The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-12-08 00:00:00

JOURNAL INSINUATION OF JOBBERY.

Our contemporary of Saturday is really worthy of a
professorship in a Jesuits' college. He can whisper a
charge against a political opponent with such a perfect air
of innocence, that you would imagine all the time that he
had a retainer to defend you from the malice of the
wicked. No journalist is such an adept in saying some-
thing which can, the next minute, be explained away as
meaning nothing—in wrapping up bitter gibes in a sugary
covering, and pandering to the malice of the unworthy,
when he seems to be administering to the object of his
astute attacks doses of flattery, as thickly laid on as an
over-indulgent mother spreads butter and sweets upon
the bread of an obese and over-petted child. An example
of his cleverness in this way is before us, in an article in
his last publication, headed " Should there be another
Police Court ?" We quote the exquisite morceau
:
"We take for granted that the wish expressed by several
gentlemen in the Council, on Monday last, tor a second police-
court, was honest; that they paid no deference to the flattering
exe.zcise of small patronage, and resisted heroically every soft
temptation that approachad them from a distance in the se-
dEctive form of a ' job.' They are honourable men."
Of course, the Journal never meant to insinuate a
charge of jobbing against the several gentlemen in the
Council, who expressed a wish for a second police court.
He states distinctly that he has taken their virtue for
granted. " They are honourable men," who have " re-
sisted heroically every soft temptation that approaches
them from a distance in the seductive form of "a job."
But why, most Jesuitical of journalists, mention the word

" job "at all ? You mean no imputation against these
gentlemen; ergo, the paragraph is all surplusage—as
completely so as would be the verdict of " not guilty,"
pronounced by a jury against a man who has never been
accused of a crime, or placed upon his trial. " Jobp,"
we all know, are generally got up in the dark—in hole and
corner meetings, from which parties suspected of imprac-
ticability are sedulously kept away. Men often canvas
their friends to assist them in " jobs "—drum up for the
signatures of those who have to sit in judgment upon such
"jobs"—earwig people, and place private friendships in
" seductive" opposition to considerations of public ad-
vantage ; and as no auch appliances appear to have been
used by the " several gentlemen in the Council who wish
for a second Police Court," we cannot see why it was
necessary for our contemporary to absolve them from
yielding to any " soft temptations" of jobbing. Most
people will think that, until the Journal is in a position
to deny the charge made by Mr. David Hodgson, against
Mr. Rushton's injudicious friends amongst the magis-
tracy, of having "canvassed for assents" to their recom-
mendation of an Increase of his salary, it was'unwise to
moot the term "job" as connected with the question.

We must seriously remonstrate with our contemporary
against the indulgence of these practices of his. If a man
has a charge to make, let him do so in a manly spirit.
Such Bush -fighting is not creditable toi ournalism.: By
the bve, what does be mean by the following sentence,
referring to the " super-structures" which, he says,
Messrs. David Hodgson and Samuel Holme have erected
upon our remarks ?
"These are only some of the few buildings erected by Mr.
llolme, which cannot stand."
The allusion is as unjust as it is contemptible.

THE LOYAL ORANGE ORDER.—We understand a
general grand lodge of the above body will be held in this
town to-morrow, when it is understood that a code of
laws and an efficient system of operation is likely to be
agreed upon. A large body of noblemen and most in-
fluential gentlemen of the county are expected to second
the operations of the brotherhood.
INCREASE OF MENDICANCY.—During the past fort-
night the suburbs of Liverpool, and especially those at the
North End, have been alcoo4 overrun with beggars, most
of them of the description called " sturdy," and nearly all
apparently fresh importations from the sister isle. It
would really seem as if some organised system of immi-
gration was going on ; for it is scarcely imaginable that
the bulk of these poor creatures, some of whom travel ac-
compinied by three or four tattered children, can have
come across the channel at their own expense. Of course
our own parish officers will have to pass them back again
at the expense of 'the ratepayers of Liverpool. It is ra-
ther too bad that, on every occasion when the failure of a
crop or any other calamity dries up the sources of charity
in Ireland, her habitual beggars are to he drafted over to
this country. A poor law for Ireland is the only remedy
for the evil ; and it is time that we began to demand it as
a measure of justice to Englishmen, who cannot afford to
maintain the poor of both countries.
MEETING OF MAGISTRATES AT THE PUBLIC OFFICE,
TOXTETH-PARK.—On Sa•urday forenoon, a meeting of
--d from the previous Thursday, was
office, Park-road, for the purpose of

held at the Pub

hearing objections against a rate, which was laid to defray
the expenses incurred by the commissioners of the town-
ship of Toxteth-park, in opposing the Liverpool Sanitory
Bill, and also for paving and sewerage. The magistrates
forming this petty sessions were Mr. R. Rodick and Mr.
Fletcher, and there were present several occupiers of
houses in the township, also Mr. Myers, of the firm of
Messrs. Laces. Myers, and Co., the legal advisers of the
magistrates, &c. '1 he question to be decided arose out
of an appeal made by Mr. Joseph Harrison, who had
been rated and refused to pay, on the ground of the rate
being illegally laid, and for whom appeared Mr. Owen,
solicitor, while Mr. Snowball was present for the com-
missioners in support of the rate. It appeared Mr. Har-
rison had been summoned for refusing to pay a sum of
15s. Sd., which he had beets charged, being 4d. in_the

of his premises

!lowed that Vie rate alluded t

others had be

owed a news
re to be laid.

per, containing notices
He contended that, as

was shown by a parallel case that had been tried at Glou-
cester, and to the printed report of which he referred,
that a rate legally laid could not be quashed by the magis-

trates in petty sessions, or even at the quarter. If parties
considered themselves aggrieved by the amountorinequality
of a rate, they might appeal to the justices in petty ses-
sions at Kirkdale, and finally, if they thought fit, to the
quarter sessions. The clerk of the commissioners proved
the due publication of the notices, the calling upon Mr.
Harrison for payment without effect, and other legal
On the other hand, Mr. Owen, for his client,
it there was no proof that the rate-book produced
contained all the names of the occupiers of houses in the
P.He also objected to the manner in which the
were signed, being only by Mr. P. M'Auliffe, the
hen thy ought to have been signed by three of

urged tF

the commissioners. One of the notices, too, ne saw, was
issued on the same day that the rate was laid. and he
thought it should have been published at least a day pre-
viously. Mr. Snowball said that the rate-book signed by
the commissioners was the best evidence, on the face of
it, of the legal laying of the rate. With respect to the
❑otices being signed by the clerk only, that officer signed
them " by order of the commissioners," which was usual,
as in instances of secretaries of railways signing notices
" by order of the directors," to save the time and trouble
of procuring the signatures of the latter. With regard
to one of the notices being published so shortly before
the laying of the rate, it was in accordance with the act,
which expressed that it should be given " immediately be-
fore, or as soon before as convenient." He added that
many of the occupiers had paid the rates, and that it
would be unjust to them not to oblige the defaulters to
pay also. The magistrates, after hearing all that was
urged, decided that the appellant, and others who had de-
declined, must pay the amount, and the bench declined to
enter on the question of the legality of the rate, basing
their decilion on the rate book being, on the face of it,
evidence of the legal laying of the rate. There being no
other business, the meeting then broke up.
On Friday last a man named Edward Hoskins died
froin injuries received whilst loading a cart in King-street.