Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-12-28 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES.---LIVERPOOL, MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1857.

London Tavern. Mr. William Thackery presided
on the occasion.

There is a variety of interesting news from tlae
Continent this morning. In a Paris paper we find
an article absolutely affirming that a reconciliation
has taken place between Reschid Pasha and M. de
Thouvenel.

We have a report of an attack by the Turks on a
body of 4,000 Christians at a place called Trebigno,
in Albania, but what the oloject or motive, or with
what result, the telegraph does not state.
Reports from the Caucasus by way of St. Peters-
burgh bring details of several successes of the
Russian troops over the hardy mountaineers. A
document has just been published connected with
the question of the Russians in Circassia. It is a
petition of the Circassian chiefs, addressed to all
the great European Powers. The petition sets forth
that the Circassians never agreed to the cession of
their country to Russia by the treaty of Adrianople,
and that Russia only obtained a footing in
it by fighting; that when the war broke out
in 1853 the Russians destroyed and abandoned
the forts they had held on the coasts ; that the
Treaty of Paris established the neutrality of the
Bla k Sea, but that Russia, in ♦iolation theredf,las
closed the Circaasion ports, on the plea of the
absence of customs and quarantine regulations
The petition prays that Europe may interfere and
re-establish the rights of which the Circassians
have bean unjustly deprived by force, and on the
part of the chiefs a promise is made to keep the
ports on the eastern coast of the Euxine open to
commerce, with the proper customs and quarantine
establishments. The petition also requests that
European consuls may be stationed in these ports
There is yet another phase of the complicated
Turco-Russian question—that in relation to the
Island of Perim, a small rocky islet which stands
nearly in the centre of the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb,
the southern entrance to the Red Sea. The island
commands the passage, and may be erected, in the
hands of England, into another Gibraltar. The
Island of Perim is claimed by the Sultan as a part
of the Ottoman Empire, a claim which England of
course contests. Thu Russian Ambassador at
Constantinople, has just delivered to the Porte, a
note on the part of his Government, declaring that
the occupation of Perim by the English is a viola-
of the integrity of the Turkish Empire.
At Tualesh, the Russians had killed 14 Turkish
merchants, and carried off a quantity of gunpowder,
but a signal retribution at once took place. The
boat in which the powder was, in returning to the
Russian cruiser, blew up, and 80 soldiers were
either killed or drowned,
The epidemic at Lisbon is reported to have
ceased.

It is said that there will be another and more
important reduction of the Austrian army in the
spring, should no clouds appear in the political
horizon.

We publish a condensed, though sufficiently
ample, report of the proceedings in the case of the
Queen v. Robinson, for perjury. The Jury dis-
agreed, and they were discharged. Tho Times of
Friday says :—The abominable case of " The
Queen v. Robinson" has been brought to a
very appropriate conelasion by the refusal of the
jury to decide upon which side there was
perjury, or the preponderance of perjury.
Six jurors took one view of the cast, and six
another, upon each of the issues which had been
left by Lord Campbell for their consideration.
Six jurors were for Robinson, six for Evans, upon
the general merits. Under these circumstances
they were discharged, with an expression of hope
upon Lord Campbell's part that the question might
be submitted to the consideration of another jury.
In that hope we cannot concur. We doubt if the
parties will obtain any other result if they multiply
proceedings ad infinitum, and is the name of the
public we protest against any further raking up
of this iniquity. We have had a full surfeit of filth.

A STRANGE and unusual Memorial has been
presented to Lord PALMERSTON, and from the
influential personages by whom it is signed,
there is no doubt but it will exercise great weight
with his lordship in dealing with the New
Reform Bill. The document to which we allude,
is that which urges upon the Premier the expe-
diency of granting an educational franebise, so
that those classes who have had the advantage
of a liberal education, may enjoy a substantive
voice in the legislature. Although the memorial
does not enter into any details of the scheme pro-
posed, 'we are enabled to form an estimate of the
intentions of the memorialists, from what ap-
pears in an explanatory pamphlet which has been
forwarded to Lord PALMERSTON. It is pro-
posed to enrol all the literati of the United
Kingdom into seventy districts, and to add a
member for each of these to the House of Com-
mons. It is also proposed that this literait
franchise shall be conferred upon certain mem-

bers incorporated or registered professions,

clerical, medical, legal, artistical, and learned.
It is not stated by what mode these literati
freemen are to be placed on the franchise roll.
There must be obstacles on this point were it only
the learned professions, the law, the gospel,
and medicine—the mere holding of a University
diploma would be a sufficient test of qualification,
but when we descend to mere scholarship, and
artistic ability, there is a difficulty of fixing the

proper standard, and ordaining the tribuna

which shall issue the certificate of competency.
Looking at the names appended to the memorial,
it is evident that the claims to be put forward for
literary qualification may extend itself to the
clown in the circus, or the scene painter in a
penny theatre. The schenae, as now propounded,
is beset with difficulties, and has much vagueness
and uncertainty in its character.

Should Lord PALMERSTON take the subject
matter of this memorial into his serious consi-
deration, the preliminary difficulties to which we
have referred will call for a remedy at the hands
of the authors of the literate franchise. But,
independent of the impracticable character of the
proposal, it should be borne in mind that at the
present time there are very few, if at all any'
of those who would obtain the proposed franchise
that are not entitled to vote for members of
Parliament under the present law. The exceptions
are so insignificant that it is more than question-
able whether the country would reap the smallest
advantage of the proposed change. Moreover,
we are by no means certain that the creation of
party, purely literary, would tend much to secure
good legislation in the House of Commons.
Indeed, if we take France into our consideration,
and call to mind the fate of the encyclopm.lists of
the first French revolution, and that of the
journalists and literatsurs of the days of the
barricades, there is little to encourage the pro-
ject to which our remarks refer.

The history of the Celestial Empire is preg-
nant with facts and arguments respecting' the

practical working of the educational franchise in
China. These appointments and promotions,
from the mastership of an elementary school
to a peacock's feather, is within the reach of a
Chinaman who has had the advantage of a
liberal education. But, notwithstanding all
this, civilisation has not advanced, and the
people of that vast Empire are still the slaves
of bigotry, and a religious system which is
degrading in its forms, and tyrannical in its
requirements.

We do not wish it to be understood that in
any new laws regulating and improving the
representative system of the United Kingdom,
we object to education being one of the qualifica-
tions for obtaining the franchise. We desire
that every man entitled to vote should be
required to be able not only to read the declara-
tion of an elector intelligibly, but also to sign his
name to the declaration. This, we think, is
imperatively called for, and were it adopted, we
might hope that the days of bribery and corrup-
tion would soon pass away. Then might we hope
that political charletans would find less favour in
the eyes of certain ignorant political cliques, and
every man would find it not only an imperative
duty, but a pleasing task, to see that his sons
were duly prepared to exercise, when they arrived
at manhood, their first of duties as citizens of a
free State. If Lord PALMERTON engrafts such a
principle in his forthcoming Reform Bill, he will
do much good, and render himself popular with
the country. The scheme proposed by the
Memorialists, with the Archbishop of Canterbury
at their head, is not, however, suitable to the
wants and desires of British subjects. The
creation of a literary franchise would not im-
prove the character of our legislation, nor secure
to us more eminent and painstaking statesmen
than those of the present day. We see in the
scheme new broached much that is faulty and
impracticable, and _which would more than
counterbalance any good it could confer on the
public. On these grounds, we object to the plan
as it now stands,

AR?: Poor-Law officers under the control of
Boards of Guardians ? One would scarcely have
thought it necessary to raise this question in
these days. The public, however, find that it is
necessary to do so, and that they have a vast
stake in its prompt solution. All who have read
the proceedings of the weekly meeting of the
Toxteth-Park Board of Guardians, of last Thurs-.
day, must have been perfectly disgusted at the
revolting disclosures the Board made with regard
to the conduct of one of their servants, Mr. BAR-;
NETT, the relieving officer, whose refusal to bury
an out-door pauper until all the decencies of civil-
ised life had been violated, and the public health
endangered, was so loudly condemned ; but who
appears to be the beau ideal of a parish lawyer.
He evidently knew what was right for him to do
in the case before us.. The serict letter of the
law was uppermost in hiS thoughts. The order
of the Chairman of the Board to bury the
sickening spectacle complained of, was in his
hand. The officers of the Health Committee
were at his heels entreating and threatening the
legal-minded official. But there stood the
Auditor in the distance, ready to mulct Mr.
BARNETT of the cost of burying a recognised
pauper at the public expense. These conflicting
influences told forcibly on the relieving officer.
The Board of Guardians had neglected to make
a definite and unmistakeable provision for the
burial of out-door paupers.
Obsolete usuage, Poor Law Union Acts, and
popular ideas, with regard to the burial of the
helpless poor, were suffered in turn to decide
when, how, and by whom, paupers of ELIZABETH
HUGHES'S class were to be buried. It appears
from Mr. BARNETT'S statements to the officers of
health, that the poor-law auditor had set all
three of these superior powers at nought, and had
refused to allow him the cost of interring the

poor under circumstances similar to the present.
What then was Mr. BARNETT to do ? The
course he selected was that complained of in an
Irish Stipendary Magistrate, who would neither
refuse nor obey the orders of those in power over
him. Whether Mr. BARNETT was right or wrong
in the selection of this line of conduct, is a matter
of very trivial, importance to the public. The
Board of Guardians are responsible to the Rate-
payers and community at large, for the prompt
discharge of those sanitary duties which belong

to parochial management, They are the guar-
dians of the poor, and they ought to be
held responsible for any. injury done to
the public health, by their laxity in providing
for the burial of the destitute poor
under any and all circumstances. It has become
the prevailing fashion of the day t© shift all

responsibility from the shoulders of those in
power on to those of their servants. The
Chairman of the Toxtetk Board did, it is true,
order Mr. BARNETT to bury the corpse in ques-

tion, without delay. But then Mr. BARNETT
had a perfect right to see that he would be
reimbursed the cost of a pauper burial.
If there is no positive provision made for this
purpose that is obviously the fault of Poor Law
Commissioners or the Local Board. If the
latter order the interment of a pauper, and the
former will not allow its cost in the audit of the

Board's accounts, how can it be expected that

relieving officers will undertake to interfere until

they are compelled by the pressure of public
indignation ? We have no wish to screen Mr.
BARNETT. The order from the Chairman of his
Board ought to have been enough for him in
the present instance, as it made its author

personally liable for the expenses that might
have been incurred by Mr. BARNETT. This is
evidently- what Mr. HORSFILL meant. His object
was to see decency respected, regardless of all
considerations as to where the cost was to fall
eventually. But this is not the way in
which such matters ought to be managed.
The early stages of decomposition are much more
to be dreaded, in a sanitary point of view, than
the later process of decay when the gases
peculiar to the diseases which actually cause
death, have passed away. Had the poor
woman in question died of cholera, fever, or
any other infectious disease, leaving the
body exposed after death might have produced,
in the close and densely populated neighbourhood
in which she died, the most terrible consequences•
The public, therefore, have a right to demand
that relieving officers shall no longer be left a
pretext for refusing to obey the orders of guar-
dians. The practical remedy for all the anoma-
lies brought to light in this affair, lies between
the Puor Law Commissioners and the Local
Boards of Guardians, and it is to them the Rate-
payers must look for safety and redress. In the
meantime Mr. BARNZTT must remember that
the Toxteth Board's thanking their chairman
for what he had done, was tantamount to passing
a vote of censure on those who did not act up to
the spirit and letter of the chairman's directions.

LEWIS AND COMPANY'S NEW ESTABLISHMENT FOR BOY'S
CLOTHING.—Number of boys clothed for the week ending
Saturday, December 26th, 1,016 ; corresponding week last
year, 517—increase, 469.
DBIINKINNESS.—The -hunk and disorderly cases in the
Main Bridewell last night amoanted to 133-1 far greater
number than usual. How is this to be reconciled with
the reported general want of labour I
SUDDEN DEATHS —Maurice Williams died suddenly on
Saturday, in the Southern Hospital, where he had been
since the 12th instant. Eliza Berry, aged 74 years, died
suddenly on Christmas day, in a house in Berlin; ton-
street, where she had called to visit her married daughter.
Several accidents, but none of them of a serious character,
were received at the hospitals during Saturday and last
night; Very few of them bad their origin in drunkenness,
but a great many cases of such were booked at the bride-
wells.

DREADFUL Acenenrer.—On Saturday afternoon, a fright-
ful accident happened on New Quay. A respectable look-
ing person wee passing under the stores, where some men
were lowering sugar, whin a cask fell on him and smashed
him into pieces. His remains were taken to the dead
louse.
THE WRECK OF THE WALLIOE. Five of the poor fellows
who Lwere saved from the wreck of the above unfortunate
vessel, are at present in the Southern H >spite!, where every
attention is being paid to their case ; but it is feared that
two of them will locse their feet, and one his hands, from
mortification.
Fine, LAST NIGHT.—Last night a fire broke out in the
premises of Mr. Donnelly, provision dealer, Great Howard-
street. The reels front Temple-court and Collingwood
Dock stations were promptly on the spot, and the fire was
soon extinguished: The damage was trifling. Cause of
the Are unknown.
ALLEGED ROBBSY or £62l—A day or two ago, a clerk
in one of the banks of this town, got notes in another bank
fora check, for the above amount. He put the notes in
an inside pocket and buttoned his coat. He proceeded to
a third bank to transact some business, and, as he says,
when he opened his coat, the notes were gone.
The body of the woman found floating in the river on
Christmas evening, has been recognised as that of Mary
Woods, of Martin's-lane, Liscard. She was 66 years old,
and was in the habit of walking in her sleep. It is su p •
posed that she got out of bed in one of her somnambulistic
fits, and went down to the rive,, where she lost her life.
FATAL ACCIDENT.---00 Saturday, a seaman, of the name
of Robert Kearns, was killed in Bath-street, by a hogshead
of sugar falling on him. He was passing along the street,
and when just under the warehouse into which the hogs-
le,ad was being hoisted, it slipped from the slings, and,
falling ea him, killed him on the spot. We have not heard
that blame is attributable to any party, but if there be, the
circomstance will, no doubt, transpire on the inquest which
will be held on the body this day.
".THE Imes EXPRESS."—The provincial press has had
an addition in the above named paper, the first number of
which was issued oa Saturday. It is a large sized weekly
journal of independent liberal politics. The premier
number is turned out most creditably in all respects—th e
matter, original and selected, is varied and interesting, and
local affairs are ably treated. Ia an artistic point of view,
the paper does credit to Leeds, and no doubt, from present
appearances, it will become a valuable organ in that
wealthy locality. It is a sign of progress, and we wish
our young cotemporory every success and prosperous new
year.
'ln the past seven years—from the rise' ef the Pee-
Raphaelite heresy to the .present time—the Liverpool
Academy has bestowed its prizes in the following manner :
—Win, Holman Hunt, " Valentine Rescuing Silvia from
Proteuv, and reproaching him for his falsity," 1851. J.
E. Millais, "A Hugenot, on St. Bartholomew's day,
refacing to shield himself from Danger by wearing the
Roman Catholic Badge," 1852. W. Holman Hunt,
"Claudio deliberating i,he Terms of the Pardon offered to
him through his Sister Isabella," pleasure for Measure,
Act 3, cc. 1), 1853. Mark Antony, " Nature's Mirror,"
1854. Augustus L. Egg, " The Life and Death of
Buckingham," 1856. Ford Mados Brown, " Christ
Washing Peter's Feet," 1856. J. E. Millais, " Blind
Girl," 1857. Six Pre-Rephaelite pictures crowned in
seven years, and only one picture of the natural School !
—.eltkenceum.
A MAN KILLED re BLAKE-STREZE.—On Saturday evening
another victim of intemperance came to an untimely end,
in Blake-street, Copperas-hill. His name was John
I]onard, and it appears that on Saturday evening he was
making merry with some companions in a public-house
in the street above mentioned. Their merriment was too
noisy to last, and soon a quarrel arose between Leonard
and one of his companions, named Humphrey Blincorn.
The landlord, not wishing to hive his house disturbed by
their altercation, turned them out of doors, and the fight
was continaed in the street. Leonard was knocked down,
and when down Blincorn kicked him and jumped on him.
When Leonard was picked up it was found that he had
ceased to live. Blincoru was arrested on the spot by
Inspector Kelsy, and lodged in bridewell. He will be
brought up at the Pelice-offiee this morning. The prisoner
who is married, is twenty years of age, and lives in Sidne
street.

CLOSIC OP ALLSOP'S ROYAL WAX-WORK EXRIBITION,
Lauc-sraErr, Livxnroon, —The above splendid establish-
ment will positively close on the 25th of January, 1858,
wi hout fail. Mr. Allsop respectfully announc.o that he
has just added full-length figures (correct likenesres) of the
Rev. Mr. Spurgeon and General Havelock, and a number
of other beautiful figures, as an addition for the Christmas
holidays. Mr. A. respectfully begs to inform his friends
and the public that he is going to travel with his Wax-
work Figures; therefore, after the close of his Exhibition,
the proprietor has given instructions to Mr. Branch to sell
by auction the whole of the splendid Statuary in the
Sculpture Galleries,-all the plate looking-glasses, twelve
gas ehindeliers, a number of single bracketq, a great
variety of choice busts, and the whole of the timber in the
Sculpture Galleries. Mr. A. would be willing to come to
satisfactory terms with the next incoming tenant to let the
galleries stand.

FORTUNATE ESCAPE OF A ►SHIP,—BRAVE CONDUCT OF THE
Citrew.—Captain Thomas Wright, of the ship Rowantree,
1,000 tons, arrived here on Saturday, with a cargo of
timber, from St. John's, reported to the Underwriters,
that on Thursday night, when between the Mull of Can-
tyre and Rathlin Island, he was overtaken by the fiercest
tempest he had ever experienced. The ship was in a very
perilous position, and dashed about by the fury of the wind
and water. Had ho sea room he would not have been

alarmed, but the place where he was, caused the most serious
apprehensions. However, he called oa his brave crew to
second his efforts to save the ship, and be says he cannot
find words to express his feelings towards the fine fellows,
who exerted themselves, one and all, in a manner almost
superhuman, and after a night and day of incessant toil,
they were fertunate.enough to get the vessel clear from her
dangerous position, and got safe up the channekl, but the
men were dreadfully exhausted. The captain says, under
providence his men saved the ship, which for many hours
he considered it almost impossible to do. He says she is
a new ship, on her first voyage, and, had she not been built
of the best materials, and firm as a rock, she would have
gone to pieces. She made the passage, under very adverse
circumstances, in nineteen days, an,' is consigned to Messrs
Holderness and Chilton, of this town.

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE,

FRANCE.

PARIS, Dec. 25.
A letter from Naples of the Bith inst. announces
that the seconds of Count Cataneo, who was
killed in a duel with Captain Froidefont, of the
Guides, have received notice not to return to
Naples, where principals and seconds in a duel
are punished by hard labour at the galleys. It
may be recolleeted that the duel was fought in the
wood of Vincennes. It is said that Count Cataneo
being the party insulted, had the choice of
weapons, and selected pistols, but at the sugges-
tion of Captain Froidefont's seconds, accept, d
swords.

A. letter from Bordeaux states that on Tuesda y
night last a fire broke out in a house in the Rue des
Faussets, occupied by a druggist and other lodgers,
which was attended with loss of life. The fire
made such rapid progress that when the inmates
awoke they found themselves in the midst of the
flames, and no mode of escape except through the
windows. The proprietor of the house and his
two daughters were burnt to death, notwithstand-
ing the efforts of the firemen to save them. Two
females, who threw themselves from the windows,
were taken up with fractured limbs, and have since
died. One of the fireman was severely injured.
A telegraph received in Paris this morning from
Lisbon announces that the epidemic which had
so long prevailed there had ceased—that is, that
no fresh case of foyer had declared itself for some
days.

The following have likewise been received :

TRIESTZ, Dee. 24.
The Constantinople mail brings sows of the 17th instant.
The note addressed by M. de Bentenieff to the Porte
declares that the occupation of the island of Perim by the
English is contrary to the maintenance of the integrity of
the Turkish territory.

MADRID, Dee. 24.
The Government has not yet declared who its candidates
are for the presidencies of the Congress and of the Senate.
All that the journals say on that subject are inex. act.
The reports current of a Ministerial crisis are likewise
unfounded.

BERLIN, Dec 24.
The Dowager Empress of Russia is expected at Berlin in
February. Count Chreptowitch retires into private life.
It has been decided that all the branch houses of the
Bank of Prussia shall take the notes of the private Prussian
banks, and that some exceptions shall be made as regards
the prohibition to take foreign notes.

VIENNA, Dee. 24.
The Oesterreichische Correspondenz states that, according
to news from Dalmatia of the 23rd, 4 000 Christians had
been attacked by the Turks near Trebigue. The combat
was sanguinary, but the result is not known.
The affair of the Presse newspaper came on yes
terday before the Tribunal of Correctional Police.
M. Rouy, responsible editor (gerant) of the journal,
called on the tribunal to declare that M. Millaud,
and what is called the council of interested parties,
had not the right, by the statutes of the company
to which the paper belongs, to dismiss him from
hie place as they wanted to do, the whole bo,iy of
shareholders alone possessing such power. Ho also
called on the tribunal to dismiss an action which
M. Millaud had brought against him to recover
200.000 f. damages for the wrong done to the share-
holders of the Presse by his allowing an article of
such an objectionable character to be inserted that
the Government had suspended the journal for two
months. M. Rouy based this demand on the
ground that he had not considered the article cal-
culated to call down the disapprobation of the
Government, and that, besides, suspension is a
consequence of the risks which newspapers now
have to run. On the part of the council of share-
holders, it was contended that they, in conjunction
with M. Millaud, had, by art. 1856 of the Civil
Code, the power of dismissing M. Rouy, and also
that he ought to be made to pay 200,000 f.
damages for having caused the suspension of the
Presse. M. Millaud maintained that as ho had
purchased 40 of the 100 shares of the Presse from
M. de Girardin for 825,000 f., he had, therefore,
become commercial manager and principal editor
of the journal, and that, consequently, M. Rouy
was labouring under a great hallucination in sup-
posing that he, M. Millaud, had not the power to
dismiss him. He also demanded the condemnation
of M. Rouy to 200,000 f. damages. The tribunal
announced that it would deliver judgment on
Monday.