The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-07-26 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, TITESDAY, .iTTLy 26, 1853.

ter this country has had for a long time. The city police I
are an offshoot of PEEL. They are not likely to get an
advance. The metropolitan " PEEL'S own" are worse : a
question of common wages is bad enough ; but to serve and
serve, and see, it may be, the undeserving raised over your
head,—Oh it is bad ! The Italians have a proverb, to the
effect that death is better than servitude without hope of
preferment. As hard work and small pay is the order in
the City police, so undue preferment is the greater canker
in the metropolitan. Sir ROBERT, when he introduced
the measure, gave solemn assurance that each man should
rise by merit. A fib ! You may twig men three or four
and twenty years of age looking after you as you are set
down at Mr. SPEAKER'S parties, at RUSSELL'S, or ABER-
DEEN'S, or PALMERSTON'S ; the policemen on duty, the
young fellows referred to, have not seen more than two or
three years' service, they belong to the pet division—A 1
at Lloyd's. In next to no time you shall find them in.
spectors, superintendents, and what not. But this is only
part of a system—a plague which pervades the body politic,
Customs, Somerset House, Treasury, Woods and Forests,
every where cooks' and butlers' brats are preferred to the
more legitimate. A gouty coachman, who can no longer
hold the ribbons with credit on a minister's ham mercloth,
is capital for a messenger in Downing-street ; a valet, who
can no longer brush his master's clothes, is deemed " ex-
cellent well" for a good place in that mammoth of laziness
Somerset-house. Did not Lord JOHN RUSSELL, with
cat-like, and rat-like, and Whig-like intelligence, literally
prove it so a few days before he was last turned out of
office himself ? He did. I know he did. Ile did not
dream of Coalition Cabinets and such stuff then, and
absolutely disposed of several of his male servants as I
have stated. It answered his turn ; he saddled them upon
the public, and now he has got " young 'uns." To
revert to the police, I am sorry for them ; they are not
even allowed to meet for the purpose of discussing their
grievances ; and they are leaving the force at the rate of
several scores a week.

Mr. MECHI is a prosperous tradesman in London—a
still more successful farmer in Essex. To compensate,
perhaps, for the ungeniat trade in hardware in town, he
studies the cultivation of clover among the rustics of the
calf county. In earlier interviews with MECHI, the intel-
ligent even would set him down as one of quackery, he
sails so close to that prosperous shore, talking so much
that you really must think MECHI a umbug as well as
quack ; but, indeed, they are synonymous. MECHI is no
quack—sharp as one of his own needles—" rem acu teti-
gisti"—or razors, cutting before the point. He acts on
the simple rule that two and two make four ; that some
good always comes of energy and industry. He bad his
annual gathering in the middle of the past week ; between
three and four hundred persons were present, embracing
all sorts of people, from the Peer Earl of HARROWBY
to the lock-picker HOBBS. I never saw such fields in my
life— those with " verdure clad " (green crop) never
surely were more luxuriant in the world's young and
unpoisoned days. From town all was rot till we came
to Tiptree. Not to be wondered at. All has been and
still is rot in the South of Europe—France especially ;
and as sure as night follows day, the bad weather of the
South always comes to us. Not so in the North of
Europe. It may be Zamiel and the huge black forests
of Germany intercept and absorb. MECHI'S cereal
crops were indescribably grand, forward, and promising.
But I think it is possible to have too much of a good
thing. After the port (tolerably fair) had circulated, the
hurry, so to speak, railroad-speed, on, on, never-rest of
Mr. MECHI'S system came out in conversation, and
vexed me. Cattle food growing in green fields in the
morning, serving as manure in the evening; preventing
all healthful chemical action—repose—digestion in brief.
However, there was the farm—there the products beyond
all farmer's in the county, and Tiptree is not of a propi-
tious soil—save for potatoes. I thought of my poor, dear,
departed, deaf friend TOM HooD, who embarked a few
pounds—his all—on the same foundation—a rope of sand
to him ! On MECHI went, clack ! clack I like a neigh-
bouring mill. Everybody was pleased ; the day was fine
and breezy ; even the tallow cheek of EDWIN CHADWICK
assumed a momentary bloom. Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH,
physician and philanthropist, stole a day from his pauper
patients of the fevered lip and burning palm ! Sir
CHARLES BARRY, the great gingerbread baker, had
break down, and couldn't come.
Among the nice boys who have got into parliament, no
one knows how—pitchforked in, unknown even to them-
selves—is my learned and cautious friend,Mr.MURROUGH.
This gentleman is an attorney in one of the subsidiary
Inns of Court, and represents Bridport ; when the R E Q,
as the requisition was called, came to him, he was in such
a blissful state of geographical ignorance there anent, that
he did not know which way to go to reach Bridport afore-
said. Fact ! Perhaps he meant which was the cheapest
way ; even that was ignorant enough. He seldom speaks,
but on Wednesday he opened his mouth in regard to the
duty on attorneys' and solicitors' certificates, which I do
most fervently hope will be doubled, trebled, yea, quadru-
pled, rather than abrogated, as hundreds of wretched sca-
vengers, sharp-practice men, the pests of the profession,
wish it abrogated. No, no, Mr. MURROUGH ! a respec-
table attorney or solicitor like yourself is an ornament to
society. He is useful. He will pay his certificate duty
because he can pay it ; the man to whom it is an object
ought to emigrate. That sensible, in part, but easily
imposed upon utilitarian, Lord ROBERT GROSVENOR, had
made the abolition of the yearly attorney tax a hobby for
some time past; he had been pestered by the men of
parchment and tape, quidities and quilities, cases, tenures,
and tricks, recognizances, fines, double vouchers, and re-
coveries. to get the tax repealed. Lord ROBERT gave
a promise ; he is an English nobleman, and did his best to
keep his word ; but he got out of it well, for Mr. GLAD-
STONE came like a man down to the house on the same
day, and sent the advertisement duty to Tophet for ever,
and retained the lawyers' tax. I will put cooks and house-
maids, barmaids and potboys, maids of allwork,—gover-
nesses, poor things, are not able to advertise, =I will put
these in tho balance against those attorneys who sought
to be bettered by the abolition of their certificate duty.
The repeal of the advertisement duty is the best thing
the Government have achieved all the session. Mr.
MuumouGH, with whom I set out in this paragraph,
called the Attorneys' Relief Bill a political sham ; what
did he mean, then, by saying he would vote for it ? The
house laughed, and there an end.
The Royal Italian Opera is drawing to a close • there
was a happy deliverance on Saturday night : that dull and
desperately sentimental work, pl Favorite, with its never-
ending organ blasts, had been announced all the week for
the fashionable night ; a run down to Chobham, white-
bait at Greenwich or Blackwall, or a quiet drive and repose
before the Mansion Banquet, was the resolve, and no
opera. Out came the announcement at the eleventh
hour—breakfast time—that ROSSINI'S Otella was to be
represented in the evening for the first time this season—
a pear of another tree. So leaving the Mansion-house
just after PALMERSTON, a crack of the whip, and there
was time for TAMBERLIK'S grand scans, " Ombra
Adorata." This chef d'ouvre of Rosstm is seldom
played ; as a whole, it is not first-rate ; but it has bits in
it unsurpassed for passionate melody. The director of
this house is educated and experienced, yet he has not
played this season several of the finest works in his well-
stored repertoire. I am aware the period is gone—fled
for ever—when an impresaria would have jumped into
the Regent's Canal sooner than see his Saturday night go
over without a crack opera. PASTA in Medea—Taneredi,
with the never-to-be-forgotten "di tanti palpiti." Now
the system is changed. Pretty women fill the boxes to
talk—it may be scandal—
" To the lascivious pleasing of a lute."

However the house, play what they like, is always crowded
on Saturday night. There is plenty of fun at the English
theatres. That merry fellow, appropriately editor of
Punch, MARK LEMON,—where he finds time to write so
much nobody knows,—has turned out a droll burlesque of
Sardanapalus, which makes the Adelphi visitors shake
their sides. True, KEELEY, WOOLGAR, and PAUL BED-
FORD would succeed in that, had they to deal with a sorry
author. The Drury-lane manager is beating up for re-
cruits—good ones—in all branches of the drama, opera
included. He has signed articles with GUSTAVUS B.
BROOKE, the nearest approach to a good tragedian we
have. I say approach ; for lam afraid BROOKE, though
blessed with many mental and personal advantages, has
not the fire of true genius ;
" Lesser than CHARLIE KEAN and greater."

Mr. BROOKE, if well supported, may draw for a time. It
is to be hoped that the D. L. manager will meet with co-
operation. He offered SIMS REEVES £5O a night, gua-
ranteed in the morning before he sang at night. No !
Mr. Sims REEVES, who, to my poor thinking, can't sing—
musical declamation is not singing ;—repulsive contrasts
disgust, though • Mr. REEVES may not think so. Mr.
REEVES considered the £5O too little. GARDONI and
FORMES have been engaged, and high patronage has been
Promised.

EAST LANCASHIRE RAILWAY.—The directors have
decided to recommend the shareholders to declare a divi-
dend of 3 per cent. per annum for the past half-year—
taking £974 from the reserve fund.
PHILHARMONIC HALL.—The fifth subscription concert
of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society is announced for
Monday, the 29th August. The programme contains
the names of Madame Castellan, Madllellini, Signor
Gardoni. and Signor Tagliafico, under the direction of
Mr. Herrmann. Such a selection cannot fail to secure a
brilliant attendance, and there is no doubt it will prove
one of the most delightful reunions of the season.
SHIP ROBBERY.—Yesterday, an Irishman named
Michael Melia, who has been already seven times com-
mitted to gaol, was sent for trial to the assizes, charged
with breaking into the captain's cabin of the Countess
of Lansdowne, at present lying in this port, and stealing
therefrom a quantity of wearing apparel. The offence
was committed in the absence of the captain and crew
from the ship.

ALLEGED CRIMINAL ASSAULT.—At the second police-
court yesterday a man named Thomas Smith, who is em-
ployed in a subordinate capacity
or by the East Lancashire
criminal
assault Company,
op 0
ow at:
littlea
W with committing a
girl aged less than eight
years. The evidence not being a very conclusive cha-
racter, the prisoner was discharged of
wth
o a
fh
n too
c admonition
s ei o
suitable to the disgraceful circumstances with
morning,sospioioo auspicious
which he had involved himself.
were sent
THE RECENT BURGLARY.--Yesterday
second police-court, two young people Of
ged ac nreter,
cha-
racters, James Jackson and Caroline Fellows,
to gaol for two months, for having pled
part of the property stolen from the house of Arlor.
which was burglariously entered the other night 11)yraothne,
cellar grate, and a considerable quantity of wearing
appa-
rel and household plenishing abstracted. The malepr
goner said the chronometer had been given him by a
Welshman, named Jones, to pledge; but, although the
police had made every exertion to find this individual,
their efforts had been completely fruitless.
POACHlNG.—Yesterday morning, at a rather early hour,
Policeman 514 met three men entering Liverpool by he
t
Breck-road, with a dog, a net, a hare, Land a rabbit in
their possession. They, of course, endeavoured to hide
the three last-named articles, but their efforts proved un-
availing, and the quick eye of the constable at once de-
tected the game. The triumvirate were taken intoistrates, custody,
and, at mid-day, brought before the police mag to
irked up the
whom they told a ridiculous story of having p
hare in one place, the net in another, and the rabbit in a
third corner. The two men on whom the game was found
(John Kelshaw and Henry Swift), were sent to gaol for
fourteen days ; while Manchester was discharged, the
only charge against him being that he was foilnd in tIIQ
company of the guilty couple.