The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-11-20 00:00:00

POLL BOOK.
We are glad to find that acomplete list of the voters
polled for the election of Sixteen Councillors for this
Borough, on the 2d of November, is already in the
hands of the printers, and will be immediately pub-
lished. It will shew the duplicate qualifications of
the voters, and the wards in which they polled. The
list has been examined with the polling papers in the
possession of the Mayor. It will be found of great
value as a book of reference, and will prove of great
service in carrying on the canvass for the ensuing
year.

Ebt Ziberpool

FRIDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 20, 1840.

According to the latest accounts from the East, a
large force of the allies, consisting of between 10,000
and 12,000 men, were proceeding to attack Ibrahim
Pacha in the interior of Syria. We may, therefore,
daily expect the news of a decisive engagement between
the belligerent powers, the result of which will pro-
bably be, the evacuation of Syria by the Egyptian
forces. It is true that the communications which have
proceeded direct from the camp of Ibrahim would lead
us to believe that his resources were far from being
exhausted, and that he was so strongly entrenched by
the natural defences of Syria, that the war would he a
very protracted one, even under the most favourable
circumstances that could fall to the lot of the allied
powers. On these representations, however, we place
but little reliance. St. Jean d'Acre appears to be the
most strongly fortified point in the possession of Ibra-
him Pacha. The operations for the reduction of this
place do not appear to have been commenced at the
date of the last despatches. The blockade of Alexan—
dria has been again postponed to the 21st instant.
There is no other foreign news of any importance, if
we may except the accounts which have reached us
respecting the barbarous cruelties perpetrated by his
dunceship, King Otho of Greece. This young Nero
had better take care what he is doing, or he may be
sent back to Bavaria.

A correspondence has just been published in the
Leeds Intelligencer, with the view of materially injuring
the character, and detracting from the usefulness, of a
society which has already been the instrument of effect-
ing incalculable good in various parts of the country :
we mean the Pastoral Aid Society. As this society
has conferred great benefits upon the town of Liver-
pool, by the appointment of several additional curates,
and as the gentleman to whom the correspondence re-
lates is also a resident of the town, we feel constrained
to bestow a few remarks upon the subject; and the
more especially so because the Pastoral Aid Society,
while it contributes so largely in providing for the spi-
ritual destitution of Liverpool, derives, in return, such
a very inadequate amount of support. During the
past year this excellent society has bestowed upon the
necessities of Liverpool between £5OO and £6OO, in
seven grants made to as many churches ; whilst the
whole return made for such grants, during the same
time, has fallen short of £l5O. Whilst, therefore, an
attempt is made, through the medium of the public
press, to disparage the claims of this admirable asso-
ciation, by representing it as " obtaining support un-
der false pretences," we feel bound, from motives of
gratitude for what the society has done for Liverpool,
to take up the gauntlet in its defence.
The correspondence to which we refer has been pub-
lished by the Rev. John Clark, curate of Hunslet, and
has relation to the appointment of Mr. Briarly Browne,
a gentleman of this town, as assistant curate under the
Pastoral Aid Society. Before we proceed to comment
upon the correspondence itself, it may be here neces-
sary to premise that the Pastoral Aid Society, in the
" Synopsis" of its regulations, states, that " when aid
is sought and granted, the parochial minister must say
how it is to be employed ; he must nominate the per-
sons to be employed; he must engage them, as well as
superintend and entirely controul them. All that the
society does is to provide fOr their remuneration, and,
while so doing, to ask satisfactory proof of their qua-
lifications." We itrust that we shall be able to show,
in the sequel, that the society has strictly and consci-
entiously acted upon the principles thus set forth in
the case before us. Mr. Clark acknowledges that
" nothing could be fairer" than the regulations to
which we have referred. He was perfectly aware that
such were the conditions upon which the society
granted its assistance. With this consciousness he
proceeded to nominate Mr. Briarly Browne as an
assistant curate of Hunslet, under the sanction of the
incumbent. On his nomination, Mr. Browne's testi-