Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-07-16 00:00:00

adoption of the Mersey Conservancy Bill were
quite dumb on this most important point, and
by their silence satisfactorily and incontrovertibly
set forth the complete and proper conduct of the
affairs of the Dock Trust.

If, then, no objection on this head can be
urged by those who promote the bill, it is evident
that there must be another and more important
motive in view. This the petition to the House
of Lords alludes to, and briefly, but unanswerably
shows that the attempt to rob the Corporation
of the Town Dues is an unjust proposal, " inas-
much as the right to levy such dues was acquired
by purchase." The petition also sets forth,
if the proposal be sanctioned by their Lordships'
House, " there will be no security for the con-
tinued enjoyment of municipal property of any
description." We would go much further than
this ; for it is evident that if the principle of
confiscation which the Mersey Conservancy Bill
propounds, it is clear that the rights of private
property are not secure, and many noble domains
attached to the peerazes of the United Kingdom
would become subject to sequestration, should a
band of greedy and adventurous men combine,
and make out a case in the manner which marks
the progress of every step taken by the men of
Manchester and the railway interests-they have
fished up in their career of Liverpool spoliation.
Independent of the injustice, in point of law, of
taking the Town Dues from Liverpool, there is
the further consideration that these very dues
have been employed for the benefit of trade and
commerce. The promoters of the Bill have,.
therefore, gone to Parliament under false pre-
tences, and they have made assertions in their
preamble which have not been sustained by
evidence .

For these and other reasons to which we7have
reverted on former occasions, we give our cordial
assent to the petition, and earnestiy trust that
every ratepayer and resident in the borough will
attach his signature thereto. No time should be
lost to show the House of Lords that the
interests of half a million of people are at stake ;
that the Bill is unjust in principle; and that its
adoption cannot confer a simzle benefit upon the
trade and commerce of the country. Once again
do we declare that a town's meeting should be
held upon the subject.

WERE the Water Authorities really serious when
they represented to the Council, on Wednesday
last, that the inhabitants of Liverpool made fewer
complaints of bad or dirty water in the present,
than they did in any previous period when they
had the well supply If the Water consumers do
not complain to the Water Authorities it is because
they know such complaints to be useless; that from
them they need expect no redress ; that they are
doomed to drink the detested Pike bog-wash with
all its abominations, living or dead, and that, there-
fore, to complain or remonstrate would be about
as useful as " throwing water on drowned rats."
To tell the people of Liverpool, forsooth, that there
have been fewer complaints of dirty water or defi-
cient supply during the past fortnight or month,
when the town has been partially supplied with a
mixture of Pike and well water, than there was
during the same period of last year, when the
supply was entirely well water, is a statement so
utterly mendacious that none but unblushing, un-
principled, and unscrupulous Pikeists could have
the hardihood to advance as matter of fact. Yet, as
such, it was palmed off on the Council by the
Water Engineer in his report to the Water Com-

mittee,
No complaints, eh ? Why, go into what company
you will, and you will hear nothing but complaints
about the quality of the water—and often, very
often, of its deficiency, and the notorious irregula-
rity of the supply ; but then, say the people, what
is the use of complaining; we can get no redress;
hitherto our complaints have been treated with
silent contempt or scorn, and it is utterly futile for
us to renew them ; we suppose we most submit to
our fate. Such is the language of the unfortunate
ratepayers of Liverpool. Let those who argue in
favour of the Pike Water inspect the specimens of
it left from time to time at our office, and then say
whether there is not just cause for complaint ; that
such stuff, teeming as it does with the most digust-
ing matter—animate aad inanimate—should still
be forced down the throats of the people. Why,
the whole town, with one voice, condemns the
filthy wash, whatever water engineers may say to
the contrary, as every member of the Water Com-
mittee knows full well, although they dare not
speak out.
We are told by the Water Committe that the Pike
and well water are now being supplied in about
equal quantities, and that the gross quantity of the
admixture furnished to the town weekly is about
70,000,000 gallons, or 10,000,000 gallons per diem,
equal to a supply of 25 gallons per head per diem,
to every man, woman, and child, in the Borough.
Do the Water Engineers really wish us to credit such
an absurdity ? This quantity of water may be
wasted but it never can be legitimately used. We
know, moreover, that the actual quantity delivered
from the Rivington reservoirs does not exceed
3,000,000 gallons daily, or less than half the quan-
tity represented in the Water Engineer's report.
Is there to be no end of this system of
falsehood and deception on the part of
Water Officials ? We believe not, so long
as the present Water Committee remain in
power. They are so thoroughly manacled, so much
under the thumbs of their own officials that, how-
ever willing, they have not the power of emancipa-
ting themselves. The public of Liverpool never
need expect to arrive at the truth on any of the
many important points connected with that all-
important question—their water supply—so long
as the present " incapables" remain on the Water
Committee. After what has already transpired,
those gentlemen would do well to retire from a
duty, the performance of which they have proved
themselves utterly inadequate to. Let them
adopt the only course open to them, as gentlemen
;:and men of honour, auci rosign their ftmtious

into the hands of those who are not trammelled
with their incumbrances, they will thus prove
their integrity, sincerity, and singleness of pur-
pose. We are well aware that the committee,
some time ago, seriously contemplated the
adoption of the course we have here indicated ;
but they hesitated, vaccinated, and ultimately
abandoned that original, wise, and manly
determination—at least for a period.
The public will look forward with considerable
interest to the report which is promised for the
next council. We confess, however, from the
known tendencies of the agents, or, at least, some
of those employed to investigate the subject, that
we have no confidence, whatever, in any beneficial
results accruing to the inhabitants from the
proceedings of those parties. Mr. Spencer will,
no doubt, as usual, theorise with all his plausi-
bility, and, for doing so, will have another long
pull at the Corporate purse. But what can he or
all the other chemists in Christendom, d o to
improve the quality of the Pike bog-wash, so as to
make it proper for dietetic purposes ? Why,
absolutely nothing. Granting it possible that
its colour may be improved, that its appearance
may be rendered less offensive to the eye by some
costly means of filtration, yet, what of that ? The
deliterious animal, vegetable, and mineral matter,
which this water holds so largely in solution,
cannot be removed by any process of filtration
whatever; hence, however sparkling it might be
made to appear, yet all its worst qualities would
still remain unaltered. In short, we have not the
slightest faith in the• present proceeding. The
result will soon be before the world ; but, in
the meantime, we shall have something more
to say on the subject.

REDPATH'S FRAUDS.—We find the following in the
London Times of Tuesday :—Mr. E. Denison, the chairman
of the Great Northern Railwgy, has given in a characteristic
letter what he considers to be his side of the question
with regard to the cost of ltedpath's frauds being thrown
upon the preference shareholders. Both parties have
spoken, and the public, therefore, may now judge. The
facts of the case as they are now understood, stand simply
thus—From neglect of duty on the part of Mr. Denison
and his colleagues, Redpath, through a series of years,
was able to issue large amounts of ficticious stock. The
fraud was discovered only in a lump, and then the point
was how should it be met. The preference shareholders,
whose cause has lately been advocated, are entitled at all
times to their full dividend before the ordinary shareholder
can receive anything. If the frauds had been provided
for year by year as they occurred, those parties would
consequently have suffered nothing. There would
in each year have been not only enough to pay them, brit
even to leave a fair dividend for the others. Owing to the
mismanagement of the directors, however, the shareholders
remained in ignorance of what was going on, and thus
each year dividsd among themselves amounts to which
they were in ne way entitled. When the aggregate loss
became known, were they to refund what they had im-
properly taken ; should they meet It by a creation of
stock, or by gradual appropriations for the future;
or, should they take the amount out of the current half-
year's receipt ? In the latter case there would not be
enough to meet the claims of the preference shareholders,
and, as these parties had never received a shilling to which
they were not entitled, and it was, moreover, a stipulation
in their Act that their dividend was to be so much per
annum, thus enabling them to claim that the loss should,
at all events, be thrown over an entire year, in which
case they would have had to contribute nothing, th e
injustice of such proposition was at once admitted.
The directors, said Mr. Denison, " cannot support
any bill that would throw upon the Preference Stock any
portion of the loss, and thereby shake the confidence of the
Public in all such stock." Thus far all was well, and
the tone taken by the directors induced shareholders
of all classes to trust them with their proxies, for in Eng-
land there is rarely any disposition to sharp practice
among such bodies, unless it is prompted by those who
are officially supposed to know what is best. At a subse-
quent meeting, however, it turned out that there was some
legal difficulty to prevent the deficiency being met, as had
been proposed, by a creation of stock ; and then the
directors, as if they had no other alternative, ad loted and
carried a measure to admit of throwing it upon the
current half-year. An alternative suggested to Mr.
Denison as the proper one, by the chairman of com-
mittees of the Muse of Lorde that it should be
made up from the future dividends of himself and
his colleagues, was carefully suppressed, and so obscure
were the proceedings, and so adroit the confusion gene-
rated, that many of the parties destined to be mulcted
seemed until the eleventh hour to have no consciousness of
what was intended. In calm trust upon Mr. Denison's
assurance they gave no further heed to the matter. Ulti-
mately it appeared that the proxies obtained by the direc-
tors when they professed an intention to act justly by the
preference shareholder.; were used to carry the day against
them, The Bill for the proposed arrangement, therefore,
was introduced into the Commons, and lately went through
its second reading in the Lords, with a strong protest
against its injustice by Lord St. Leonards and Lord
Wensleydale. On Wednesday last a meeting of the share-
holders was called to approve it, and, as the prefer-
ence holders, whose rights are compromised, constitute
only a fraction of the entire body of voters, they of
course had little chance, especially as Mr. Denison
on the occasion exhibited that high mode of dealing
with minorities of which Mr. Hudson may elaim
to have been the originator. Bat the bill had still to pass
the committee of the Lords, and the victims expected that
here their case would be recognised, or that, at all events,
they would learn in what it is defective. To their
astonishment, however, without any new light being throWn
upon it, the bill was sanctioned forthwith, and to-morrow
it will go through its third reading, which will, it is pre-
sumed, be merely a matter of form. In reviewing the
whole affair; Mr. Denison takes elevated ground. He does
not deny his first avowal that the measure is of such a
character as to destroy the confidence of the public in all
preference shares, nor even assert that his conviction on
that point is changed, neither does he justify the suppres-
sion of the recommendation of Lord Redesdale, that as a
penalty for the gross neglect he and his colleagues
should take the burthen on themselves. The share•
holders, he says, are the persons who are answerable
for what has been done. Mr. Denison used their
proxies, but they must be responsible for his mode of
using them. This is the whole gist of his statement.
The rest consists of a sneer at tho sufferers, an
unfounded allegation that they have endeavoured by a
side wind to exalt their shares into the superior condition
01 guaranteed shares, and an insinuation, such as is happily
now heard, perhaps, for the first time from an English
gentleman, that the law lords who spoke against the bill,
and whose whole lives have been characterised by the
habit of dismissing every personal feeling from their
judicial functions, were biased by sordid motives. Mr.
Denison laughs at the idba of his opponents being astonished
at the result of the hearing before the Lords' committee.
Considering how many persons, if they had been in his
position, would have been depressed by self-reproach after
the Redpath discovery, to say nothing of disingenuousness
subsequently exercised, his determination to ignore the
whole, and to throw taunts aid accusations against all
corners, will now at least furnish food for that emotion,

Mr. Denison, in yesterday's Times, makes the following
reply to the above statements :—I am not going to be so
fooli4h as to enter in,() an argument; with a uawspaper,