The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-07-30 00:00:00

Vottrr.

OUR OLD CATHEDRALS.

(From the Church of England Magazine.)

I love our old cathedrals,
When the morning sunbeams shine
Through the richly painted windows,

Above the altar shrine;
I love our old cathedrals,
When the evening lamps burn bright,
And through the lofty arches stream
Their ray§ of softest light.
I love our old cathedrals,
With their organs pealing high,
While the choristers are singing,
And the vaulted roofs reply ;
I love our old cathedrals,

With the anthem pealing loud,
Where praises are ascending
From the densely mingled crowd.
I love our old cathedrals,
When heaven-devoted zeal
Unites the heart and voice in prayer
FOr man's eternal weal;
I love our old cathedrals,
Where truths divine are taught,
The myst'ries of that holy faith
For which our fathers fought.
I love our old cathedrals,
When silence reigns around,
And the faint footstep 's hardly heard
To break the still profound;
I love our old cathedrals,
The cloisters' solemn gloom,
Where I may muse a pensive hour,
And wand'ring thoughts call home.
I love our old cathedrals,

Whether amid the choir
My every word and thought
To the heavenly realms aspire !
Or whether slow I pace the aisles,

In melancholy mOod,—
I love our old cathedrals,
That have for ages stood.

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

A PAID MAGISTRACY AND A RURAL POLICE.
(From the Morning Herald.)
While the Duke of Wellington has noticed, in the
language of becoming indignation and reproof, in the
House of Lords, the conduct of that wretched thing,
miscalled a government, which afflicts the curse of its
despicable incapacity and meanness on the country, we
regret to be obliged to say that in the other house of
parliament, Sir Robert Peel seems only anxious to make
the burning and pillage of Birmingham an argument
in favour of Lord John Russell's proposition, for the
establishment of a novel and un-English system of po-
lice. Nay, Sir Robert Peel has gone farther than the
cunning Lord John in the present state of the national
feeling ventured to go. The latter proposed a police
establishment in Birmingham, under the control of the
local authorities. But Sir Robert Peel thought the
command of the Birmingham police should be given to
a stipendiary magistrate or a commissioner ; in other
words, that it should be to all intents and purposes a
yovernrnent police—and, as such, a police alien to the
constitution and dangerous to the liberties of Eng-
land.

What Sir Robert Peel proposed was exactly the very
thing that Lord John Russell wished, but feared to ask
the House of Commons " to sanction," not because he
was not sure of the slavish compliance of the house,
but because he has, of late, imbibed a salutary dread of
public opinion on this subject. Eagerly did the crafty
little Machiavelian schemer—the author of the cele-
brated expression, that the opinion of the House of
Lords was " the whisper of a faction," and the crea-
tor and patron of the chartist magistrates of Birming-
ham—catch at the proposal of the great conservative
leader, that the local police of Birmingham should be
under a stipendiary, alias a Home-office commissioner.
In the first instance, there was a certain coyness about
Lord John that was very amusing, and nothing could
delight him more than that Sir Robert Peel should take
the odium of the proposal to extend the French system
of police throughout the country, leaving to him the
much-coveted extension of power and patronage which
it will confer on the ministers of the crown.

Most unquestionably Lord John Russell's Birming-
ham magistrates, who, according to his own account,
were not to be found while that great and populous
town was delivered up to outrage, burning, and plun-
der, for the space of an hour and a quarter, have proved
themselves utterly unworthy of trust as conservators
of the public peace. Their " accidental supineness"
has disqualified them for office. In any dangerous
exigency the public can never look to them with confi-
dence for protection. But is that a reason why Sir
Robert Peel should assist Lord John Russell to set up
a Home-office police at Birmingham ? Is it not rather
a reason why the right hon. baronet should have de-
nounced Lord John Russell, if not impeached him, for
the appointment of chartist magistrates, under whose
auspices, as well as under the auspices of the much-
bepraised metropolitan police, Birmingham has, accor-
ding to the authority of the Duke of Wellington, been
treated worse than a town taken by storm ? When will
conservatives cease to strengthen the hands of their
enemies, and the enemies of the institutions of the
country ? We warn tory as well as whit', that a French
gendarmerie will not be tolerated in England. The
country wants not a Bourbon police, but a truly British
government.

THE QUEEN AND THE CONSERVATIVES.
(From the Staffordshire Gazette)
We regret to perceive that there exists among many
well-meaning friends of the monarchy a feeling against
the Queen, whose partiality for her present ministers is
as undeniable as it is unfortunate. In common with
our party, we lament that her Majesty should lean to
opinions the practical development of which would, we
conscientiously believe, involve the ruin of the mo-
narchy and the constitution. We have watched the
manifestation of her Majesty's sentiments with heart-
felt sorrow, but with little surprise, and certainly with-
out any resentment. The daughter of the princely
Kent, an honourable and high-minded whig ; educated
by her mother in the principles of her sire, and sur-
rounded at the most important period of life—when
early impressions are strengthened by the first essays
of personal observation—by those who never ceased to
inveigh against conservatism, as hateful to the genius
of a liberal and enlightened people—need we be sur-
prised that she should warmly incline to that party
which professed to represent the wishes and wants of
the great majority of the British nation ?
Instead of looking with a resentful eye upon our
youthful and inexperienced Queen, for the course she
has pursued in the choice of her ministers, we are in-
clined to regard her with additional interest as we con-
sider the difficult and delicate position in which she is
placed, and the threatened evils to which unconsciously
she has given new power.
Deeply and fervently do we pray that the time will
soon come when, escaped from the spells which have
been so craftily cast around her, she may behold the
precipice that yawns at her feet, and give heed to those
warning voices which have so faithfully continued to
proclaim her danger.
Far be it from us to feel anger because her most sa-
cred Majesty does not think as we think. 'We admire,
we venerate the feelings which influence her Majesty's
political conduct. Convinced are we that our illustri-
ous Sovereign acts upon the solemn belief that she is
promoting the welfare of her people and the glory of
the British Crown. We lament that the opinions
called " liberal" are erroneous in principle, as regards
the solid welfare of our country, but we admire them
as abstract ideas, and cannot wonder at their easily
fascinating the enthusiasm of youth.
To wish to fasten upon all men equal rights and
powers—to seek to raise the more humble to the capa-
city of their superiors—to desire to break down the
barriers which have kept the mass of the people in
imaginary servitude—to labour to extend the liberties,
to remove the restraints, to gratify the reasonable
wishes, and to increase the general happiness of man-
kind—are aims which, however futile, and founded on
theories however erroneous, must awaken the sympa-
thy of every generous mind.
Such are the motives, we are prepared to maintain,
which have ever actuated our youthful Sovereign in her
political conduct. The generality of whigs and radi-
cals have not the same purity of intention, and there-
fore we look upon them with very different eyes; they
breathe sentiments which often, abstractedly, are noble
and praiseworthy, but there are other motives in their
conduct too palpably apparent to make us regard their
professions with any feelings but disgust. Not so
Victoria : with pure sincerity she acts up to the prin-
ciples in which she has been educated, and Obeys the
generous dictates of a youthful enthusiasm.
That she is wrong, fatally wrong, in her views, we
shall be found ready to maintain, with that respectful
deference which we owe to our sovereign, but with. the
unflinching constancy that is due to truth.