The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-07-07 00:00:00

current out to sea,

The Quarterly abstract of the Revenue has just been
published. It appears that on the quarter ending
July 5, 1840, as compared with the corresponding
quarter last year, there has been an increase, in the
Customs, of £266,601, in the Excise, of £141,640, in
the Stamps, of £82,228, in the Taxes, of £8,436, and
in the Crown Land Revenue, of £2,500. The decrease
on the quarter, in the Postoffice department, has been
£269,000, and in the Miscellaneous Estimates, £10,495.
The general increase on the quarter is £211,699, and
on the year £147,433. The Postoffice department
exhibits a startling falling off, which can only be in
part accounted for by the increase in the stamp returns.
The income from the Postoflice for the last quarter is
only £lOO,OOO. For the quarter ending July 5, 1839,
it was £369,000. The country must look forward to
the imposition of new taxes, unless the other sources
of revenue arc found sufficient to make up for this
deficiency.

Lord Stanley's Irish Registration Bill was on Thurs-
day night " obstructed" by O'Connell and his mi-

nistrY, on the motion for going into committee, and,
although the principle of the measure was confirmed
by a majority of 149, the object of the radical party—
postponement—was attained. The committee was
fixed again for Thursday next, when we have no doubt
the same course of harassing and .disgraceful oppo-
sition will be Pursued, and the progress of the bill
again delayed.

With respect to the future prospects of the measure
we cannot do better than quote the conclusion of the
admirable and cutting address of Sir Robert Peel
The obstruction which had been offered to this bill
might, perhaps, effect its object, and prevent the bill passing

nto a law during the present session. He confessed he
hardly regretted it, because he was sure that the cause of
ight and justice must ultimately prevail. (Hear, hear.) It
was not in the cause of right and justice that when a pro-
posal was made to consider the details of any measure, the
opposite party raised every possible obstruction to their con-
sideration but he firmly believed that the course adopted
would conciliate, not in England, not in Scotland, but among
the sound-thinking portion of the people of Ireland, (hear,)
so much of favour and confidence towards this bill, that the
temporary success of the obstruction now offered would only
lay the foundation for an ultimate and lasting triumph."—
(Loud cheers from the opposition benches.)

Our contemporary the Liverpool Journal, as the
organ of the Roman Catholic party in this town, has
volunteered a reply to our article of Tuesday lEst, in
which we proved the existence of Ribbonism in Liver-

pool, from documents produced in court upon the

trial of Jones, the Ribbon secretary. That fact is now
established beyond dispute, and no casuistry of the
Journal can shake it. The hideous features of the
monster, whose hands are dripping with the blood of
Irish Protestantism, have been welcomed in Liverpool ;
the secret poison, whose operation convulses and mad-
dens Ireland, has invaded our own Protestant town ;
and unless extirpated by the hand of justice or operated
upon by the powerful action of public opinion, may
produce effects the bare imagination of which is re-
volting to the feelings of humanity.
Has our contemporary succeeded in weakening our

position ? Has he shown that in any of our assertions,
or in the evidence by which we have established their

truth, we have been guilty of misstatement or perver-
sion ? He has not, most assuredly. His feeble attempt

,o wipe away the blot which stains the character of his

Roman Catholic fellow-townsmen is from beginning to
end a paltry shuffle. He dare not deny that a secret
association, composed exclusively of Papists, and cor-
responding by secret signs, extends throughout Ireland
and a great portion of England and Scotland. But,
forsooth, this association is not a Ribbon association—
is a very " harmless" affair—has "no distinct object
or intention, least of all that of systematic murder ;"
and as it affects the character of " the very few Irish
residents in Liverpool who may have been members of
the society," its existence is a matter of very trifling
moment, and ought not to be made a charge against
them.

To prove the innocuous nature of this "harmless"
association, for being a member of which an Irish
judge has been compelled—we use the word advisedly—
to inflict the punishment of transportation, the Journal
quotes the charge of Mr. Justice Ball, in which some-
thing very nearly akin to sympathy with the objects of
the society is manifested. But does even this docu-
ment negative the position which we have taken ? Not
at all ; for in despite of the roundabout attempt of the
learned judge to soften down the features and hide
the dangerous tendency of the association, the truth
forces its way from amongst the intricate and elabo-
rately wrought apologetic tracery in which he has stri-
ven to conceal it, and he is compelled to acknowledge
that this " apparently harmless" society (the Journal
will see our reason for inserting the word "apparently"
in italics) " is formidable in its adaptation to any pur-
pose, however criminal, which, through design or acci-
dent, its leaders might be prompted to undertake."
And what are those purposes ? Who are those
leaders ? Aye, these are the questions to which we
should like to receive a reply. The objects of an as-
sociation so gigantic in its extent—so perfect in its or-
ganization—are not revealed to agents so obscure as
this Jones—are not revealed to the ignorant serfs of
the Irish priesthood, who compose its main body in the
sister country, or to the hodmen and lumpers who
compose the branches in Liverpool. But that the
Ribbon conspiracy has objects of vast and fearful im-
port there are few men mad or blind enough to deny.
Our contemporary indeed would have us to believe
that they are of a similar nature to those of trade com-
binations in England and Scotland; that they are not
of a political or treasonable nature. But when we find
amongst their documents allusion to armed movements
for the purpose of accomplishing political objects;
when we find projects for seducing our soldiers to
" turn their arms against their paymasters ;" when we
find from their passwords that those objects will only
be attained. when Ireland's sons "shall he prepared for
fights," it is tasking our credulity a little too much to
ask us to believe that an association, so extensive, is
organised for the " harmless" purposes which its pro-
Popish apologist would have us to conclude.
No ; there is evidence conclusive enough upon the
face of even the few documents produced upon the late
trial which have been allowed. to obtain publicity, that
Ribbonism is but the machinery of treason and out-
rage in Ireland. Let any impartial observer examine
carefully the state of that distracted land for the series
of years during which this conspiracy has been organ-
izing itself; let him view the wild turmoil of faction, of
revenge, of incendiarism, stilled at once, as by a mas-
ter-hand, and succeeded by a calm, boding and unna-
tural, like the temporary quiet of a sleeping volcano.
Let him contemplate the circumstances attending those
mysterious acts of blood which from time to time have
horrified the whole empire, and whose perpetrators,
" known to hundreds, have never been divulged ;" let
him weigh these things and discover, if he can, any
other source to which the state of society of which they
betray the evidence can be attributed.

We never did and we do not now charge any great
portion of our Irish Catholic fellow-townsmen with a
participation in or a cognizance of these atrocities.
No : we trust that it is not in human nature that any
body of men, not utterly brutalized, would willingly
and knowingly become parties to such a hideous sys-
tem. We know that the leaders, the fiends in human
shape who pull the wires of this engine of blood and
death, carefully shroud their designs from the great
body of their wretched dupes ; but is their character
less dangerous on that account ? Is the system more
to be tolerated ? Not at all. In this very secrecy is
its greatest terror. The assassin may not know to-day
whose blood he is to shed to-morrow; but so long as
he is bound by a solemn oath to strike wherever he is
bidden, and to strike even to the death, he is a mur-
derer, although his hand may have never touched blood
or his thought meditated the taking away the life of a
fellow-creature !

We shall not be deterred by the Jesuitry of our
contemporary or the frantic blackguardism of his
" Swiss" correspondent from bringing the subject again
and again before the public. We do this with no feel-
ing of enmity to the Irish residents of Liverpool. We
would on the contrary snatch them from the fangs of
this soul-destroying confederacy of murderers and
traitors. We have in evidence, upon the authority of
her Majesty's Attorney-General for Ireland, that Rib-
bonism is increasing.; that " there is scarcely a single
post which comes from the country (Ireland) without
bringing him information of the existence and con-
tinued operations of the association ;" and we hold it
to be our duty, in common with the whole Protestant
press of the kingdom, to do our utmost in unmasking
the features and betraying the secret workings of this
system of Thuggism, which, to the eternal disgrace of
our common humanity, is allowed to desolate and
brutalize an unhappy country.
In conclusion, let us remind our contemporary that
this fellow Jones is not the only party upon whom jus-
tice has to be done. There are still other pasties to be
tried, and further disclosures to be made; and, depend
upon it, that sooner or later the MURDER WILL, OUT.

" contemporary print," in his Saturday's fit of
frenzy, has fallen foul of us for having, amongst other
offences, reprobated the apparent lukewarmness of cer-
tain leaders amongst the Conservative party, upon the
question of church extension. In alluding in our last
to the defeat of Sir Robert Inglis's motion, by a narrow
majority of 17, we expressed an opinion to which we
still hold, that, with ordinary exertions that motion
might have been carried; and. we asked, " Where were
Sir Robert Peel, Sir James Graham, Lord Stanley, and
others of their party, when tl us motion was under dis-

cussion ?"

To this question the Mail replies, that these gentle-
men were " where they oug ht to be—voting in the
ranks of the conservatives—in strict attendance upon
their duty," and forthwith he proceeds to treat us with
a volley of his peculiarly eleg ant vituperation, and to
charge us with insinuating that Sir Robert Peel and
his brother Conservatives hail fallen back into "the
ranks of the assailants of the British church and con-