The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-07-09 00:00:00

BY CHAS. SWAIN

(From the same work.)

Let there be light !—Creation heard
The mandate of its God—tt e first ;
And light flashed onward at his word—
A universe from darkness burst !
Let there be light !—and for the mind
That inward light of man was given ;
The glorious gift of human kind
Which emulates the rays of heaven !
Let there be light !—and Jesus trod
The sin-stained earth, to seek and save ;
Led by the radiant hand of God
To light the death-bed and the grave !
For this,—apostles prayed and wept,—
For this—the Saviour left the skies,
To watch the night of error set!
To bid the christian morn arise !
That light on every shore be thrown :
Where'er the savage once abode,
There may the Bethlehem Star be known—
There may we find the church of God !
We bless thee for the light of earth,—
We bless thee for the mind's pure flame ;
For light our saviour brought to birth,—
Et, real God, we bless thy name !

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

FACTORY LABOUR AND THE CORN-LAWS.
(From the Morning Herald)
During the discussion in Parliament, last night, of
the Ministerial Factory Bill, it will be seen that Mr.
Hume and Mr. 'Villiers deprecated any interference on
the part of the Legislature, between the sellers and
the buyers of labour. It is easy (according to these
" philosophical" gentlemen) to dell in the language of
sympathy for the poor; but where may be found the
remedy for the evils of the existing system ? " I," ex-
claimed Mr. Villiers, "have proposed a remedy. I
proposed a repeal of the Corn Laws ; and cheap bread
would, assuredly, bring with it to the operative lighter
work and better wages."
It is strange that gentlemen like Mr. Villiers should
be permitted, almost unrebuked, to give utterance to
these stupid fallacies. The Corn Laws of this country
can have no connection, as a cause, with the excessive
toil to which factory labourers in this country are sub-
jected. The proof is obvious. In countries where
there is " cheap bread"---:in the South of Italy, more
especially, where all the necessaries of life are low-
priced—the period of factory labour in each day is
longer than in England. If Mr. Villiers and his party
did riot happen to be utterly wrong in all their asser-
tions and assumptions in reference to the Corn Laws,
the factory operative in various continental countries
ought to work during far fewer hours than the factory
operative in England does. The reverse is, ho never,
as we have already stated, notoriously the case ; and if
the:English Corn Laws were repealed to-morrow, the
effect would, assuredly, be to increase the toil of the
English factory slave. " Cheap bread" in England
would increase competition on the part of continental
factory owners ; and increased competition on their
part would, of necessity, add to the miseries which now
embitter the lot of the English operative. We leave,
for the moment, out of view, the new distribution of
labour in this country to which a repeal of the Corn
Laws would give rise—a new distribution, which would
increase incalculably the now tremendous influence
which the buyers of labour exercise over the sellers.
There is much force in the observation of Mr. Bro-
therton that all enactments framed on the principle of
the existing law, or of the measure which is now under
the consideration of the legislature, are liable to eva-
sion. This objection, however, applies (it may be in a
fainter,degree) to Mr. Brotherton s suggestions on the
subject—nay to all proposals for shortening the hours
of labour, so long as " the moving power" itself shall
remain unchecked. It may be doubted, in short, whe-
ther, unless the speed of machinery employed in fac-
tories he regulated, and the period during which ma-
chinery is kept in motion each day, be shortened—the
horrors of factory slavery can ever be materially alle-
viated. A tax on all machinery—a tax increasing in
amount as the horrors during which machinery might
he employed would increase—would appear to afford
the easiest mode of divesting the factory system of its
barbarous character. To allege that such restraints
upon the productive energies of our manufacturing
system would prove injurious, is sheer nonsense. We
produce too much, and too fast—because we produce
upon a false system. 'We produce for foreign mar-
kets ; we produce for worse customers than we might
easily find at home. Prices abroad, as the economists
truly declare, regulate prices in this country ; and as
the price of the manufactured product declines to suit
the comparative poverty of the foreign consumer, the
wages of the manufacturing operative fall in the same
proportion. Every. extension of our foreign trade on
the present system injures to a corresponding extent
that most valuable of all trades—the home trade ;
and, therefore, a salutary check imposed on the exten-
sion of our foreign trade would prove eminently bene-
ficial to all classes of the English community, except-
ing idle consumers, and a small band of speculators
whose profits arise from the distribution, not from the
production of our staple commodities. The existing
foreign trade of England is plunging the labouring
classes deeper and deeper, every year, into misery.
The misery of the labouring classes involves the deep-
est injury to all the permanent interests of the coun-
try. Nay, the factory owners engaged in manufactur-
ing for foreign markets begin to feel the disadvantages
of the system which they have, hitherto, so eagerly
maintaine]. The smaller capitalists are every day
sinking before the competition of the larger. A tax
on the mechanical agencies which are employed in ma-
nufacturing production would, in truth, prove scarcely
a greater boon to the poor factory slaves, than to the
majority of the factory owners themselves.

THE .DEATH OF LADY FLORA HASTINGS.
(From the Morning Herald.)
Lady Flora Hastings is dead. The broken-hearted
victim of unfeeling detraction is delivered from her
persecutors; but the recollection of her fate will not
soon pass away. It will live with the memory of her
virtues as long as the sufferance of innocence, hurried
by calamity to an early grave, are remembered and re-
gretted upon earth.
Great, indeed, were the sufferings of a sensitive na-
ture, wounded to the quick by the shafts of malignant
falsehood, aimed at the pure and unspotted reputation
of one of the most amiable of her sex. Of mild, in-
genuous, though somewhat reserved and retiring dis-
.position,and with a heart overflowing with generous
sensibilities, Lady Flora was but ill qualified to strug-
gle against the cruel malice by which her fame and
feelings were assailed. Possessed of talents and accom-
phshwerits that would have graced a court, where there
were noble natures that knew how to appreciate such
.qualittes as adorned her, the very merits of a character
:so modest, so refined, so elevated, only provoked in the
palace of her Sovereign, the envenomed assiduities of
"ti3Ort-ttraliee which embittered her life and rendered
de-4th a deliveatice:

vas.-
It may be truly said of Lady Flora Hastings,
" Her virtues
VAire searcititel awed I** *pop b ber:"

Had she been less gifted than she was with those
qualities of mind and heart, which reflect more than
the lustre of high birth upon exalted rank, the secret
blow of that malevolence which destroyed her happi-
ness and undermined her health, would not have struck
her ; but even in her fate her sufferings are avenged ;
there is gloom upon the palace, and mourning among
the people ; but the public sorrow is not unmingled
with an indignant recollection of the cruel persecution
which has led to this fatality.
We may hear of post-mortem examinations and of
" organic diseases," but, whatever might have been
the constitutional state of the sufferer, there can be no
question that her death was hastened by the immedi-
cable wound of the poisoned arrow that destroyed her
peace of mind.
" Hceret lateri lethalis arundo,"

though her character was invulnerable, her mind never
recovered the agony of the struggle.
It is a circumstance worthy of being noted at the
present time, that when the late Marquis of Hastings
was on his death-bed at Malta, where nothing could
exceed the filial devotion of Lady Flora, he called his
family around him, and, in bidding them a last fare-
well, spoke, among other things, of the pain he felt in
leaving his children, then very young, to the trials
which awaited them in a cold-hearted and calumnious
world. It would almost seem as if the expressions
which he used were dictated by a prophetic antic'pation
of the fate of one of the most beloved of those children,
which has plunged his whole family into unutterable
affliction. Little did the noble father of the future
victim of courtly detraction think that in the place of
one of the royal descendants of the Sovereigns whom
he so faithfully served the blow could be struck that
would inflict upon his family the desolating sense of
peculiar bereavement.
But the fair sufferer sleeps well—afflicted virtue has
found the repose which cannot be taken from her—let
us pity her persecutors. The pangs of calumniated
innocence are over—theirs have but begun.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

TATTERSALL'S-THURSDAY.

Business was languid and unimportant, the only change of
any moment being in the Goodwood Cup, for which Hark-
away was backed at 3 to 1, and Deception at an average of
11 to 2. The first movement is accounted for by the Cup
Race at Cheltenham ; and the other by Mr. Fulwar Craven's
declaration that his mare will be sent to the Liverpool July
Meeting, for the purpose of entitling her to the 51b allowance,
provided in the Goodwood Cup conditions. Morella has
advanced to 12 to 1 for the Goodwood Stakes, and Blooms-
bury a truffle for the St. Leger. A few bets were made on
The Commodore, The Provost, Hetman Platoff, and Mal-
volio, without leading to any alteration. The July Stakes
were scarcely mentioned ; we should state, however, on the
authority of her noble owner, that it is very uncertain whether
Crucifix will go for it. A dull afternoon closed as under :

JULY STAKES.
9 to 4 agst Lord Exeter's lot (tk)
2to 1 „ Lord G. Bentinck's Crucifix
sto 1 „ Lord Exeter's Stamboul
sto 1 „ Mr. Knight's Margaret colt.
GOODWOOD STAKES.
9 to 1 agst Lord Westminster's The Lord Mayor (tk)
12 to 1 „ Mr. Meiklam's Wee Willie
12 to 1 „ Mr. Greville's Morella
20 to 1 „ Lord Eglinton's St. Andrew
20 to 1 „ Captain Lamb's Chit Chat (tk)
33 to 1 „ Mr. Knox's George (taken)
Mr. Forth declared that the Turquoise filly will not start.

GOODWOOD CUP.
3 to 1 agst Mr. Ferguson's Harkaway (tk)
11 to 2 „ Fulwar Craven's Deception (tk.)

ST. LEGER.
31 to 1 agst Mr. W. Ridsdale's Bloomsbury (tlc)
13 to 1 „ Colonel Cradock's The Provost (tk)
13 to 1 „ Duke of Cleveland's The Commodore (tk)
15 to 1 „ Major Yarburgh's Charles the Twelfth
20 to 1 „ Mr. Bowes's Hetman Platoff
33 to 1 „ Lord Eglinton's Malvolio (tk.)
LIVERPOOL JULY CUP.
9st 31b Lord Suffield names br h Caravan, 5 yrs
8 13 Mr. Bowes's ch h Epirus, 5 yrs
8 11 Mr. Fowler's br h Heron, 6 yrs
8 7 Mr. Heseltine's br h Slashing Harry, 5 yrs
8 7 Sir T. S. M. Stanley's b h Cowboy, 5 yrs
8 6 Mr. W. R. Ramsay 's br c Lanercost, 4 yrs
8 6 Mr. Copeland's b h King Cole, 6 yrs
8 5 Lord Eglinton's br h St. Bennett, 5 yrs
8 4 Captain Macquarrie's b h Magpie, 5 yrs
8 4 Captain Gardnor's ch h Toothill, 6 yrs
8 0 Mr. Denham's b c Compensation, 4 yrs
7 7 Mr. Fowler's ch c Gilbert Gurney, 4 yrs
7 6 Capt. Healey's ch g Van Buren, brother to Van, 5 yrs
7 6 Lord Eglinton's br g St. Andrew, by Priam, 4 yrs
7 6 Lord Lichfield names ch m Rachel, 5 yrs
7 5 Lord Eglinton's ch f Opera, sister to Burletta, 4 yrs
7 2 Mr. J. Allen's b c Percy, by Margrave, 4 yrs
6 13 Mr. Osbaldeston's gr f Miss Etty, 4 yrs
6 12 Mr. Ogden's b c Harpurhey, 4 yrs
6 6 Major Yarburgh's b c Charles XII, 3 yrs
6 6 Mr. Mark Browne's b c Hopeful, by Souvenir, 4 yrs
5 2 Mr. L. Wood names]) c Chatterer, 3 yrs
5 2 Hon. E. M. Ll. Mostyn's b c Papineu, 3 yrs
The following having declared forfeit, pay-5 sovs each :
Harkaway, Cardinal Puff, lon, Olympic, Prizeflower, Chit
Chat, Jagger, Virginia, Alzira, Mirvan, Industry, Silenus,
Sir Ralph. b f by Priam, Talleyrand, Wee Willie, ch h by
Albany, George, The Hydra, br c by Jerry, Master Castoff,
The Fairy Queen, Perfidious, Percy, Goldhurst, Mulberry
Wine, I-am-not-aware, br c by Reveller; Piccaroon, John
Doe, Nickleby, Dolphin, Cleanthes, Lyster, Armelle, Dick,
Tom, Galewood, Abraham Newland, St. Martin, Cynric,
Constantine, Creeping Molly (dead.)—Lord Stanley and Sir
John Gerard did not name.

LATEST BETTING

AT MANCHESTER.
FRIDAY EVENING.
)0L CUP, P.P.
100 to 6 agst King Cole
100 to 4 Caravan
100 to 4 Mr. Fowler's 2
100 to 2 Percy
100 to 2 Van Buren
100 to 2 Rachel

THE LIVERI'O
7 to 2 agst St. Bennett
9to 1 Toothill (t)
9to 1 Lanercost (t)
10 to 1 Epirus (t)
100 to 7 Magpie (t f)
100 to 7 St. Andrew (t f)
100 to 6 Compensation t
The last-mentioned three were laid against to-day in one
bet at 100 to 4 ; 5 to 1 offered against Magpie and Toothill,
taken at 6to 1. Bto 1 offered on the field, bar one.