The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-12-21 00:00:00

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small work, which had reached a very lar
the difference of duty in the cost of the material consti-
tuting the sole basis of any profit—a disadvantage which
is met in trashy works by the inferior quality of the ma-
terials employed, which would be altogether unsuited to
a work of higher pretensions.
The question of the stamp on newspapers is one that
must be considered on grounds altogether different from
the foregoing. There can be no doubt that it operates as
a serious burden upon the publishers of these indispen-
sable means of diffusing political knowledge, by compelling

them to charge a price which operates as a great restriction
upon their circulation. At the same time, it must be
admitted that some restriction is necessary to secure the
large capital, which is necessarily embarked in the conduct
of an efficient newspaper, from unfair and ruinous com-
petition. The licentiousness and scurrility of the press in
America, and the necessity which has been found in
France, Germany, and Spain, to curb this tendency by
trictions, such as would not be submitted to in

Jme guarantee

sufficient proof that SP

is requisite for the responsibility of those who are en-
trusted with the important duty of directing public opinion
and recording public events. The difficulty, however, is
not insurmountable, and several plans have been suggested

an equitable manner. Of these we may

a direct tax upon the proprietor of each news-

paper; another is the deposit of a sum of money as security,

r of caution money ado

cl in France; a

third suggests the reduction of the stamp to a half-penny,
which would operate equally as well as the present amount

while a fourth proposition is to
y stamp only on newspapers transmitted

In either case the duties first mentioned
are of far more pressing consequence, and ere long the
attention of the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER must

CORRESPONDENCE.

ressed to the Editor should be accompanied by the

e writer, not for publication, but
; this is indispensably requisite

in an'}• statement of facts.
The Editor wishes it to be understood that he does not hold
himself responsible for the opinions or statements of his
correspondents.

THE CLERGY IN WANT OF RELIEF FUNDS IN

THE LOWER DISTRICTS

To the EDITOR of the LIVERPOOL STANDARD,

d and heart-rending appeals for help from
the huge masses of poverty in the lower districts of this
town force us earnestly to beg the influence of your
paper in behalf of the frightfully trifling funds placed at
the disposal of the clergy who minister in the abodes of
d and unmitigated wretchedness, and in behalf of

the clergy who in the chamber of a dying husband and
father are pitifully entreated to satisfy the hunger of
'en, soon to be bereaved of the only means of

support. What we desire to see, and what we desire you
to hasten, is the formation of a general fund into which
shall be poured all the monthly sacramental offerings, and

11 be voted quarterly (by a committee ap-
pointed for that purpose) certain sums of money to the
various clergy, for the relief of their poor in;
the number and state of the distressed in their several
districts. Cannot you imagine the depressed spirits and
the bleeding heart of a feeling clergyman placed in such a
district as St. Thomas's, St. Barnabas's, or St. Simon's,
surrounded by everything in the shape of ghastly poverty
and sharp affliction, yet unable, from the funds of THE
CHURCH, to smooth and cheer the comfortless bed of
death, or stay the cry of famishing orphans, while clergy-

2rOpOrtiOn to

here—surrounded by high respectability, by an