The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-07-12 00:00:00

in the eyes of the world at large free from the foul
charge, we are compelled to acknowledge that the
greatest blot upon its fair fame is having among its
own sons the men who have made the accusation.
There is an old saying, that it is a bad bird which
fouls its own nest, and Liverpool must remain
under the stigma of having her worst enemies
within her own bosom ; men who not only sought
to have their fellow-townsmen convicted of corrup-
tion, but who did it with the moral certainty that
there was not an atom of truth in the charge. It
was proved before the Committee ; but the last few
days have shown the infamy of the falsehood in a
still more striking manner. In the first case, they
resorted to the miserable plea that working-men
had been paid a day's wages when they did not
work, but this paltry subterfuge will not avail them
now, for none were paid, and yet the two Conser-
vatives have been returned by enormous majorities,
Mr. HORSFALL beating his Radical competitor by

almost as large a major;ty as that by which Mr.
CHARLES TURN ER topped the renegade CARDWE LL.
The Election of last week was a model of purity,as far
as the Conservatives were concerned ; and if any
money was illegally spent, it was by their opponents,
as their last desperate chance. The Freemen, how-
ever, stand acquitted in the eyes of the world of
the slightest approach to electoral impurity,—they
have nobly vindicated their character so unjustly
assailed,—and if any one dare to repeat the charge,
it may be flung back with all the indignation
which such a foul calumny justly merits.
There is something more than ordinarily gratify-
ing in being able to refer to the Election of Friday
last as one of the grandest instances on record of a
popular constituency being actuated by the truest
spirit of independence, and, at the same time, sup-
porting the great principles of our Institutions in
Church and State. It was no wild mob joining in
an insensate cry for the specious projects of some
popular demagogue ; but men of all ranks and con-
ditions of life, from the princely merchant to the
humble artisan, each one independent in his own
sphere of life, possessing the electoral franchise, and
showing by their votes that they could appreciate
the blessings of good government and the mainte-
nance of the British Constitution in its integrity,
unbiassed by the thousand schemes of innovation
with which the Radicals delude their victims.
Liverpool may boast her Docks and her Shipping,
which penetrate every port in the habitable globe.
She may proudly claim to be the capital of that vast
commerce which the world never saw equalled;
but, after all, her proudest boast will be the glorious
fact, that out of her large constituency overwhelm-
ing majorities of unbought and almost unsolicited
votes returned two Conservatives to represent her
interests in the Commons House of Parliament. The
closing of such a day as Friday last would wipe out
the stain of years of corruption, if it ever existed.
The Freemen have made their own best defence to the
charge which was to effect their disfranchisement
and should it ever be repeated, the expressive
monosyllable with which their own native Saxon
language tersely describes a falsehood will be the
only answer required.