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

grants who go to people, and to enrich, the United
States " have been paupers before they

P.
—their being such, in fact, having been the
very reason why they went ; and if the States are
glad to have them, and turn them to account in
promoting their progress and their prosperity,
when they are capable of being thus made avail-
able, they are in justice bound to care for them
when they happen to become incapable,—they
must take the bitter with the sweet : they' are
immensely advantaged by the emigration of our
labouring classes, who are our poor, to their
shores ; and they must take them, if they take
them at all, as they profess to take their wives,
" to have and to hold, from that day forward, for
better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness
and in health ;" and not, when any of them do
happen to get worse, and get poorer, and fall into
sickness, and can no longer be available for the
advancement of the country, to turn them adrift
as used up, and therefore cumbersome.

them ".

Further, it is unfair, because mostly contrary to
the fact, to treat the matter as, in the words of the
journal already referred to, " the policy of return-
ing to their homes, in foreign lands, the miserable
and helpless beings whom chance has cast upon
our shores." They have no " homes in foreign
lands "—they transferred them, it may be many
years ago, to the transatlantic lands, where they
have probably wasted all their physical, or even
mental energies, for the advantage of such lands.
Nor was it any " chance " that cast them on their
shores, but the demand for their labour, or their
enterprise, with which those shores
.resounded,
that allured them thither.

Of course it is quite another thing if we deli-

berately, or systematically, send them " miser-
able and helpless beings "—or any who are sure
to become directly burthensome to them. But this
is not the case. We only send them such as are
able to be of use to them. And we maintain
that, upon every principle of justice and gratitude,
when they may become chargeable upon the State
which has benefitted by them, from having been
used up, it is intolerable to have them ruthlessly
and mercilessly driven away.

IT was SHERIDAN, we believe, who once

observed, that "if Parliament were to consider
the sporting with reputation of as much impor-
tance as sporting on manors, there were many
would thank them for a bill against it." And
doubtless there are still many who would thank
Parliament for such a measure. But Mr. THOMAS
SLINGSBY DUNCOMBE, Member of Parliament, is
not, apparently, one who would ; for he is
evidently so fond of " sporting with reputations,"
that it would be felt as an intolerable oppression to
debar him of any such sport, whenever he felt
disposed, as he does so frequently, to indulge in it.
The habit with him is a sort of second nature.
He does it sometimes, we dare say, unconsciously,
and utterly regardless of any such remonstrance
as that of the frogs in the fable—" though it is
sport to you, is is death to us."

In a published correspondence in the case of Lieut .
Col. DICKSON, who was recently displaced, at the
instance, if we remember rightly, of the Earl of
WILTON, Colonel of the Regiment, from the
command of the 2nd. Tower Hamlets Militia, the
hon. member for Finsbury takes occasion to give
wanton expression to the following imputation :
"No officer's commission is safe when, to screen
the neglect on the part of others, that commission
is unscrupulously assailed by the favoured influ-
ences of Grosvenor and St. James's-squares."
Now this, it was evident, was aimed at Lord
DERBY,—the " favoured influence of St. James's-
square," was meant to be understood as his—St.
James's-square being the situation of his lordship's
town residence. Lord DERBY therefore writes to
Mr. DUNCOMBE—" May I ask if, by this last
expression, it is intended to convey an impression
that I had any part in the transaction to which it
refers P"—his lordship adding to this question the
remark-,—" I hope that I may receive from you an
unequivocal negative. Indeed, my only reason for
asking the question is, that, considering my near
relationship to Lord WILTON, I can put no other

construction on your allusion to the influences of

Grosvenor and St. James's-squares.' Otherwise I
should' have been most unwilling to believe
that your ideas and mine of what is due
from one gentleman to another should
be so widely at variance as that you should
feel yourself justified in attributing to me, gratui-
tously and without the slightest shadow of
evidence, participation in proceedings which,
whether rightly or wrongly, you characterise as
unscrupulous. "' To the question thus so plainly
and frankly put, Lord DERBY did in due course
receive from him "an unequivocal negative,"—
accompanied by the tender of his regret that he
should have expressed himself ambiguously, and
given Lord DERBY pain !

Now there could not, one would think, be much

ambiguity in Mr. DUNCOMBE'S remarks, that no
officer's commission was safe, when " unscrupu-
lously assailed by the favoured influences of
Grosvenor and St. James's Squares,"—that is,
assailed by Lord DERBY'S influence : for the hon.
gentleman, in his reply, candidly tells Lord
DERBY—" When I alluded to Grosvenor and St.
James's-squares,' that I had the Prime Minister in
my mind, I do not deny ;" thus realising his Lord-
ship's strongly but truly expressed apprehension of
there being a wide difference in their ideas ' of
what is due from one gentleman to another,"—so
wide a difference, that Mr. DUNCOMBE could
really be obnoxious to his Lordship's cutting
rebuke—" that you should feel yourself justified
in attributing to me, gratuitously and without the
slightest shadow of evidence, participation in
proceedings which you. characterise as unscru-
pulous !"

Such, then, comes of this vile habit of " sport-
ing with reputation." Lord DERBY happens to be
of another and less " unscrupulous " school of
politics than Mr. DUNCOMBE,—and he is the head
of an Administration towards which the hon.
member stands in the attitude of Opposition :
hence his Lordship's " favoured influence " must,
as a matter of course, be considered of the worst
possible description—unjust, oppressive, venal.
There is no ground for it. The imputation is

made, as Lord DERBY says, " gratuitously and
without the slightest shadow of evidence." But
all this matters not with sportsmen of the Member
for Finsbury's character. " Sporting with repu-
tation," indeed, will not endure any such scrupu-
lousness as that. It would spoil the sport to be so

very particular.
We must do Mr. DUNCOMBE the justice to
acknowledge, that when the injustice he had done,
and the mischief he might have done, were pointed
out to him by Lord DERBY, he showed a com-
mendable readiness to set the matter right. And
it is further probable that he really did not mean,

after all, to cast any such imputation upon the
Premier as his words plainly implied. But he is
Lord DERBY'S political opponent; and he loves the
applause of those who are fond of a fling at one in
his Lordship's position

The reputation, there-
fore, of such a one is considered fair game with
sportsmen of his kind, and especially where the
sport is likely to prove effectual ad captandunt

vulgus. Such a course of attack may pretend to

be imputation in jest ; but it is slander in earnest.
It is that " back-wounding calumny " which " the

whitest virtue strikes

And, as Vincentio asks—

" What king so strong,
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue."

LOCAL INTELLIGENCE.

THE AMPHITHEATRE. - The English Operas give
decided satisfaction. The ever new, fresh, and national
music of the " Beggar's Opera" has been received with.
enthusiasm every night during the week.

It is said that a Patagonian, aged 18, 7 feet 9 inches
in height, and 351 stone weight, accompanied by a
_ 9
, and aged about 40, has arrived at, Gal-
-ca, en route to Liverpool.—Glasgow

woman 21 feet

way, from Amefic

THEATRE ROYAL. - The attendance at this theatre has
been growinc, larger each night. Greater facility in the
working of mechanical portions of the pantomime
make the entertainment more attractive than ever during
opening nights.

the

situate in