The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-04-19 00:00:00

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FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

MONDAY MORNING.
THREE blows in a week, one would think rather damaging
to a Government even more stable than that of the hybrid
Administration of Lord ABERDEEN : yet it has had its
three blows, and feels shaky—or, in the language of the
all but defunct prize-ring, " groggy,"—an expressive
phrase, intimating that the party so affected is on his last
legs. The last blow—as is usually the case in less refined,
but sometimes better conducted arenas than the floor of
the House of Commons—was the " slasher " of the
three ; and though it came last in order, I shall notice it
first—a good orthodox reading. During the course of
Thursday evening, it was well known that Mr. MILNER
GIBSON was to stand by his resolutions for a repeal of the
newspaper stamp duty, repeal of the advertisement duty,
and repeal of the paper duty—that is, that the hon. mem-
ber would go to a division on the resolution most likely
to be carried. He was slightly pooh-poohed by that
good-for-nothing class of representatives who would turn
the present men out, and yet are afraid to offend them.
" Stay till Monday, till you hear the Budget propounded."
" No, I won't," said GIBSON ; " the result to-night will
be like a straw thrown up for learned pigs to ascertain
which way the wind blows : besides," quoth Mr.
GIBSON, " I have found out that I can have a—swing-
ing—majority on the repeal of the advertisement
duty." Heads were counted on this point, so that he was
sure of a majority, but not so large as the division told.
I will not afflict your intelligent readers by noticing the
debate in detail ; certainly not a new argument; scarcely a
new sentence was used all through the discussion. Gentle
dulness, which ever likes a joke, supervened, and I took
my nap, undisturbed by flashes of senatorial fire, taking
care to keep the sensorium as much alive as to Com a
notion of what they were about. By the way, this is a
capital plan for dull debates, dull plays, and common-
place operas ;—be awake, though not wide awake. So
was your correspondent on the present occasion. Thus
quiescent, semi-somnolent he remained, until DIZZY got
up. Oh, monstrous ! DISRAELI going heart and hand
with JOHN BRIGHT ! The shirt of Nemesis on DIZZY
were as nothing to this,—his adoption of Manchester
cotton ! There he stood, not striking the red box, 'tis
true, with his screw-curls, dangling like dead snakelels by
his unpropitiating profile, absolutely supporting a reduc-
tion of duty on a subject, of all others, he ought himself
to have proposed a few weeks ago, when he was CHAN-
CELLOR of the EXCHEQUER. The most obtuse man in
the house saw what it meant.
Patria Dolce I"
as the poeta says or sings, had no more to do with the
matter than I have to do with making, or scrubbing,
treasonable ram-rods for that clever varlet KOSSUTH.
MILNER GIBSON has done good by the advertisement
duty. Let SUKEY, the cook, advertise for a place and
get it, without being taxed for leave to tell all the world
she has lost one. This was carried, and I think will
stand. The advertisement duty will be done away entirely
or reduced to a mere trifle. Not so the other resolutions.
Justly too. Take off the stamp duty ? Why, there are
a hundred characterless scoundrels within a mile of
Temple-bar—(to say nothing of the provinces)—at this
moment, who could easily beg, borrow, or steal a hand.
ful or two of type, and obtain as easily, by either of these
means, a few hundred weight of whitey-brown paper, and
set to work and vomit poison. My dear, though sharp
friend, Timms, solicitor to the stamps and taxes, gives
no tick. Stamps is paid for, hence the respectability of
the English press is in a great part sustained.
Now for the little fights. ISAAC BUTT, the Irish Q.C.
and Conservative, beat them on Kilmainham Hospital,
the Irish Chelsea Hospital, for the maintenance of the
Irish soldier in age or infirmity. Its preservation was
carried, and you will see in the list of ayes and noes,
indiscriminately, Whigs, Tories, Radicals, Conservatives,
opposition Conservatives, and so on. Col. SIBTHORP would
have been among the number, but the poor fellow is laid
up, much to the dulness of the House of Commons. The
Government, therefore, as far as regards the keeping up
or pulling down Kilmainham, care but little. Then came
defeat number two on Wednesday, for the exclusion of
the Master of the Rolls (Sir JOHN ROMILLY), and all
future Masters from the House of Commons. As Wed-
nesday is a play-day, the Ministers care nothing aboutthis
defeat, because, on the third reading of the bill, they are
determined to take care to be better prepared, and throw
out the measure. lam no great friend of seeing lawyers
anywhere, but their presence is now more necessary in the
lower house than ever. Statutes are heaped in helpless con-
fusion on statutes ; country gentlemen, dissenters, who
scarcely ever read an act of parliament all their lives, manu-
facturers, manufacturing acts. We have, therefore, need of
a lawyer or two for the purpose of keeping us right. The
debate on the question was not very enlivening ; PALMER-
STON and RUSSELL were the only two members of the
government who spoke, and they echoed each other ;
they considered it would be unadvisable to shut out men
who, above all others, were most qualified to share in the
deliberations of the house. Granted : but lawyers are
tremendous bores in Parliament. SUGDEN, KELLY,
PEMBERTON, STUART, WATSON, and a dozen such, to
say nothing of BROUGHAM, LYNDHURST, and CAMP-
BELL when in the House of Commons, have all held
forth to yawns ! Referring to Sir F. KELLY, puts me
in mind of the remarks he made on the Judges' Exclusion
Bill—remarks silly for such a lawyer. I quote from
memory, but the words are quite near enough. Sir
FITZROY KELLY was wincing, for he looked and spoke as
if he were : he observed in effect, that it was undignified
for a Master of the Rolls to be obliged to canvas for a
seat in Parliament—that he had often to go from door to
door like a beggar ; candidates generally had to do this,
and meet answers not very civil sometimes, and after-
wards to be laughed at on the hustings by the worst
"rabble" in the kingdom. One would have thought, after
what has so recently taken place touching this same word
" rabble," that the hon. and learned gentleman would
have kept it to himself. Sir FITZROY, you'll catch it for
this.

This identical Monday, 18th of April, 1853, one of
London's greatest abominations—first in the throng—is
gone. St. Clement's churchyard, placed in the centre of
the greatest thoroughfare in the world, no longer yawns
for dead human bodies. I thank thee, PALNIERSTON, for
this. " Order in Council l" Glorious Parliament, TONI
CARLYLE might exclaim, only THONlAS—great coiner of
German silver—lives in the country, and fears no fright.
ful graveyard effluvium. The closing of the metropolitan
graveyards was likely never to be accomplished by agita-
tation and debate in the Houses of Parliament; but we have
a nice, discreet, prompt, and most responsible little par-
liament on emergency, formed by the Lords of the Privy
Council ; they do anything, certainly, on their own re-
sponsibility, as 1 have intimated ; and, if the doing don't
please the Parliament assembled, why, then, my Lords of
the P. C. must answer. But, in such a horrid question
as the one I refer to, there is no danger ; no one but the
most mercenary could desire to see perpetuated the ob-
scene mysteries of intramural interment 1 Now, the re-
form thus begun, it is curious, nay, unaccountable, to
witness the number of burials which take place daily in
the above-hated churchyard (St. Clement's) ; ever since
decisive steps for its abolition were adopted, the burials
have been prodigiously great. Did people insanely die
out of spite, to be buried while it was possible, in the old
and desecrated haunt of the midnight ghouls and cab-
man ? Impossible. They died, however, and were buried
with their fathers :—in the midst of life we are in death,
—though I do not much relish the apparent pun—it has
been exemplifiqd in the aforesaid parish, ever since Lord
PALMERSTON said the churchyard should be closed this
day. The fact is, the rate of mortality is always higher
in London—especially in the rotten parts of it—at this
period, than at any other ; hence the wailings of the dead
bell from " morn to dewy eve," and not from any face- I
tious notion on the part of the chief characters to die
before the 18th, and so chouse the SECRETARY of STATE.
The undertakers and horse masters, those who do " black
jobs," are going to trip it on the " light fantastic" some
of these days ; for they say that a funeral out of town
pays best, and is a very pleasant thing " after all."
Coetaneous—(l don't remember another word at the
moment)—coetaneous with the frequency of funerals in the
metropolitan churchyards, anticipatory of their being
closed, another phase, so to speak, of human infirmity
has developed itself. A decent, well-inclined member of
Parliament has introduced a bill, which will be carried,
thanks to Queen, Lords and Commons, for the better
punishment of those cowardly, mean-spirited, always ill-
looking, low, miscreantic bullies, with the weak, coarse,
vulgar, lazy, never-clever, filthy, disreputable, sneaking,
beastly—oh, no, I do the hog and the dog wrong, and
crave their pardon, were it podirtyssible for them to grant
one—scoundrelly, rascally, scamps, confound them,
who ill-use women. It is noteable that, in all my wander-
ings through this world of care, I never had such an
opportunity afforded me as recently of ascertaining the
true balance for or against human nature as regards the
commission of the despicable offence mentioned. I ani
certain it never, in the history of England, was so prev4-
lent as at present. The bill for the better punishment of
these varlets will soon be part and parcel of the law of
the land ; the blackguards know it, and oh, Jupiter
how they are walloping their better halves !
They will be afraid to do it when the bill shall have
Passed. The foregoing embodies the opinions, expressed
in my own way, of all the police magistrates of any 2ZOUS
in the metropolitan beats.
Were I to barter political principles, it would certainly
be for a place in the Woods and Forests, now presided
over by Sir 'WILLIAM MoLEswon•rx. Talk of Dryads
and Hamadryads, Fauns, and even of that old goat PAN,
with his pipes, their ever.auri,
g holiday-making " under
the greenwood tree" was nothing as compared with the
of ium of our Woods and Forests. Sir WILLIAM of the
Ballot talks as gliblyandcornmandingaboutimprovements,
landscape gardening, lopping and pruning, cutting timber,
selling timber, timber stolen, and so forth, to no end, as
if he had been to the " mariner born." Does it not look
like humbug ? Here is a Radical member of Parliament
with no enviable peculiarity on the face of the earth but
holdforth, for Sir WILLIAM, even on radical questions, is
a parrot, speaking what he has got by rote, and sending
his speeches miles in length to the " Fourth Estate," and
thereby sustaining a character for eloquence. 'Wood.
gods and little fishes,. Eloquence. Gab. They say Sir
BALLOT MOLESWORTH (i like the mistakes made
by my French friends, a description of whom I
may give some day soon) got a snubbing from ABER-
DEEN recently for his indiscreet remarks in favour