The Sun.
London, England, 1835-04-23 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL ADDRESS TO LORD

JOHN RUSSELL.

An address to Lord John Russell, containing upwards
of ten thousand signatures, has this evening (Tuesday)
been sent up from Liverpool. This address was not put
into a course of signature until Thursday afternoon, and
though, from the circumstance of two of the days which
have since intervened having been Good Friday and Sun-
day, there have only been two days and a half for receiving
names, the signatures amount to the number already stated.
As an additional testimony of respect, a deputation has
been sent up from Liverpool with the address to Lord John.
The following is the address :

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL.
" We, the undersigned inhabitants of the town and neigh-
bourhood of Liverpool, addres your Lordship at this impor-
tant and eventful period, for the purpose of expressing the
admiration which we feel for the perseverance, energy, and
talent which have characterized your Lordship's Parliamentary
career.
" The Resolution which your Lordship has succeeded in
carrying in the House of Commons, relative to the appropria-
tion of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church, has our most
cordial concurrence, and claims from us the warmest expres-
sion of our gratitude.
" We congratulate your Lordship upon the happy prospects
which (through your efforts) now begin to dawn upon our
country, and, in common with the majority of the people of
this great empire, we ardently hope that your Lordship will be
speedily recalled to the councils of his Majesty."

HOLE AND CORNER MEETING.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SIR,--The late Ministers of the Crown having, through
the avenues of a rueful experience, at length arrived at the
irresistible conclusion, that the mere shadows of sham mea-
sures, aided even by the sophistic eloquence of Sir R. Peel,
will not suffice to satisfy a spirited and independent House
of Commons, nor to allay the expectations, and calm the
anxieties, of an insulted and indignant people ; and the resig-
nation of Ministers necessarily resulting from that conclu-
sion, has spread universal horror and dismay throughout
the Conservative camp. It has excited feelings of pious
alarm for the safety of the Church—of patriotic loyalty for
the stability and dignity of the Throne—and of the most in-
tense anxiety for the preservation of every thing that is
morbid and corrupt in the existing institutions of the country.
No where have those feelings of pious horror and disin-
terested loyalty found a more unanimous response than in
the breasts of the Tories of this town and neighbourhood.
Those men who are loudest in their declamations against
the sacrilegious appropriation of Church property—those
pious hypocrites who shudder at the very thought of the
slightest interference with the Established Church, have,
with a daring and unblushing effrontery, openly violated
the fundamental principles of the Sabbath, by summoning
on that day a hole-and-corner meeting, to be held the fol-
lowing morning, in an obscure village, called Felton, nine
miles distant from any town, where no opposition could possi-
bly be offered to their intended resolutions. They have not
dared to convene a public meeting in Alnwick, as they well
knew the success that awaited such an imprudent adventure.
They were fully assured, that even under the walls of Aln-
wick Castle nothing short of a final, a total discomfiture
wouldbe their inevitable fate. It is perfectly in accordance
with their professed principles to avoid the inconvenient
results of a public meeting, and skulk with the utmost pri-
vacy into a secluded village, where they may, without fear
of interruption, carry such resolutions as they may think
proper to propose. _ _

Such was the hole-and-corner meeting lately held at
Felton, consisting of fourteen individuals, and professing to
be a meeting of the Nobility, Clergy, Gentry, Freeholders,
and Inhabitants of the Northern division of the County, at
which an address to his Majesty was adopted, praying his
Majesty to re-instate his late Ministers in the various
offices of State, and representing thenCas possessing the full
and unbounded confidence of the country ; and the only
persons in his Majesty's dominions, with the necessary talents
and integrity, for carrying on the Government with credit
to themselves and advantage to the people.
From what has already been said, and considering the
general degradation and debasement of the Tory character,
need I add, that the most dishonourable—the most dis-
graceful means have been resorted to, to obtain signatures
to the address. On this, as on all other similar occasions,
the hirelings—the mercenary despotic hirelings of the Duke
of Northumberland—have used their utmost endeavours to
augment and swell the numbers to the address. They have
employed every stratagem within their extensive and bane-
ful influence, to attain that end. The opulent tradesmen,
and the meanest menials, have alike been subject to their
scrutinising avidity. But for the active exertions of those
venal slaves of a noble non-entity, the address (in point of
numbers of least) would have merited all that contempt,
which has so justly been thrown upon the meeting where it
originated. Those are the men who have used every
means of lordly intimidation—attempted to stay the pro-
gress of popular opinion—to crush the youthful bud of free-
dom, ere half its glories could be disclosed—to rivet on
the necks of their fellow-townsmen the degrading bonds of
feudal dominion, and sink them to a depth of degradation
deeper, if possible, than the internal baseness of Tory de-
pravity. But happily the diffusion of knowledge has
achieved a signal victory, over their most active endeavours
to quench the vivid spark of liberty. That latent spark
still exists, and will yet rise in a triumphant blaze, and
eclipse, in a stream of glory, the dying embers of Tory
despotism.
Alnwick, April 17, 1835. SCRUTATOR.

PAROCHIAL REFORM IN CHELSEA.

OBVIOUS EFFECTS OF THE NEW POOR
LAW BILL.

The parish of St. Luke, Chelsea, like most other populous
parishes had been long governed by a set of men who were
fully satisfied of their own inherent capacities for managing
the affairs of their neighbours, and who, as a quid pro quo
for their gratuitous services, drew largely upon the paro-
chial purse to defray the expenses of their management.
For many years there perhaps was no parish more care-
fully governed than Chelsea—at least the same care was
annually taken by those who were then in office, to keep all
others less experienced than themselves out. But at length,
—whether or not it was owing to the schoolmaster getting
abroad—the good people of Chelsea resolved to look at
home. A few spirited individuals called upon their dis-
spirited fellow-rate-payers, and invited them to attend a
Public Vestry and carve for themselves. An immense ma-
jority of them did so, and retired muttering Caesar's dispatch
to the Senate. They lowered their rates, cut. down salaries,
and encouraged by their success, talk loudly of reducing
more.

At the annual Vestry, a few days since, a most satis-
factory statement was made by Mr. Goderich (who has for
the last few years been one of the most active opponents of
parochial nzis-management) from which it appeared that two
years since the " Reformers" of the parish had succeeded
in unseating a picked (if not a packed) committee, who
seemed to think they held a life inheritance of the Board-
room in accordance with a local act of Parliament. The
annual expenditure of these gentlemen amounted in 1820
to 14,0001. of their neighbours' property, and which sum
they felt it " expedient" to encrease every year, until it
amounted (in March 1833, when they were obliged to re-
tire), to 21,7631.
Their successors immediately set about pruning these
enormous expenses, and in March 1834 had reduced them
to 19,1824, and now having fairly carried into effect the
principle of the New Poor Law Bill, the statement laid
before the
3V.eeasr.try upon the occasion referred to amounted
to 15,8751., a reduction of 5,5801., as compared with the
preceding
Mr. Goderich quoted at much length from the pamphlet
of Mr. Leslie, shewing the great benefits arising to the
parish of St. George, Hanover-square, from working in the
spirit of the New Poor Law Bill, and strenuously urged
the adoption of the plan therein suggested, as advantageous
to both pauper and rate-payer. He instanced the satis-
factory results of the introduction of religion, and conse-
quently moral instruction, to all the paupers of St. George's
establishment, and of which, he said, he bad been a daily
observer for the last two years and contrasted it with the
total neglect of classification in the poor-house of Chel-
sea. He recommended that clergymen should be ap-
pointed to administer daily to all the sick within the walls

- -
of the poor-house, artd to introduce such 'a system as I;
be deemed most beneficial to the moral improvement of
those in health. Any extra expense attending such a plan
Wand; he contended, be much better laid out than in
taking journeys of pleasure at the parish expense, under
the contemptible pretexts that had been urged for such
shameless proceedings. He trusted wherever practical
improvements had been tried with success that Chelsea
would readily adopt them, and proposed (as was the ease
in St. George's), that paid and responsible officers should
be appointed who should be accountable for all monies ex-
pended on behalf of the parish, and act under the direction
of the Parochial Committee. By an arrangement,
the cases of the necessitous would be promptly relieved,
and the impostor detected, nor the rate-payers be again
subjected to contributions for supporting the undeserving.
The address of Mr. G. was most cordially received, and
his suggestions unanimously agreed to by the Vestry ; and,
judging by what has been done in Chelsea of that which
remains to do, there is little doubt but it will soon be one
of the easiest rated parishes in the country.
It is evidently to the New Poor Law Bill that much of
the late improvement in parochial affairs is owing. Many
Magistrates are opposed to its salutary provisions, and
perhaps as many of old overseers, publicans, and gin-
spinners are not to be enumerated among its
friends, and it is decidedly opposed to the interests
of parochial jobbers, generally. By the way, has any im-
partial enemy to the Bill ever coolly sat himself down to
calculate how much of the cash of the industrious (say in a
parish whose annual poor's rate is 20,0001. per annum) is
annually expended in gin alone ? Allowing it to be but a
twentieth of the sum, it is somewhat hard that labour
should be thus taxed to the amount of 1,0001. a year for
gin to those who say they cannot obtain bread. Let them
be supplied with work, and the really deservinr, and able-
bodied poor will thank you. But certain speculative land-
lords of small houses, will not thank you for this—their
humanity but consisted in placing their own tenants on the
parish books, and receiving their rents out of the rates. To
enter into a general detail of the objects for which bard-
workinc, people have been compelled to pay large sums
to others who needed it (in many cases) less than
themselves, would occupy more space than we can at pre-
sent afford. Parishes which seek to remove long-standing
abuses must cease to be favoured with gratuitous overseers.
Let those who have duties to perform, which require much
of their time and labour, be paid for what they do, and be
held accountable to the representatives of the parish. This
will be a great step towards further improvement ; and as
there must always be applicants for parochial relief, let
that relief be justly apportioned, according to the charac-
ter and circumstances of the applicants—and not, as it
bas been too long, according to favour and self-interest.
A great number of persons who have improperly re-
ceived relief for many years, are now found well able to,
and do support their families, by productive labour, inde-
pendently of the Poor Rates. Impositions of the most
glaring character have been discovered—heavy sums of
money had continued for some time to be paid to indivi-
duals for and on behalf and for the maintenance of paupers
long since dead. Mans other abuses could be mentioned,
pointing out the necessity of some remedy. Paid officers
(to be immediately turned out on any neglect) seem the
best means of prevention—and a recommendation was
made at the last vestry to adopt the plan of St. George's
parish in appointing only nominal overseers—and delegating
the active duty to paid officers ; and this proposal was well
received by the rate payers present, but was frustrated, by
the want of firmness, by the Magistrates.