The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-03-29 00:00:00

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

MONDAY MORNING.
TILE ya, ya, at the clubs this week, has been inanimate
in the extreme. Every rational member has gone to
enjoy his scant Easter holidays. True, you have a few
Customs' Commissioners, Inland Revenue men also, and
Treasury clerks, who, chained to the oar, cannot leave
our Babel of bricks and mortar ; but they are not suffi-
cient to relieve the tedium of the twaddle uttered by the
confirmed club gnid nuns, who never dines six times a
year out of it. Such there are, and to he avoided. Hating
the perfume of the cigar, they will follow you into the
sanctum sanctorunz of the smoking room, where genuine
clubbists meet like brothers—never mind the spleen down
stairs—nothing but politics with these old men. They
were sadly puzzled at the beginning of the week,—but
with them wonders do not last nine days,—to find out the
disposition of the ships ordered afloat. Was there to be a
war ? Russia and Austria v. the Turk. All to nothing,
of course, the latter must be beaten. Prussia necessarily
will join against the Turemnan—ancient ally of England
thouzh he is. What will France do ? Of course, stand
by England in defence of Turkey. Then there will be a
general row. Such, and such, has been the trash
uttered at the clubs this dullest week in Fifty-three.
Certainly great secrecy is maintained ; for even the
" Thunderer " is silent about the intents of the sailing
fleet. At the Admiralty all is as calm as usual ; the little
printing press—manager sworn to secrecy—is at work, but
not a word oozes ; and there have been no first lord's
dinners recently; capital gatherings those. When your
Lords Commissioners, tars or landsmen, take dinner in
that quarter—after it—l do not think they care much
about letting the cat out of the bag. How was it that not
long ago certain improvements in our screw steam navy,
described in little other than in diagram, and lithographed
by their lordships' own printer under their noses, as it
were, got wind—wero ventilated, and published in the
French papers before they had been communicated to our
own naval authorities? It was done, mu; h to the annoy-
ance of the Lords of the Admiralty, though little was
wisely said about it. These French jockies ought to be
looked after. Ditto ditto Russian in the East. Eminent
scientific travellers, who have left these our shores and
returned, have told me that wherever they wandered they
have met the agents of Russia—merely " botanizing," of
course, quiet creatures, never observing anything beyond
a plant or so, all the way from Tobolsk to Samarcand,—
plains of Lahore, heights of Delhi,—caviare eating lanes
of Constantinople and Smyrna. There was the Russ,
making the air redolent of the above-named dainty. It is
not likely, however, that England will be embroiled,
though the young Russian bear Nlenschikoff does play
fantastic tricks before the Sultan.

The bold outlaw ! ROB ROY MAGREGOR, PAUL JONES,
JOSEPII MAZZINI, and a score or more of classic story,
not now to be enumerated. What an association of names
might be culled, and what a contrast would the list present
as compared with the bloodless, the milk-and-water list of
Mr. HEMP, duly and periodically proclaimed in hall of
bankrupt or sheriff! Mr. HEMP—a nasty Old Bailey
name, though its owner is a jolly fellow—has proclaimed
more outlaws than ever did officer of state in the olden
days, when they shone their ugliest ! llEmp's outlaws,
for the most part, are tailor-made ; others are for the use
of an idle tongue—a too busy gall-dipp'd pen—libel—
action at law—damages, and so forth, closing with out-
lawry. These are the puke-stocking varlets who com-
prise the feather bed outlaws of the present reign.
What's done with them, if they are caught ? Killed out-
right, of course. Not at all. Simple arrest, off to that
too good-natured soul, SLOMAN'S, in Cursitor-street, at a
guinea more or less a day, and in a week—arrangement—
and the outlaw is as good as ever. There were a heap of
outlaws proclaimed the other day as I passed the Sheriff's
Court. The ceremony was pompous enough, especially
when the unfortunate beggar had a lot of names, as
CHARLES FREDERICK WILLIAM GUELPH ! My pen
almost refuses its office as it writes the last time-honoured
patronymic—our gracious QUEEN'S, in short. The out-
lawry referred to is that of the eccentric, rich, magnificent,
the at night nol)le•looking, cost ly attired, much be-ringed,
be-ringleted, be-painted, be-whiskered, be-wigged Duke
of BRUNSWICK. The DUKE had been proclaimed one of 1
HEMP'S, or some such officer's outlaws, for the fifth time,
at the suit of his second cousin, Regina. There was not
much in it, after all. The DUKE got into a scrape with
Alderman HARMER, of The Despatch newspaper ; the
DUKE went away, would not stand the brunt as he had
done before, and manfully, too—after a fashion. The
LUKE is, however, only great at night—in the gilded I
saloon, or at the opera, when lighted up for the evening,
he is resplendent ; but all ! faded, like Vauxhall paste-
board splendour, " when daylight doth appear." I have
jostled the Duke of BRUNSWICK in the Opera-house, bear-
ing on his person £lO,OOO worth of property : his kid
gloves, they were nothing—less than vanity ; but then he
wore thousands of pounds sterling worth of diamond,
emerald, and ruby, over them, like a fop, as he was. He
was fond also of gold. At one time he had in his coffers,
at his house, in the New Road, two hundred and forty
thousand sovereigns. I don't think he liked the Bank of
England paper. And yet he was outlawed, with a dozen
other individuals, of no mark or likelihood.
Let me turn my attention to a dreary volume published
this week by the Commissioners appointed to inquire into
the law of divorce. My " withers are unwrung," and so,
I trust, are those of all the readers of the Standard. The
great object of the parties aggrieved—men with unfaithful
wives, and vice versa—is not touched at all by the Com-
missioners. What, I would ask, do the large community
referred to, whose habitat is the metropolis, care for the
nice distinctions between divorce a rinculo matrimonii,
and a mend" et Moro, if they cannot obtain either by
reason of the heavy cost ? Not a jot, as Othello says.
What they want—so I have heard them declare, with
broken hearts, or well nigh broken, and with tears
streaming from their eyes, more fools they,—is to obtain
a divorce a vincula at a rate of expense within the ;
reach of ordinary people. Now it so happens, that
though the proceedings in the disagreeable business are
simplified, and so forth, by the Commissioners, they
don't appear to be much cheapened, for at the end
of the report I find the following ominous sentence :
" That there shall be only one appeal fro& the decree of
the court, and that the appeal shall be carried to the
House of Ltrds." Why, this was the monster grievance
all through. That when a lord or " ladye fair" went
astray, unless there had been criminal winking at the
offence on either side,—could go to the House of Lords,
and obtain such a separation as would allow the com-
plainant to marry again—if be or she thought fit. At
the lowest calculation, this would cost about £2OO, but in
many cases, caused by attendance of witnesses at a dis-
tance—from the continent—for it is there the sinning
parties chiefly go, as many thousands. I think I never
was at a more lugubrious party than one composed of
injured husbands. Two or three wags just poppedin,—there
was no intrusion,—to witness the fun, such as it might
be. One by one the poor de'ils sneaked into the room,
looking into each other's face in the most scrutinising
manner, to ascertain, I supposed, if he were a brother
sufferer—" a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind."
They had hard work to get a chairman. The secretary, a •
little blear-looking man, put me in mind of the cook's
eels, who, it is fabled, care nothing for being skinned,
inasmuch as they are used to it. So with Mr. Secretary ; he
was perfectly au fait. Ultimately a sufferer was found
hardy enough to act as chairman,—under protest that his
name was not to be given. Agreed. Then came resolu-
tions to cheapen the law of divorce ;—mover and se-
conder there were none, unless the protest aforesaid was
allowed. Agreed again. With these preliminaries settled,
to it they went. How they did blow up their absent
spouses ! One wife had had five children, yet left them,
their father, and a nice little business, to run away with a
journeyman carpenter ;—another, who had been married
three and twenty years, cut and ran with a schoolmaster,
—" a little bandy-legged whelp." Sic the afflicted
orator. All, all of them complained bitterly that, though
they could get a divorce in Doctor's Commons, they
could not marry again without getting one in the House
of Lords. A great hardship some of them—good-looking
men enough—complained of was, that they were " tor-
mented" when they went out to little parties, by the
young women usually found in such assemblies. Speak
to one of them,—the mysterious whisper went round—
"la ! nonsense—what's the use ? He's a —." This
would go on until the poor man became frantic, left the
party, took to the tavern and the friendly pipe for
solace. The numbers of such persons are incredible in
London. Where's their relief ? Ask echo.
I once recollect the famous scholar and wit, WILLIAM
MAGINN, commonly called Dr. MAGINN, commencing .a
leader with the remark that " Rump steaks" cost a shil-
ling a pound weight in Farringdon market. Poor MAGINN
could say and write anything lie liked at that time
might be outre, it was always applicable and scholarlike.
Somebody had told him, on the occasion referred to, that
he should make the attempt to eat a juicy inch-and-a-half
thick underdone steak for his dinner. MAGINN was no
great eater in his latter days, poor fellow, but he took
courage, went to the slaughterer's, came away steakless
and horror-stricken at the apparent iniquity of the charge.
It was the first, 1 am Buie it was the last time MAGINN
knew the price of the raw material. lam led into the
relation of this anecdote,—much against my will. Were
MAGINN'S pale and shrivelled ghost to revisit the glimpses
of the gas in the city market above-named, or, indeed,
any other, it would slink back to its coffin like Teddy of
Derry's. Provisions for many a year have not been so
high in price as they are at present. Free-trade! Pshaw !
Measled pork from abroad,—l will not say where, because
popular there,—poor, wretched,
the Standard is raylher p
fleshless, fatless, broken-backed cattle, skin, bone, and
horn, from Holland and Spain. These are what we have
got from Free-trade. Not that I find fault with it,
as a loyal subject, it being now part and parcel &c.,
I give it my support—the support that the sturdy
Protestant Peer, WINcHELsEA, gives to the Roman
Catholic Emancipation Act. Ah ! but, said RICHARD
Conozar, the other night, if you had not bad Free-
trade, rump steaks would have been higher in price.
Perhaps. The love of gold (money) is the root of all
evil, says an inspired one ; sometimes we are inclined to
say the want of it,—if you please. It is the prodigious,
the hitherto unheard of quantities of gold coming here
which have raised the price of the poor.man's dinner, and