The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-04-13 00:00:00

snoutu nave sei
an opinion and to 6
I never saw such a

said the government would follow the suggestions con-
tained in it • but he should remember that they have
thrown aside reports of more consequence than this.
(` Not water reports.') Ido not know whether they were
fire or water reports, but the principle is the same ; and
this I know, that there never was anything like to this
repOrt ; for a more foolish, inconsistent, ignorant piece of
stuff never was collected together. (Loud laughter) "
Now it may be that the principle, upon which

these ambulatory commissions are based, is bad.
We rather imagine that they had their origin with
Mr. Earle's own party. We never heard Mr. Earle
himself denounce the mission of a New Poor Law
Commissioner as either a farce, or the execution of
his task as something little less than a swindle.
Oh no ! The delegates of Somerset House and
Municipal and other Commissioners have always
been, in Mr. Earle's eyes, the most pure, enlight-
ened and virtuous of human beings, perhaps be-
cause they never interfered. with any of his pet
crotchets. • Messrs. Herbert and Page unfor-
tunately have so interfered; hint ille irce—hence
these contortions of temper, and these vials of
wrath opened above their unhappy heads.
We could have pardoned any degree of exaspe-
ration, however, which the honorable gentleman—
we beg his pardon, the worthy Councillor—might
have felt, as well as any amount of oddity in his
way of expressing his feelings ; but when he goes
on to impute to Messrs. Herbert and-Page absolute
incompetency for the task intrusted to them, we
must—as to the latter at least ; the former we have:
not the pleasure of knowing—beg leave to cry him
nay. Mr. Page is fully competent—competent
beyond the ordinary run of such officials ; and
unless Mr. Earle has seen something which he had
not the opportunity of seeing—unless he has been
down on an exploratory expedition into the strata
around Liverpool, or guaged to the fraction of an
inch the fall of rain on Rivington Pike—unless he
has ascertained to a nicety the demands of the
mill owners for compensation and determined,
what Mr. Hawksley his pet engineer has never yet
accurately determined, the cost, yield, and capability
of his rivulets and reservoirs, we should be' dis-
posed to back the professional and unbiassed opi-
nion of Mr. Page against the second hand opinion
of. the Whig-Radical member for St. Anne's Ward.

It is just-possible that.the Government may be
in error in -the conclusions to which they have
come. It is possible also that the engineerS con-
sulted by the Council may be wrong, as the Coun-
cil have already decided that one competent party,
employed by them, and who reported against their
scheme—Mr. Cunningham—was wrong. Engin-
eers, like doctors, differ; and few men are infallible.
The public however in these matters are disposed
to trust the impartial opinion of the Umpires—in
which position Messrs. Page and Herbert stand—
rather than the opinion of the retained counsel or
the retained engineer in favor of his own scheme.

SMALL DEBTS COURT.—This Court was opened for the
first time, yesterday, under the new Small Debts Act,
by Mr. Lowndes,: the presiding Judge of the Court.
At St. James's Church, on Sunday last, the sum of
£27 was collected for the schools attached to the church,
after sermons by the Rev. W. Chave and the Rev. H.
Hampton.
On Sunday last, after two very excellent sermons, by
the Rev. Hugh Stowell, of Manchester, the sum of
£97 10s. was collected in St. Andrew's Church, in this
town, in aid of the funds of the schools in connexion
with the.church.
ST. JUDE'S RELIEF FUND.—The amount received by
the committee, up to last night, was £4,801, but we are
sorry to learn that the balance in the treasurers hand is
reduced to £3 18s. 2d., while the applications (to quote
from the brief but expressive appeal of the committee)
daily reaching the committee from various parts of Ire-
land, continue to be of the most urgent .and distressing
character. _ _ _

Archdeacon Rushton stated at a meeting of the friends
of national education in Manchester on Friday, that dur-
ing the last five years there had been 186 new day schools
in connection with the Church of England in the diocese
of Chester alone, while the whole number erected through
the British and Foreign School Society in England and in
Scotland for that period was not more than 192. At the
same meeting the Rev. Hugh Stowell stated that his con-
gregation had contributed £4,000 for the establishment
of schools in connection with the church, that they had
never received a farthing from the state, and that they
did not anticipate receiving any assistance.