The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-02-21 00:00:00

SIGEE and KELLY, and so on to the end of the list ;
and were parliamentary interference—aid—required, they
are there to demand and command it—cui bond ? Why
represent the Inns of Court ? Because Lord JOHN Rus-
SELL took a "pea" from below one "thimble" and must
place it under another—or keep it in his palm, as monkeys
do chestnuts in their mouths, first munched and then swal-
lowed. Lord JonN has disfranchised extensively ; in some
cases deservedly so. He had got such a stock of members
afterwards on hand to keep up the 658, that he really did
not know where to put them, There's the short and the
long of it. Transposition—" pea-shifting"—is the gist of
the bill : counties and boroughs are swamped, or the landed
aristocracy as opposed to manufacturing population : a
" counterpoise" is created to influence house and land by

the infusion of borough voters into county constituencies ;
and again, operative ones into the boroughs. The debate
was listened to with apathy ;—the house was certainly
well filled : but nobody could understand why the noble
lord should ask for a month for the second reading. Per-

taps he thought, as he appeared to do when he proposed

the bill, that men's minds by that time will be occupied
with considerations of metal, if not more attractive, of

more import.

Both houses of our legislature, on Tuesday evening, pre-
sented a magnificent appearance,—the House of Peers
supremely so. lam not to set readers asleep by analysing
the debates in either house, though both were on interest-

ing subjects : these were merely " pegs" upon which to
hang speeches, for both motions were withdrawn. Nine
peers sustained the combat in the upper arena. The
motion was CLANRICA.RDE'S, for papers on the Eastern
question : the ingenuity with which the old dive of CAN-
NING dealt with the subject was admitted by CLARENDON,
who followed the noble mover. Next in order of speaking
was rich ELLESMERE, in personnel delicate, cold, calm.
His lordship will be much more at home when he gets
actual possession of that peerless palazzo he has all but
finished, situated on the margin of the Green Park, for the
storing of which with the most rare and recherché works
of literature and art his lordship's purse is always open
ELLESMERE has had just sent home to him a truck-full of
MSS. of original plays, farces, &c., which were in the pos-
session of an old licenser, and which will fill up the blank
between the elder dramatists and those of a more recent
date. The British Museum was too poor to buy them—
ELLESMEUE was not. In a short time, anybody can see
this and other " curiosities of literature, " with as much

facility as if they had been deposited in the B. M.
In the debate, MALmEssuns followed ELLESMERE ;
next came one whose snowy head has not been
seen for many a day in parliament—sleepy CHARLIE
GRANT, the Whig Lord GLENELG—who, when young,
comparatively, during a debate, dozed as a weazel in the
sun, and, like that insinuating varmint, was as wide
awake. For all the canny care, caution, nous, and it may
be, gude manners of his country—honoured Caledonia—

CHARLES GRANT still follows the bad example of turning
his back upon the world—the reporters thereof. On the
present occasion he was scarcely heard. Earl GREY, poor-
looking, withered and crippled in body, came next ; and
was followed by the most intellectual-visaged man in the
QUEEN'S dominions—the young Duke of ARGYLE. Fore-
head—" dome of thought"—towering in superfluous mag-
nificence ; eyes, Italian fire ; nose, exquisite (somewhat
BILLY PITTISH), and correctly placed ; lips, classically
compressed. A spectator wonders that such a one is a
son of the rough north, rather than of sunny Italy. Lord
DERBY was valiant, bitter—very, and taxing ; twitting
government on the support of Earl GREY, who had ex-
pressed his own view of the question, to wit, that the
government -was too hostile in its intentions,—that, in
brief, Turkey was not worth a coffee berry. Nor was old
ABERDEEN deficient in pluck and spite ; he told DERBY,
very contemptuously, that he would be sure to blame
government either way—with rashness or timidity.
Mr. OLIVIERA, who, last vintage, ran over the light
wine countries, and came home fraught with statistics of
the grape, brought forward, the same evening as the fore-
going, his reduction of wine duties question. The hon.
member's speech—wisely written beforehand, and got by
heart for delivery—ought to be read by every wine mer-
chant in Liverpool, and every wine drinker in the three
kingdoms. Mr. OLIVIERA. was snubbed (unreported) by
Mr. SPEAKER, for bringing the question forward, know-
ing that Mr. GLADSTONE could not afford the reduction.
It is curious that we have clarets and champagnes (? ? ?)
as cheap as Mr. OLivisne. could wish them. The cheap
wine-drinking dodge, I am glad to perceive, is dying
away. About a year ago our artizans and others strongly
patronized the large fourpenny ale glassful of sherry ;
the taste appears to be undergoing a change for good ale,
which is cheaper and better, and a thousand times more
elevating ; and that is the question after all.
" Tell me the company you keep," says one—" the
songs of your country," says another ; even "straws
thrown up" indicate which way the wind blows. These
and a thousand other familiar illustrations might be safely
taken as indications of a person's and a people's character.
They say, when children are seen to " play at soldiers," it
may be fairly rendered a prelude to the real play. I have
been led into these hop-step-and-jump remarks, by having
seen exhibited at a conversazione, a night or two ago—it
may be both in sorrow and in anger—a list of books—l
suppose I must desecrate the name—ordered for imme-
diate shipment to our Australian colony. No harm in
sending books there, surely. Such books ! I shall not de-
file pen, ink, and paper, by naming them ; nor the eyes
and ears of your readers. The class of works enumerates
all the published trash, since the days when ROCHESTER
was said to write. The secreted and obscene stores of
parties well known, and suffering the penalties of such pub-
lications, are ordered to be ransacked, and, unfortunately,
notwithstanding the exertions of the Vice Suppression So-
ciety, there are understood to be plenty of the worse than
garbage to be had. The equally filthy and hidden treasures
—for such they are considered—contained in that narrow
and polluted avenue which skirts a portion of the greatest
metropolitan thoroughfare, yclept Holywell-street, are
likewise ordered to be obtained at almost any price. In
the list referred to, scarcely one proper work is mentioned
as likely to be in demand for the delectation of the count-
less swarms of gold-diggers—they chiefly—and others,
now to be found in this part of the globe. The keepers of
circulating libraries there—oh, gentle dulness, hitherto
pure among us, thou press of Minerva ! how art thou
fallen—the circulating libraries of Australia are making
fortunes for their keepers, by lending such works ; none
else among the million appear to go down. Their weight
in gold is sometimes given for the ribald trash, after it
has passed, all tatters, through the horny hands of hun-
dreds of diggers. So says the mem. accompanying this
most unholy order, examined but the other night, as I
have said, by some of the first scholars and litterateurs in
the metropolitan circles. From such works the character
of the great herd of the population of Australia may be
learned. Good works are to be found there ; forbid it
should be otherwise ; but what are these (few) among so
many P Why are not these inflammatory publications
inhibited ?—their exportation prevented ? It is publica-
tion, which is penal at home. Surely it is as bad to have
such works current at Melbourne and Bendigo : they will
do much more harm at the Antipodes than in this coun-
try. lam quite certain that if the Colonial Secretary had
his attention drawn to the fact—which I do now—some
means might be devised to put a stop to the impure
supply.

The war in Asia, in the midst of all this pother, is
almost forgotten. Few persons are aware that the gallant
soldier fighting on the side of the Turks there, PERTs
PASHA, General GuYoN, is a subject of Queen VICTORIA.
It has been said that GUYON is °co Irish extraction ; that
his name may have been GEOGHA.N, and, by a transforma-
tion natural enough, turned into GUYON—as SULLIVAN
into SILvAIN. No such thing; the family is of French ex-
traction, the name spelt always as it is, and, further, the
Pasha's brother, JOHN GuYoN, holds command in the
British army. The mother of both distinguished soldiers
is still alive, at that lovely Cockney retreat, Richmond, a
few miles from the metropolis. When FRRIIC Runts. was
elevated by the Sultan, a formula was granted by His Ma-
jesty to GUYON, reserving to him his "faith and obser-
vances." •

" Safe malignity" is at work, or has been. I have no
doubt at all that Lord JohN RUSSELL is spiteful—remem-
bers an injury, supposed or real, long and hot ; that he is,
in short, what Joint WILSON CROICER represents him to
be. At the very moment when I was turning out my last
epistle, Lord JOHN was paying out Sir CIIA.S. NAPIER :
there was a row : Lord JOHN RUSSELL, recollecting what
the commodore said of him, put a spoke in the sailor's
" wheel"—a " screw" was loose. I give you Reform Club
gossip. NAPIER is only to be second fiddle.
Beyond the proverbial uncertainty of the law, the uncer-
tainty of men and things theatrical is more profoundly
uncertain. An example of this assertion was presented at
the Olympic Theatre, a few night ago, in the production
of a new dramatic sketch, by Mr. CHORLEY, the well-
known musical and dramatic critic of the Athenceum.
Journalism and its professors have never been but to be
tabooed in England; yet Mr. CHORLEY, without the gifts
or accomplishments, much of goodly presence, winning
manners, or conversation, has managed for several years
to be received in the rather better circles. For example :
in the avenue of the pit of the Grand Opera you may,
without much exertion, overhear CILOELB; with a Lon