Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-01-08 00:00:00

OF THE

w 0 R K I N_G_C...T, A s s E s

EVERY S ITURI)AY,

NORTH.ERS D.d. L 1 TIMES,

PRICE ONE PENNY

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
Under no eircmnstances can we insert communications not
accompanied by the author's real name and address, not neces-
sarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

CLOTHING,
WARM WINTER

TIIE GENTLEMAN'S OUTFITTING
WAREHOUSES,

24 AND 26, BOLD-STREET.

P. L. MACTAGGART.

INVERNESS WRAPPERS.
OVER COATS.
DRESSING GOWNS.
DRAWERS AND VESTS

FANCY FLANNEL SHIRTS

RAILWAY RUGS AND PLAIDS.

MUFFLERS AND SCARPS.
FLANNELS AND BLANKETS.
BOYS' WINTER CLOTHING

' AMUSEMENTS, MEETINGS, Sm.—THIS DAY.
THEATRE ROYAL—Grand Comic PRTHAI/Arne.
ROYAL AxpnrrnEiray.—English Opera Company.
ST. GEORGE'S HALL—Scottish Festival, half-past Two and Eigl
ALLSOP'S WAX WORK EXHIBITION (Lime-street).
LIVERPOOL SOCIETY OF FINE ARTS (Queen's Hall, Bold-street).
HENGLER'S CIRQUE VAniLTE—Miscellaneous Attractions.
THE PARISIAN GALLERY OF ANATOMY, Paradise-street.
CLAYTON HALL—Carter's Mirror of American Scenery.
TEUTONIC HALL (Lime-street)—Ascent of Mont Blanc.
tar For particulars see advertisements on Bth page.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1859,

THE NORTHERN *TOMS, SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1859

from such a quarter, is both liberal and just. And
it will be by members of ability and character,
like Mr. CARDWELL, on the Opposition side of the
House, acting in such a spirit, that there will be
the best chance of really securing a new Reform
Bill which will be calculated to improve the
complexion of the House of Commons, and
thereby promote the interests of the great body of
the people. What elements can be more impor-
tant in the Parliamentary constituency of the
country, than those, of industry and intelligence?
Surely if there is any combination of qualities, any
admixture of characteristics, which it is desirable
to have largely pervading such a constituency, it
must be one of that quality. We owe our
national progress already to such a combination.
And they are properties that thus enter into it,
without the union of which there would fail to be
derived from them any of the greater benefits
their combination secures. For, on the one hand,
industry must ever fail of its full effect, unless
directed by intelligence ; while, on the other hand,
intelligence would, practically, be very much in

vain, without there was industry to work out its
conceptions, and realize its purposes.

THE expulsion from the United States of such
natives of Great Britain and Ireland as become
paupers,—that is, so poor and destitute as to be
chargeable to the State or City, where they may
be, for their support,—is a procedure which it will
be difficult to satisfy the British public is just and
proper as a rule. There may be cases in which it
would be excusable,—as, for instance, where
paupers, as such, had been sent out to the United
States, without having any capability of supporting
themselves,—sent out simply to get rid of them,
and thereby remove the burthen of their main-

tenance from our own shoulders to those of our
kmerican cousins. But this is a very improbable
The labouring poor of our land, it is quite
true, go out to the United States, as poor, seeking
a market for their labour where the demand for it
is greater than at home, and hoping, in other
ways, to better their condition. The material
progress of the States has been greatly advanced
by the influx of such poor people—paupers, in fact,
when they arrived, having generally no means of
their own, until they got employment to furnish
them with some. The country could never have
made the rapid strides it has done, in the
development of its vast resources, without the
industry of such people. And yet, we say, might
they have been deemed paupers at the outset of
their career, and sent home again as such. But,
no,—though paupers, their labour was needed.
And when, after a course of toil which has been
most profitable to the country, they may, through
misfortune or otherwise, become paupers again,
surely they have a claim upon the country which
their labour has benefited.

The American papers have been defending the
compulsory return of paupers to this country, in a
very loose and fallacious manner. "We are
perfectly willing," says one of them, "that the
Liverpool gentlemen should discuss this subject to
their heart's content. The more it is examined,
the less will it appear that there is any just ground
of complaint against the humanity or public spirit
of the people of this country, in their dealings
with the paupers exported to their shores by
foreign nations." Now we are not aware that it
was their humanity, or their public spirit exactly,
that was called in question, in their returning to
our shores people who had become burthensome to
them. There is nothing precisely inhuman, in
sending safely home those who are no longer
useful to them,—nor has public spirit much, if
any thing, to do with an unwillingness to bear the
burthen of maintaining such persons. There are
expletives that may be appropriately applied to
such an act on the part of a thriving State, and
expletives which might not be thought very
complimentary; but they would not be such as
implied that the citizens of that State were not
either humane or public spirited—after a fashion,
at least. The case, however, in a more important
point of view, is not at all fairly stated by our
American contemporaries. "We have made
inquiry," it is reMarked, in a highly respectable
Boston journal, " with regard to the system
pursued in the return of paupers from this State,
and find that the following conditions are rigidly
insisted upon : first, none are sent away unless it
is perfectly certain after investigation that they
have no legal settlement anywhere in America,
and equally certain that they properly
belong in the foreign country to which they are
returned : second, none are sent away unless they
themselves express a willingness to go : third,
none are sent away if they have relatives, friends
or acquaintances here, who express a desire to
have them stay : fourth, none are sent away ex-
cept such as are either mentally or physically
infirm in such manner as to render it certain that
they cannot support themselves, but that they
must be a public charge wherever they live : in
other words, when it is certain that the paupers
who are returned must have been paupers before
•
they came here." With regard to the first condi-
tion, if it were applied to the emigrants who are
constantly arriving in America, it would condemn
them all to expulsion, for they cannot possibly
have any legal settlement anywhere in that
country, and must undoubtedly belong to the
foreign country from which they have come.
With respect to the second and third conditions,
they are virtually of no significance whatever• in
such a case : if, practically, they mean anything, it
is that the poor people need only go home as the
alternative of remaining abroad to starve ; the
State will remove them if they or their poor rela-
tives express their willingness that they should
go, rather than be abandoned to want and misery,
which is certainly a very natural preference. And
eten the fourth condition, somewhat reasonable
though it may at first sight appear in some re-
spects, is open to equally strong objections ; for,
in the first place, the mental or physical infirmity
it is supposed, has generally been contracted in
some career of industry or enterprise by which the
country has been benefited ; and as to its being
"-certain that the paupers who are returned must
have been paupers before they eame there," why
very probably more than haM the labouring emi-