Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-30 00:00:00

step they took in discharging their duties as
sanitary officials, contaminated atmospheres
charged with all kinds of disease ; to forsake
their comfortable abodes, and risk the chance of
being numbered with the thousands of brave
fellows who perished on Russian soil in vindica-
tion of England's honour, and detestation of
Russian usurpation, deserved well of their coun-
try, and should not only be paid the uttermost
farthing of their contract, but must, aye, and
should receive an honorary medal for their really
useful exertions. Instead of this, however, Lord
PANMITRE cavils with the charges of travelling
and hotel expenses, and lops off from the bill of
Mr. NEWLANDS 2791. 7s. Bd. ; also 291. 12s. 9d.
from Mr. ANEYSLEY ; 241. ls. 2d. from Mr.
FREENY ; and 14/. 19s. from Mr. WILSON,
making a total deduction and positive loss to the
gentlemen named of no less than 348/. 2s. 6d.
Such conduct is monstrous, and we trust that
steps will be taken to bring the matter before
Parliament, for it cannot be that what is nothing
more nor less than robbery, can be permitted.
We have not done with the matter.

CHARITY.—" I have committed," said a celebrated living
Prelate, "many sins in my life ; but one I never did com-
mit—give a farthing to a begger in the street I" Of course,
the eminent man who ventured on such an assertion is
considered by most people as rather an extraordinary
person; and the more sentimental sex would feel infinitely
horrified at hearing what they are in the habit of calling
so wicked a confession. But the Archbishop of DUBLIN
is quite right. There is nothing so mischievous as
promiscuous charity. It demoralises the person who
indulges in it—it demoralises the person who receives it.
Every man, woman, and child has the passion of pity ; it
is gratifying to indulge a passion, end to many people if it
can be indulged at a small expense, with little trouble,
and in the face of the public, the gratification is rather
increased than diminished. It is pleasant, too, for the
spectators as well as for the actors. It is so nice to think
that people are good and charitable. It is so comfortable
to think that it is easy to acquire a character for benevo -
fence, and to practise in public the precepts of religion.
Like many other things, it looks well at a distance. But
there is another side to the picture, which we may just as
well investigate. That lean, cringing, sallow-faced, filthy,
half-clothed Chinaman, who comes crawling along unde r
the magnificent club-porticos of Pall-mall, seems wretched
enough. His chattering importunity or silent eloquence
irresistibly appeal to the passers-by, for he is a stranger
in a foreign land, perhaps a shipwrecked mariner. Why
should he not be relieved ? Why are charitable men and
women to deny themselves this luxury ? The answer is
not difficult. Let those who like truth better than senti-
ment, and shrink from the notion of thoughtlessly
supplying vice with the means of indulgences- follow some
of these apparent children of misery through the heart of
the City, to the filth and seething abomination of Shadwell.
In that horrid den of humanity they will find their Chinese
friend in his real character, amid the companions of his
choice. He has put off the cringing subservience of the
begger, and has assumed the abandoned ease of the
debauches and the libertine. In this quarter, it seems,
there is established a colony of 50 or 60 Chinamen, who
herd together for the purpose of indulging in the most
horrid vices to which human nature cau addict itself,
The evening is the time for their brutal orgies. The
morning is the time for obtaining the means of indulgence.
Their plan is admirably simple. From this dark corner
of the City they sally forth together in the forenoon, and
spread themselves over the West-end. Their object is
that of all mendicants—to obtain money without labour.
For that purpose they take the name of poverty in vain—
and prey upon the feelings of the weak-minded and the
wealthy. Skilled in every dramatic art, they assume every
pose plustique or misery which their experience and
ingenuity can suggest, and manage. we are told, to
levy a mail on passers-by which amounts to:an average of
2s. or 3s. a-day for each of them. Supplied by these ample
funds, the sallow crowd make their way back in the
evening from every quarter to their reeking cabins by the
banks of the Thames—where they spend their evenings in
the most loathsome debauchery. It would be of course
impossible to dwell in detail on these revolting scenes.
The address of Mr. YARDLEY, the police magistrate, may
have sufficed on this point to enlighten the curious. That
address was made by the worthy magistrate, in the case
of one Aroo—one of these Chinese colonists—who seems

to have committed a brutal assault upon a fellow-country-
man by half-murdering him with a hammer. The public
have gool reason to thank Mr. Yattnr,Ey ifor speaking
out as he did upon the subject. For we quite agree with
him that, looking to the filth and abomination in which
these Chinese creatures live, or rather herd together, we
may well apprehend the spread not only of a moral, but
of a physical pestilence from this sink of depravity. We
trust that the authorities will look to this.= We have
selected the Chinese colony simply as the most recent and
picturesque discovery in the realms of beggardom, not
because Chinese beggars are worse than their neighbours.
The professors of the " Indian dodge" are every way
equal to them; and we have a multitude of indigenous
rascals who, at a prize beggar show at the Crystal
Palace, would no doubt carry off all the first medals.
One thing is clear—these offscourings :of the earth only
subsist by the pernicious and thoughtless charity of the
West-end. If money were not collected there during the
day the vices of the night would become impossible. The
weak sentimentalists of the West-end ought surely to con-
sider the purposes to which their alms are applied. There
might, perhaps, be some excuse for them so long as they
were ignorant of the facts which are now ascertained.
We have endeavoured to deprive them of that excuse. If
they still persist in supplying these plausible scoundrels
with money, they do so with the knowledge that, instead
of relieving want and succouring the distressed, they are
only encouraging the coarsest kinds of excess and the
vilest forms of vice.—Express.

PAPER AND PAPER
_DUTIES IN GIRMANY.-A curious
battle is just now raging all over Germany between the
producers and consumers of paper. The paper manufac-
turers have formed a coalition, which, though interdicted
to working men, seems to be permitted in Germany to
master manufacturers, and, in meetings they have held,
have passed resolutions, binding them all to raise consi-
derably the price of that useful article. But they have
roused a hornet's nest, for newspaper proprietors, pub-
lishers, manufacturers of stationery, and even the public
and private offices, who are in the habit of consuming a
great deal of paper, have become alive to the danger, and
encourage each other to resist ; to abstain:for a time from
all consumption, for which the necessity is not urgent ; and
to form a great counter league. There is one promising
element in this agitation, that it will most probably lead
to the total'repeal of the Customs duties on foreign paper,
which are of a protectionist nature ; and though they do
not raise the price of paper so exorbitantly as the English
paper excise, still do so to some extent, and cause the
additional injury of turning away a certain amount of
capital and labour from the natural channels. Already
the most influential organs among the daily press of Ger-
many have sounded the cote of attack on these protective
customs duties.