Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-11-02 00:00:00

THE BURNING OF THE JOSEPH SOMES.

GOVERNMENT REWARD TO THE ISLANDERS.

The Board of Trade, to mark their sense of the kindness shown by
the islanders of Tristan d'Acunha. to the passengers and crew of the
ship Joseph Somes, Elmstone, from London for Melbourne, which
was burnt off the island on the 25th of ' ebrnary, have directed a,
supply of do hii.g, agricultural seeds, spades, shove!s, pitchforks
casks rf beef and pork, to the value of £lOO, to be sent out to them
by H.M.S. Cyclops, sailed on Sunday from Portsmouth. The Joseph
Somes took fire a few miles from Tristan d'Acunha, lat. 37 S., lon. 12 40
W., 1,500 miles frora the Cape of Good Hope. 'I he islanders received
the passengers and crew of the dosed!' Somes with every kindness,
each one vein with another who should do the most. They freely
shared their provi,ions with them, which had been much diminished
from bad harvest, end that without hopes o' ever being repaid. '1 hey
were subs,quently taken off by the Nimrod, Tillman, of London,
from Kurrachee, and landed at the Cape of Good Hope. On the return,
of Catpain Elmstone to London, the Board of Tgado put themselves
in communication with him, when he, reported most highly on tha
treatment received from the islanders.

Ma. BRIGHT, or Httr.L.—The arrest of Mr. Bright for
forgery has, naturally enough, created a vast amount of
gossip. People are not wanting who declare they ex-
pected it for a long time past ; that they had prog-
nosticated it ; and that they were only surprised it did
not take place much sooner. On the other haed, it is
said that these people belong to the race of " prophets
after the fact ;" that nobody did expect any such thing ;
that the standing of the accused in the town has been as
high as that of any man in it ; and that his fraudulent
doings could only have been known to himself, and cer-
tainly would not be suspected in outside circles. The
general talk his been, however, that for a length of time
sinister rumours have been afloat in High-street respecting
Mr. Bright ; that these, however, simoly affected his
credit and not his character for honesty ; that while his
bankruptcy took few people y su -prise, the charge
against him astonishes everybody ; that the report of the
directors of the Hull Flax and Citton Mills made a charge
very like embezzlement against the accused—which
charge was met with a bold front by Mr. Bright, and
strongly denied in a circular which was noticed last week;
that the proceedings on Wednesday afford a curious
answer to that circular ; and that Mr. Bright is a bold
man to have made such statements when he must have
known the charges which could be brought against him-
self, and which were sure to be brought to light under
the bankruptcy proceedings.—Hull Advertises.
WANT OF JllSTlCE3.—Liverpool is not the only place
where Justices of the Peace are not to be found wanting
as will be seen by the following from a correspondent of
the Glasgow Mail:—lt has often been remarked, with
what trut' we do not pretend to say, that although Purt-
Glasgow, is notorious for law, it has by no means been
remarkable for justice. We tear, however, that it may
now be said that it is remarkable for its want of Justices.
The following proclamation was found on Monday last
extensively posted up on the walls of the town, as well as
exhibited in the shop windows :—" Reward of Fifty
Shillings.—Whereas the inhabitants of Port-Glasgow, or•
such of them as have causes in the Justice of Peace
Court, having been waiting at the Court door for nearly
an hour, for want of a Justice to preside at the said
Court, Notice is hereby given, that a reward of fifty
shillings wi'l bo immedia`ely paid to any person or
persons who can get hold of, secure, and bring to the said
Court by twelve o'clock noon of this day, any one or
more of her Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the county
of Renfrew, in order that the business of the Court may
not be further impeded. Port Glasgow, 25th Oct., 1857."
The cause of this extraordinary step being taken on the
part of the inhabitants we understand to be this.—There
is such an institution in "The Port" as a Justice of Peace
Court, which is advertised to sit every alternate Monday
at 11 o'clock, for the decision of intramural causes of
small amount. There is such a functionary as a Jestice
of Peace Clerk, an officer, and a Beard of Justices ; but
when the hour comes, the poor Justice of Peace Clerk
and his assistants find that no Justine will come. One
is sent for; he has a ship to atten 1 to ; another must
look after the preparations for a lunch ; a third cannot
leave the coffee-room and Lloyd's List, although the
Court room is next door. After frantic exertions, and

shortness of the roll, &J., sometimes two are got hold
of, who sit as if upon hot gridirons until the causes are
over. Sometimes, indeed, one or both rush off in the
middle of the business, leaving the hapless clerk and the
dejected suitors to do as they This is an exact
picture, we are credibly informe 1, of the manner in
which affairs are carried on. There are honourable
exceptions, we believe, to th's state of things, but they
are only exceptions. On Monday a number of suitors
was, as usual, waiting for the Court to begin. The
usual rushing for Justices from office to office and from
house to house took place, but without any result ex-
cept mortification and disappointment. There was no
Court, and consequently there ryas the present handbill
—a mode of publication which was considered more polite
than sending round the town drummer, as was at first
suggested. We think that such a state of matters is
calculated to bring contempt either upon the institution
itself, or upon the members who compose the board in
question. If they will net discharge their duties to the
public, they should give up their c,)mmiision altogether,
and let men be appointed who would fulfil the :e duties.
Unpaid duties are certainly very seldom well performed,
but there is a difference between a partial performance
and no performance at all.

Bseessee—During the sitting of the Commission of
Inquiry into the Belfast riots it was stated by one of the
witnesses, Mr. Bernard Hughes, a town councillo", that
Belfast is a Catholic town, governed by Protestants.
That the bone and sinew of Belfast is Catholic; eked rant
marvellous romance of all, that there are one-hundred ant
fifty Catholic merchants in Belfast fit to be magistrates ?
Such were the exaggeratiems in which Mr. Hughes
permitted himself to indulge—exeggerstions that are only
' to be paralleled by the cool impudence of the Northern
Whig, in intimating to the "Scotch Presbyterians and
English Episcopalians," that they " are the strangers "
in the town ! The consequence of such statements is,
that a regular census of the religion of the whole
population has been taken. Tne Belfast Mercury says :
"As regards the existence of 150 Roman Catholic
merchants in Belfast fit to be Magistrates, we have
already said quite enough. There are not five!—and
every man acquiinted with the town knows what we
state to be the truth. Foolish assertions to the contrary
only excite ridicule, and lead to unpleasant cri-
ticisms. Indeed, the Roman Catholics of Belfast have
no reason t) be pleased with Mr. Heghes for the exceed-
ingly f lee position in which he has placed them. He has
led to an exposure of their pretensions which is not less
than galling " And the News Letter of that town adds,
" Belfast owes her position in the empire and in the world
to her commerce, and of ihis her Linen Trade is the
staple ' • and her Linen Bleachers, all her Linen Damask,
and all her Linea Print Manufacturers are Protestants.
Of 46 Linen Merchants, 42 are Protestant ; 18 out of 19
Flax Merchants, 34 out cf 35 Flax-spinning firms are
Protestant; and of 63 Muslin Manufacturers, 62 are
Protestant. The Linen-h.ll Committee numbers 13, the
Zoe al Flax Comm'ttee, 27 members ; of those only two
gentleman are Roman Cstholic. The Commercial Building
C emmittee numbers 12-11 are Protestant; the Chamber
of Commerce numbers 23 —all are Protestant; and 55 of 58
Commission merchantseare Protestant also ; and similar are
the religious proportions in the case of all other mercantile
boles in the Belfast community. Of the Jurors
of our Ledy the Queen, the good and lawful men' of
Belfast, 1,466 are Protestants 204 only are Roman
Catholic; and in such ratio stand the Parliamentary,
Municipal. and Poor-law Electors. There are 18 Engineers
—all are Protestant ; 17 Barristers-15 are Protestant ;
48 Physicians and Sutgeons, and 43 are Protestant. The
proportions in the case of the Retail Traders are exempli-
fied by such instances as these : Hsrdwaremen, 16 to 0 ;
Haberdashers, 71 to 9 ; Grocers, 25 to 1 ; Jewellers, 14
to 0. But, perhaps, these classes are too aristocra'ic for
Mr. Hughes' account. Well, then, there are 3 992
Ar'ificers, Mechanics, and Handicraftsmen in Belfast, and
3,121 of these are Protestants. What, then, does Mr.
Hughes mean by the Bone and Sinew? Can he escape
the dilemma in which he has placed himself by pointing
to those specimens in the animal creation in which the
fleshy parts so largely predominate that the bone and
sinew form but an inconsiderable portion of the mass ?
We might suggest to him that the Roman Catholic popu
lation are the bone of Belfast, meaning thereby the ' bone
of contention ;' but how, then, about the Billow?" •