it will end nobody can calculate.
And yet, after all, it is said that not one of the promises
of the projectors and supporters of the scheme has been
fulfilled. The water must be very bad, for it needs two
filtrations, one at Rivington, the other at Liverpool ; there
is not halt' the quantity promised ; instead of a gravitation
pressure sufficient to send the water to the top of the
highest buildings in case of fire, which was one of the
great advantages held forth, such pressure can only be
obtained by force pumping to the requisite elevation,
as of yore ; and, to crown all, it has been admitted by
Mr. Samuel Holme, one of the leading pro-Pikeists,
that a sufficient supply could have been obtained from the
red sand-stone in the neighbourhood at a cost of £100,000,,
only. Upwards of £700,000 has already been spent on
the Pike, and now that the water has been got, it is found
to be unfit for drinking even when diluted. However, the
pro-Pikeists have got their whistle, in spite of the town,
as Mr. William Earle, one of their leading champions,
publicly boasted when he and others were turned out of
the Council for advocating it—and dearly has the town
been made to pay for it, both in pocket and in stomach.
As regards the latter, the worst is still to come with
continued hot weather, and we sincerely condole with our
neighbours on the very bad bargian which they have suffered
their own servants to cram down their throats.-- Mona's
Herald.

LIVERPOOL AND MANCIIESTER,—Now, in those days
there was a great city of ships on the river Mersey, in
England—a city which was vast and astonishing to look
upon then, but which has grown inconceivably vaster and
astonishing in our own day. Once a marshy pool, the
resort of that now fabulous wild-fowl—the liver, who
stalked about on his attenuated legs in places where now
are Custom-house long-rooms and Exchange flags, where
merchants, shipowners, and cotton brokers, meet and
chaffer out their money bargains ; ones an inconsi-
derable seaport, muddy and fishy, and to the " run-
ning" of contraband cognac and surepticioue silk
goods much addioted ; then enriching and enlarging
itself by a grim perseverance in not the most reputable
branches of commerce and industry in the world, such as
crimping, kidknapping, and especially slave trading ; then
a huge emporium of trade, famous among maritime cities,
but unrepresented in parliament, and in the municipal
scale weighing not half so much as some mouldy little
cathedral town in an agricultural county, with the grass
growing in its High-street, and an enlightened constituency
of sartorial and sutorial pot-wallopers ; and then at last
Liverpool, twenty years since as now, Empress of Marts,
sending forth galleons and caravels, bi-rems and tri-remes,
to the uttermost ends of the earth—with its Tyre on the
Lancashire, and its Sidon on the Cheshire coast ; with
its acres of docks, its miles of ships, ships, ships, and still
more ships ; its bursting bonding warehouses, its gambling
'Change, its narrow lanes choked up with men, feverishly,
breathlessly pursuing Mammon; its overflowing shops,
its merchant palaces, crime and wretchedness-breathing
cellars, foundries, shipyards, taverns, gaols, wealth, squalor,
magnificence, and dirt. In those days Liverpool had a sister,
(who lives and flourishes to this day,) called Manchester,
living some five-and-twensy miles off. This sister being
as comely, and famous, and prosperous as she ; and the corn-
mencement of her splendour having been nearly coeval with
her own, it was not unnatural that she should hate her
heartily ; a thing which occurs sometimes amongst brothers
and sisters, made out of quite other materials than bricks
and mortar. the contemptuously called her sister's sons
"Manchestermen," while her own offspring she denominated
"Liverpool gentlemen." Her sister was not Clow to retort.
Liverpool having spoken slightingly of Salford; Manchester
abused Birkenhead (both sisters agreed in denouncing War-
rington). Liverpool said Manchester was grimy with smoke
and disfigured with cotton fluff. Manchester said Liverpool
reeked with the odour of tar and hemp, and the blood of
enslaved niggers cried for vengeance from the very pedestal
of Huskisson's statue. In truth, the sisters were as reci-
procally rude as the celebrated Saucepan was to the Kettle
of proverbial history. Their rivalry was meteorological,
00. Manchester gloried in having more rainy, and more
dreadfully rainy days than any other town under the sign
of Aquarius, Forthwith Liverpool enlisted under the
united banners of Leo and Scorpio; and while her sister
drenched you with rain, she baked or broiled you with
fierce sunshine.—Sala, in the Illustrated Pates.

FALKIRK BANK EMBEZZLEMENT.—Henry Salmon, the
defaulting bank agent, who recently absconded from Fal-
kirk, committed suicide on Sunday forenoon, by hanging
himself in the stable of the Harp Inn, Conway, North
Wales. The amount embezzled was £26,000.
Tun GRAND Dina CONSTANTINE.—The Grand Duke
landed at Calais at ten o'clock on Monday evening, where
he slept. He left by a special train on Tuesday morning
for Ghent and Antwerp. There were no honours show❑
on the occasion. H.M.S. Cumberland, 72, arrived at Spit_
head yesterday morning from Sheerness. In crossing the
channel, she fell in with the Admiralty yacht Osborne.
having the Grand. Duke on board ; and, although under a
press of sail before the wind, she took all in, rounded to,
and fired a royal salute.

TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

[By British and Irish Magnetic Telegraph.]