The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-03-09 00:00:00

THE BANK CHARTER ENQUIRY.

We beg to direct the attention of our readers to a state-,
ment of opinions which hare been made by some hankers
in Yorkshire on the Bank Charter enquiry, to a Member
of the Comoihtee: these opinions are of more impor.
tance, from the fact of it being pretty well understood
that both the Governor and the Deputy-Governor of the
Bank of England are opposed tri any alteration as far as
the Bank itself is concerned. These opinions of'
fixing the amount of issues on securities by the
Bank of England, and fixing the limit of cou`ntry
bank issues, whatever the amount of gold and
other capital may be at their command, or the demands
of trade and commerce, are in perfect accordance with
those we have continually expressed ; and the !resent
opportunity must be considered as highly favourable I'm
the country tankers, as a class, to come forward and
express their opinions upon a subject with which their
own interests are so closely identified. It was a general
cause of complaint in 1841, that the late Sir Robert Peel
had taken them by surprise; this ought not to be the
cas? in the present instance. We have repeatedly stated
that the enquiry should comprise evidence on the forms
which our banking has assumed ; such as Joint Stock
Banks of Issue ; Private Banks of Issue ; non issuing Joint
Stock Banks ; and non-issuing Private Banks; each of
these is influenced by causes which are frequently at
variance with each other, and rrquire to be separately
investigated and understood. This is a task which
demands the special attention of the banking interest;
and we trust that it will not be nezlected at so critical a
juncture, when the movements of the precious metals,
and the financial condition of States, are marked by very
unusual and extraordinary changes.—Bankers' Circulars

LAWYERS IN THE PRESENT PARLIAMENT.—DI the Musa
of Commons there are 105 barristers and six solicitors, and.
in the Lords 9 lawyers—making 120.
CHILD MURDER. —On Thursday morning, the body of a
fine female child was found in an entry off Back Chester
street. Information was immediately given to the police,
and on Saturday the coroner held an inquest on the body.
From the evidence of the surgeon, who examined the body,
it was found that the child had died from suffocation and
exposure to the cold; and a verdict to that effect was
re urned. Notwithstanding every exertion on the part of
the police, no clue has been discovered of the child's inhuman
anti unnatural mother, who, there is no doubt, is the cause
of its death, and would be severely nnnished if discovered.
CORONER'S COURT.—On Saturtley inquests were held
upon the bodies of the following persoi2s :—John Murphy,
aged 65, a labourer, in the employ of Metiers. Verdon and
Cullen, cattle salesmen, of Childwell Abbey. It appearedthat the deceased was engaged with another man, 1,; nob,
in loading a cart, when one of the ropes confining tt:'
contents broke, and he fell to the ground. He was
seriously injured, and died soon after reaching his own
home. Verdict accidental death.—On the body of a
child, named William Clarke Shepherd, who died from the
effects of a severe scald, as reported in this journal of
Saturday.
THE LAW OF LIBEL FOR NEWSPAPERS.—The case of
Davison v. Duncan, which has attracted much public
attention, came on at the Durham assizes on Friday. The
plaintiff in the action was Joseph Davison, a solicitor in
the City of Durham ; the defendants, William Duncan and
John 'Taylor Duncan, proprietors and publishers of the
Durham County Advertiser. The action was brought to
recover damages—laid at £l,ooo—for a libel, alleged to be
contained in a report of a meeting of the Hartlepool Com-
missioners, publiehed in the defendants' newspaper. The
defendants pleaded, first, not guilty; secondly, that the
facts were true ; and thirdly, that the statement complained
of was a just and true report of what had taken place, and
that they published it without malice. Evidence having
been gone through, the learned judge (Justice Crampton),
summed up, stating his opinion that the expressions made
use of at the meeting clearly contained libenous matter.
Reporters and newspaper proprietors were private indivi-
duals performing very useful and important functions, butt
if they circulated slanders they must be held responsible,
as other private individuals were. The jury retired for a
custody, statedli ri un l
short time, and at two o'clock returned with a verdict for
the plaintiff'—one —one farthing damages.
FORGERY AND FATAL CONSEQUENCES,—On Thursduy
week, a gentleman of military appearance, and who repre-
sented himself as Lord Charles Hay, bought three bracelets,
for which he paid by a cheque for £45, signed " Lord E.
C. Hay," and drawn on Cox and Co., the London army
agents. This having been ascertained to be a forgery, the
gentleman, who was traced to Dublin
hut arpteomnbe en which,
aanddhe at once admitted' the forgery, but
was taken into
ctohmaphitateadamite
was
sdeLetahteenant influenceTeiheorfde
of the 95th Regiment. On the detective officer's card being
sent up stains the mistress of the house, to whose daughter*
it is said, the prisoner was engaged to be married, was
seized with an illness, from which she died the same night
AN EMPEROR'S ExpealeNces.— Vicissitude is confess-
edly the law of hnman life. Every body experiences it
more or less; but in the whole history of modern times'
there are few examples of individuals who have passed
hrough greater or more numerous changes than Louis
Napoleon. Burn in a palace, and for a while the heir
presumptive of the greatest monarch in Europe,.ho wag
afterwards thrown headlong from that high estate, and
condemned in obscurity and exile to associate with the
sons of humble tradesmen and farmers; to be to day the
companion of cardinals, popes, and kings, and to sleep to
1 morrow on a heap of stones in the street, in the disguise
of a livery servant ; to lie hidden, during eight days, in
a burning fever, in the midst of Austrian troops, who
were eager to take his life; to fight as a common soldier
and a rebel, in the hope of overthrowing a hateful form
of despotism ; to have his brother die in his arms ; to
wander about in sickness, hunger, and dejection ; to take
refuge in common taverns; to owe his life to an English
passport; to tread the soil of France. as au outlaw, at
the peril of his life ; to organise repeated insurrections,
to be in a prison, to lie in a dungeon ; to write treatises
on pauperism and the sugar question; to mingle with
the haughty nobles of England at a tournament, to be
the President of a Republic, to take advantage of the
opportunity thus afforded him of making himself Empe-
ror ; to be the ally on terms of equality of the strongest
government in Europe ; mad, in conjunction with Great
Britain, to subdue the armies of Russia, and compel her
Czar to sue humbly for peace in that capital which,
forty two years before, on the self same day, he had entered
as a conqueror.—Louis Napoleon, A Biography, by James
Augustus St. John.