The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-08-23 00:00:00

THEATRE-ROYAL, LIVERPOOL.

The FAREWELL BENEFIT of MR. VANDENTEIOFF,
And Last Appearance of Mr. & Miss Vandenhoff p revious
to their departure for America.
Last Week but One of Mr. ANDERSON.
PHIS present FRIDAY, August 23, 1839, will be pre.
sented Mr. Sheridan Knowles's Play of

THE WIFE.
Julian St. Pierre Mr. Vandenhoff.
Leonardo Mr. Anderson.
Ferrardo Gonzaga.. Mr. Gray Lorenzo.. Mr. W. H. Bland
8art010.... Mr. Baker.
. (the Wife) Miss Vandenhoff.
After which, the Farce of
THE LIAR.
Young Wilding.... (the Liar).... Mr. Vandenhoff.
Papillon .... Mr. G. Horncastle.
Miss Grantham Miss Cleaver.
Miss Godfrey.... Mrs. Baker. Kitty.... Mrs. Clarke.
To conclude with the Burletta of
BOMBASTES FURIOSO.
King Artaxomines Mr. Baker.
General Bombastes Mr. G. Horncastle.
Distaffina Mrs. Tellet.
On MONDAY NEXT, MR. ANDERSON'S BENE-
FIT, and his Last Night but Four, on which occasion MR.
DOWTON, of the Theatres Royal, Covent Garden, and
Drury-Lane, who is engaged for a fortnight, and Mr. F.
VINING, of the same Theatres, who is also engaged for a
limited period, will make their first appearance this season,
in Shakspeare's historical Play of HENRY THE FOURTH.
Sir John Falstaff, Mr. Dowton ; Hotspur, Mr. Anderson ;
Prince of Wales, Mr. F. Vining ; Lady Percy, Miss Cleaver.
To conclude with the Musical Drama of the SLAVE.
Gambia, Mr. Anderson •, Matthew Sharpset, Mr. F. Vining ;
Fogrum, Mr. Baker ; Clifton, Mr. G. Horncastle ; Malcolm,
Mr. Barker; Sam Sharpset, Mr. Slaiter ; Miss Von Frump,
Mrs. Clarke ; Zelinda, Miss Grant; Stella, Mrs. P. Crowe.
The New Play of RICHELIEU will be repeated on TUES-
DAY NEXT. Richelieu, (first time) Mr. Stuart ; Julie,
'first time) Miss Faucit.

Mariana .

Elie kibtrpoot &tanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, AUGUST 23, 1339.

The merits of the noted Manchester corporation
question will come before a jury in Liverpool next
week. Of legal intricacies, and the nice questions
which are submitted to counsel for learned opinions, it
is not for us to judge. If common sense and a sound
consjderation for the real welfare of the town of Man-
chester were all that could enter into the case, we sup-
pose it would be soon decided: Whig lawyers, from
John Campbell down to Joseph Parkes, have contrived

it otherwise. The affair is involved in the subtle
meshes of a legal net, and will not be easily unravelled.
We have been informed that it must necessarily result
in a special verdict, and be referred to the decision of a
court above : and not only so, but that a ponderous
reference will be requisite in order to ascertain the value
and genuineness of innumerable signatures to infinite
petitions. And since,

" J—a—w, jaw,
Is the mainspring of the law,"

we think the Manchester corporation question may be
reasonably expected to survive the Melbourne ministry.
We have been a good deal amused with the naive
confessions of the ministerial papers, who begin to dis-
cover that the scope and design of all these proceedings
is to bring the whole Municipal system into contempt.
Bless the helpless innocents ! Bring them into con-
tempt ! " Prose," said Monsieur Jourdain (the gentle-
man Burgess of Moliere,) "Prose, why that's what I've
been talking all my life." Contempt, our Radical
friends may cry, bring contempt, why that's what we've
been brought to from the first ! If the noodles think
that they have gained any notoriety at all, they should
flatter themselves most exceedingly upon so singular a
circumstance. It must be a singular state of politics
that could bring Reform Mayors (or Mares, as we are
credibly informed a certain would-be functionary pre-
fers to write it,) into the foreground of the fight. The
ancient Egyptians had a superstition which forbade
their destroying a cat or an ape : and Cambyses set
these warlike animals in the van of his army. This is

the only precedent we recollect for municipalities like
ours (how different from the independent citizens of
the middle ages !) rising into public importance. We
purpose hereafter to consider this subject with them at
more length.

We are inclined to support Ministers in any measure
for the Suppression of Slavery, provided only it were
an honest and an effectual one. We expressed our seri-
ous apprehensions that the Measure of the present
Session was neither the one nor the other. When the
amended Bill was brought in we suspended our opi-
nion until we should have an opportunity of ascertain-
ing its merits.

`l'e regret to say that our love for it is, like Slender's
[ove for his wife, " small at the commencement, and it

pleased Providence to decrease it on further acquain-
tance." We are compelled to revert to our former ar-
aliment that a declaration of WAR by the Executive
Government was me most collb4l,—,l.—d and
have been the most effective means of putting down
this horrid traffic.

n how unfortunate a predicament does England

place herself, when she assumes a tone towards Portu-
gal, which she neither can maintain, nor even dares to
assume, towards other more powerful nations ! How
far does she exceed her proper province, and how la-

mentably does she compromise her proper dignity,
when she issues from her Legislative Chambers a
brutum pitmen against parties who are not subject to

her law !

Portugal is bound to us by treaties. How are these
treaties to be enforced ? The Crown is the depositary
of England's honour. Let the Ambassador at Lisbon
insist upon a prompt compliance at Portugal's proper
peril. Let the Ministers appeal to Parliament for those
sinews of war—increased supplies. Let us show our-
selves in earnest. Let us speak plain words, and do
intelligible things. Firmness and energy in action are
worth many an act of Parliament and whole heaps of
paper protocols. But Lord Palmerston is a man of
straw, and the Cabinet a heap of rubbish.
The Duke of Wellington expressed his dissent from
this Whiggish measure in the following manly and
truly British language, in the debate on Monday :

tion by the temperate leaders of his party, he acquired
a certain kind of distinction in the Conservative ranks.
He was " a man (as the new lights phrase it) before
his age." He was never satisfied. However rapidly
the Conservative re-action might go on, or however
steadily sound politics might prevail, he was still champ-
ing the bit. And no wonder. Excitement was the
breath of his life; and his atmosphere must be ren-
dered fragrant by incense burnt before the altar of his
overweening vanity. He then began to find out, what
every body but himself knew very well before, that

A very small man as a Tory
Is a very great man as a Whig,

and so he went over to the enemy.
Now if he had gone over openly and straightfor-
wardly, we would have said nothing more than " alas !
poor Yorick !" but to coquet for many weeks with the
understrappers of the opposing party in London and
their agents in Ipswich,—to retain his seat and vote
against his constituents until his vote could be spared
by Ministers,—then to make a mock-heroic sham ad-
dress,—and then, finally, to come in as a Radical, and
something more :—surely the rejected of Ipswich is a
fitting Liberal Candidate for Cambridge, and that pure
and independent stronghold of Mr. Rice, the patriotic
and public-spirited Barnwell !

Mr. Brindley deserves the highest praise for his
admirable exposure of the wickedness and folly of the
" Social System" of Mr. Owen and his followers.
The lecture of Tuesday evening, of which we have
given an outline in another column, will long be re-
membered in Liverpool. Hundreds were then made
acquainted, for the first time, with the blasphemous
and disgusting doctrines of this new school of Atheists.
We rejoice that Mr. Brindley has come forward so
fearlessly and boldly to oppose the champions of So-
cialism. The progress of this abominable system
among the working classes in this country renders it
necessary that some strenuous efforts should be made
for its extirpation. Many of our readers will no doubt
be surprised when we inform them, that there is scarcely
a town of any magnitude in the kingdom in which
Socialism has not taken root. Mr. Owen and a band
of active missionaries have been travelling from place
to place for the purpose of making converts, and they
have succeeded so far as to form into one body all the
scattered Infidels of the country. The press has also
teemed with publications in which the hellish princi-.
ples of this sect are developed, and thousands have,
we fear, been corrupted by the perusal of the disgust-
ing trash contained in the Social publications. It is,
therefore, high time that something should be done
with a view to reclaim those who have unfortunately
associated themselves with the degraded Owenite crew,
and to prevent, as far as possible, the further spread of
the abominable system. It is high time for the Clergy
to take the matter up, and to put their flocks on their
guard against the poisonous and destructive tenets of
the Socialists. We hesitate not to say that it is the
duty, the imperative duty, of every one holding the
sacred office of a Minister of the Gospel, to bring the
subject prominently before his audience. This is
especially the case in Liverpool, where we find the
Socialists making such an ostentatious parade of their
increasing numbers—where their pestilential publica-
tions are disseminated by hundreds and thousands—
where lecturers are engaged, Sabbath after Sabbath,
in delivering the most seductive addresses—and where
a magnificent building is in course of erection, under
the desecrated title of the " Hall of Science," in which
the demoralising principles and the obscene practices
of Socialism are to be publicly and statedly expounded
and recommended.

We have one charge to bring against the Socialists
which was not included among those enumerated by
Mr. Brindley : it is that of enormous lying. They are
the most shameless, the most brazen7faced, and the
most unscrupulous liars that ever existed. In this
respect they fully identify themselves with those who
are called in Scripture " the children of the Devil."
The Socialists may with truth be said to be of their
father the Devil, " who was a liar from the beginning."
We do not make this charge lightly and inconside-
rately, but seriously and deliberately. The whole of
their periodical publications teem with lies—lies of
every imaginable hue and description—lies of implica-
tion, lies positive and palpable, malignant lies, and
vainglorious lies. Of the last-mentioned sort there is
an unequalled exuberance. This any one, possessed of
the least grain of candour, may satisfy himself of, if he
will only take the trouble to examine any dozen num-
bers of the Ni,., Moral World, a number of which we
have now lying before us.
This practice of enormous lying, for which the
Socialists enjoy so unenviable a notoriety, is never
more conspicuous than in their controversial discus-
sions. The moment an opponent subjects these men-
dacious wretches to the inconvenience of quoting
j against them an obnoxious passage from any of their
publications, he is assailed with charges of misrepre-
sentation, and accused of attributing to them senti-
ments which they disavow. It matters not that the
work quoted from should be expressly printed and
published for the " Universal Community Society of
Rational Religionists ;" it matters not that it should
be exposed for sale at the Socialist repositories and lec-
ture-rooms; it matters not that it should bear on its

le page the name of Robert Owen : whenever lan.

guage is quoted from any of their works which the So-
cialists are ashamed to acknowledge, they immediately
resort to " a refuge of lies," and deny the authority of
the publication. This is certainly a very convenient
mode of argument—but not a very creditable one. Yet
it was the only mode resorted to by Mr. Finch on Tues-
day evening, during his frequent and indecorous inter-
ruptions of Mr. Brindley's lecture. We especially al-
lude to his positive denial that the Social Bible ever is
or ever was (we quote his exact words) an authorised
publication of the Socialists. We leave him to recon-
cile this statement with his subsequent exclamation
that "it is withdrawn." We leave him to explain how
any work could be "withdrawn" if it was never acknow-
ledged or authorised.
Want of space precludes us from prosecuting this
subject to day. Its importance, however, demands
that we should recur to it.

BURTON GRAMMAR SCHOOL, WESTMORLAND.

TO THE REV. B. WALLER, VISITOR,
AND MESSRS.

HORNBY, ARMSTRONG, ATKINSON, WILCOCK, MORLAND,
" Members of the Committee heretofore named and formed for
appointing a Schoolmaster."

GENTLEMEN,--I beg t 0 acknowledge the receipt of your
favour of the 20th instant, intimating your " conviction,"
from circumstances which you mention, of my having re-
signed the mastership of the above school, and your inten-
tion of proceeding forthwith to elect " another person to
fulfil the situation ," (for which you have my full permission
and consent) and I avail myself of the earliest opportunity
of addressing you, in order to make a few suggestions which
may prove useful to yourselves and the public.
The will of the founder directs, I believe, that in case no
master is appointed, the proceeds of the endowment are to
be divided between the poor of the townships of Beetham
and Burton ; and I humbly submit whether, under existing
circumstances, you would not be acting more judiciously and
beneficially, if you were to relinquish the idea of inducing
a gentleman, who must be a Master of Arts, of Oxford or
Cambridge, in order to be eligible, to take a situation from
which I am of opinion,
i and you, I presume, must be simi-
larly impressed, that it s not very easy to demonstrate, that
he will be able to derive anything like an adequate remune-
ration for his services? If, however, you consider your-
selves not to be at liberty to attend to the forgoing sugges-
tion, and you are resolved to have a master for the school,
I would respectfully recommend the propriety of your
informing one who may announce himself as a candidate for
the situation, that there are no exhibitions for either of the
Universities in the above school ; but that there is an endowed
Grammar-school, conducted by a very able master, about
five miles from Burton, situated in the beautiful village of
Heversham, near Milnethorpe, which has exhibitions for, I
believe, both Oxford and Cambridge :—that the decree
directs that, after the premises of the estate whence proceeds
the endowment which at present will not afford the master
more than £65 a-year at the most, shall have been put in
sufficient repair, the remainder of the proceeds, " or a com-
petent part thereof," (awfully ambiguous terms !) be handed
over to the master by the churchwardens, in whose sole
management the estate and its income are vested ; and that
as a necessary consequence, the master must always be in
the power of the churchwardens of those very civilized parts
of Westmoreland, Burton, Holme, and Dalton. I would
also suggest that you inform him that he could not look for
more than five boys from the parish of Burton, to be in-
structed in the classics, and that he must not expect to obtain
12s 6d per quarter, for the highest grade of commercial
education. In conclusion, permit me to recommend that
your deliberative assemblies, respecting the election of
" another person to fulfil the situation" in question, be
held in a private and not in a public-house, as heretofore,
as in the former your counsels will not be disturbed and dis-
tracted by the noise and confusion, and other circumstances
attendant on the latter.—l have the honour to be, gentlemen
your most obedient servant,
Liverpool, August 22, 1839.

SAML. FENTON

IMMENSE ANNUAL ISSUE OF BASE COIN.—WC heard it
mentioned yesterday, by Mr. Sergeant Atcherly , the AttorneY -
General for this county, in allusion to the importance of the
Mint prosecutions, that not less than three thousand persons
are at present engaged in counterfeiting and uttering base
coin in the united kingdom, and that the amount annually
put into circulation is not less than £600,000. Doubtless
the evil would be still more extensive but for the exertion of
the Mint, through their indefatigable agent, Mr. Powell, in
bringing offenders of this description to juatice,—X,f4