Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-11-24 00:00:00

Ely k_littlitcn (Titrico

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER -24, 1857.

THE DAY'S NEWS.

Lord Palmerston has issuea his usual circular,
preparatory to the assembling of Parliament on
next Thursday week, urging upon those members
of Parliament on the Ministerial side of the House
to be in attendance on that day. Some people
imagine that the session will be a very short one
indeed, as the Ministry are willing that the present
financial difficulty should be the only question for
discussion ; but this looks to us as preposterous.
There are three subjects of paramount importance
which will and must be discussed—the Bank Char- •
ter Act, the state of India, and the Reform move-
ment. That, these three questions will each come
in for a debate we have not the least hesitation in
predicting. The liberal press of the United King
dom are unanimous in their opinion that Reform
cannot b 3 delayed another session ; and there is
reason to believe that Lord Palmerston will do
something in the matter—if not spontaneously,
then by outside pressure. •
The state of the working classes throughout the
country is beginning to create alarm. In the chief
manufacturing districts the mills have wholly
stopped working, or are only oil short time, and the
distress in Preston, Nottingham, • Derby; &e., Ste.,
is fearful to contemplate. In Liverpool, some
rumours prevailed yesterday that a number of the
factory hands from Preston had arrived in town,
and meant mischief, but, so far, we have been
unable to learn that Sltdil is really the case. As a
precaution, however, the police have b. en
strengthened in parts of the town where an
outbreak might probably occur. -
The diffialitie.s of the Wolverhampton and Staf-
fordshire Banking Company are not yet at an end.
The directors have intimated tlia thzre is a deficit
of some £32,000. There is a sum of nearly
£500,000 deposited in the Bank on call, and if such
deposits could be left for some time, the Directors
of the Bank w,:u1:1 add £50,000 personally, and
could, they think, raise 250-,000 extra. With this
they could carry
.on the effairs of the Bank—
otherwise they cannot at present see their way
clear:

It would appear from all that we can now learn,
that the trial of the British Bank Directors will, in
all likelihood, be a farce, and that their acquittal
amounts almost to a certainty. The Law Times
explains, that these gentlemen (?) are not now to
be prosecuted for the offences for which punish
meat was 'demanded by the newspapers, but for an
offence which is committee every day by every
individual in difficulties. The crime with which
they are charged is that, being in difficulties, they
told the world that they tv:n) flouria The
real crime of which the direetors are assumed to
be guilty is, tho appropriation of money which was
not aheir own to their own use ; but this, according
to the peculiar circumstances of the ease, was not
an indictable offeaec until the new law of the last
Session made it so. Ia the Court of Q teen' Bench
'Yesterday, Mr. Stapleton, one of the defendants
in the prosecution obtained a rule calling upon the
Attorney-General to show cause why his trial
should not be postponed till Hilary next term.
We are a 3 yet without any intelligence from
Indie, but such may arrive at any morneat, even
before we gn to press. In the meantime, we may,
however, notice that the Roman Catholic Bishop
-of Birmin,gham has issued a pastoral, in which be
alludes• to the present state of affairs iu India. In
it he says—'.Whan3ver barbarous and demoniacal
cruelty men can inflict on men—whatever their
.corrupted hearts can conceive of shame and its
honour—all that, even beyond the extent of our
imagination, have the lilindoo and the Mahontedan
perpetrated on men, oa h-ipiess tvomen, and even
on tender and innocent babes :" but the
Reverend Dr. Ullathorne calls cut against toe
loud cry of vengeance :—' Is there, titan, to be
no more distinction between offence aad offence,
and are the unoffending to be swept into One
mass of condemnation with the guilty ? Is
the peaceful citizen, who is himself a sufferer,
to be slaughtered with tla, rebel,. the robber, the
ravisher, and the mwderer ? Brethren, beware or
this unholy cry. Give it not your countenance,
but your reproof. To the powers that be, God has
given the sword of justice, bus not the sword of
vengeance. Revenge is mine, saith the Lord.
Justice is the virtue of those woo rule the earth,
and it is to be exercised with lodgment; buL re-
venge, and the desire of revenge, are always trim -s
in man, and more especially in. the Christian
When God himself exercised his most terrible
vengeance, it WAS not upon us, poor weak and
sinful mortals, but upon His own Almighty and
most innocent S.our and after that m )st divine
and aw:ul vengeance, Ho forbid revenge, and took.
away the word, a 3 unworthy of the heart and lips
of ChriWiens." •

A very si:/aular case was arljudicated
upon in the Court of Exchequer, yesterday.
In 1709, one Peter de la Motte, postal
agent at Wyemouth. became a lunalic, then
indebted to the Crown 1307.29 £5OO. He
bad some property, which w.is hold by order of the
Court of Exchequer, and the proceeds, -e595 was
paid into the lruids of the Kiniee Remembraneer,
to abide the order of the Court in the case of " The
v De la :`,lotte." This sum was invested in
Console at 68k. De la Motte died in 1814, no trial
took place, and in 1822 the debt was written off the
books of the Post-office. The s:n of Do In Motto,
now 82 years of age, yesterday claimed the full
amount that the investment now reached, £l. 700;
but the Crown opposed, saying that they were
entitled to all. The Judges, the Chief Baron, and
Barons W3.tson, Bramwell, and Channel, thought
that the Crown was entitled' to the original debt
and intero!t. for 57 years, but not to any accidental
profit derived from a rise in the tunds The Crown
has a claim to a definite,suta whether the fund be
much or little. It would be manifestly unjust to
give the Crown the benefit of an accidental profit,
when the Crown would not have borne any loss,
if instead of going up the funds had gone down.
An order was made to pay the peti.ioner the balance
of the fund atter payment of the Crown debt of
£490, and 5 per cent. interest since .1800, and costs.
It is understood that the Crown will not take more
than the costs of the hearing.
We sometimes find in the Bankruptcy and,
Insolvency Courts several sad pictures of social
life, A Mr. Reuben Michael hfts jug applied to
the LoodoP court 9f Insolvency, to be discharged