The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-10-08 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS,

The letter of " A Resident" arrived too late to be even.
perused.
The advertisement of the Hull Alrnanack and Diary cannot
be inserted unless we receive a reference for payment.
" J. W.'s" letter aid not reach us until too late for publi-
cation.

Ebt Kibirpool Rptanbatt.

FRIDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 8, 1841.

We had the pleasure of laying before our readers
on Tuesday, a tolerably full report of the great meeting
which was held at the Amphitheatre on the preceding
afternoon. Feats of expedition of this kind have been
so long familiar to the public, even in the provinces,
that we may seem to pass out of our line in claiming
the smallest attention for such an effort. There is,
however, an exertion, neither small nor trifling, re-
quired for the successful accomplishment of these mat-
ters out of the capital, of which our good public has
in general but little idea; and the reason is this, that
that which is in the metropolis the labour of ten or
twelve. becomes, in any other place, the work of one or
two only. A practised corps of reporters is turned out
to take in successive order, and successive portions,
for the London morning paper, a task which must be
executed in the same time by the far more limited staff
of the provincial journalist ; and if this can be, and
not unfrequently actually is, performed with as much
dispatch and accuracy in the one case as the other, we
must certainly take leave to claim for our provincial
brethren and for ourselves, when we happen to he in
the efficient number, a degree of credit proportioned
to the difficulties overcome. and the odds against us.
The most interesting inquiry connected with this
meeting seemed to be, whether any or what change
would have been wrought in the society by the recent
ejection of the Radicals from power—and this ques-
tion has, we think, been very satisfactorily answered.

Our Protestant Associations are established on a basis
which can be but slightly affected by so temporary a
circumstance, however important it may be in itself, as
a mere change of administration. They are not pri-
marily political—they are rather religious societies;
and as yet there appears no reason why they should
make any deviation from that plan of proceeding, or
depart from those views with which they originally
started.

But it may be said, that when we have a thoroughly
Protestant government, the association becomes super-
fluous ; the government itself will then do all that
would be expected of the association. To this it is
answered, that by the same rule various other volun-
tary associations for useful, or Christian purposes,
ought to cease the moment that good men are placed at
the helm—who will at once feel all their good works
and designs to be a care upon themselves. The objec-
tion is therefore manifestly weak and insufficient ; but
it is at the same time one calculated insidiously to ope-
rate, and paralyse the exertions of many.
It was forcibly and justly remarked by Mr. M`Neile
that we have just as much need, in a religious point of
view, for a great and powerful combination for the pur-
pose of withdrawing men from the errors of Romanism,
as we have for such a combination to deliver them from
the darkness of Judaism, or Heathenism. Now the
fact is, that we have not only as much need, but a
great deal more ;
we have " as much " because, as we
are bound to believe, and as we do believe, Popery is a
soul-destroying system ; and we have in the second.
place " more "—because Romanism prey ails snore ex-
tensively at home, and because it contains w ithin it, an

active .spirit of proselytism, which is not to be found in
either of the others.
But the Protestant Association calls for the aid of

Protestants on a defensive principle. Popery is an
aggressive system, and it continues to spread and
prosper, we regret to say, within the British domi-.
nions. This is no vague conjecture, or delusion ; it is
a fact. Ireland sends out her swarms every year who
settle in Great Britain, at the rate, we think, of 50,000

annually. The party have for the present, lost the
control of the executive ; t u let us not be deceived
into the supposition that ib • snake is more than
scotched. The system is aliv: , and in full vigour. The
Papists of Ireland are at this moment possessing them-
selves of all the municipal corporations of that country,
which by a most absurd and mistaken policy, have
been transferred into their hands by a solemn act of
the legislature. Mr. Daniel O'Connell will undoubt-
edly be the new Lord Mayor of Dublin—the first under
the new law—the very: first papist chief magistrate
since James II ! These things will re-act upon us ;
we shall feel them here in England, and to the Pro-
testant Associations'we look as one means of counter-
acting their effects. The Protestant Association of Li-
verpool will not forfeit any portion of that high charac-
ter which it enjoys throughout the kingdom by falling
away at this time. The great meeting of Monday gives
auspicious and satisfactory promise to this effect.
It is unnecessary to offer any lengthened remarks
on the representation put forward by Mr. Stowell
in censure of our representatives in Parliament. He
was immediately put right, and it will be distinctly
remembered that Lord Sandon and Mr. Cresswell,
in their first addresses, and in maliy subsequent
speeches, made, in the most Christian and distinct
terms, frequent declarations of their firm attachment
to•sound Protestant principles.

Our Worshipful Mayor presided over a " nice ga-
thering "—(we do n't think)—on Saturday night last.
It was one of those expiring efforts which the miserable
and contemptible Anti-Corn-Law League has been
making here and there where they could get a few idle
mechanics to set the thing going, and a knot of silly
gentlemen who dub themselves reverends, or esquires,
to give an air of dignity to the concern. The demon-
stration was first made in the chief city of the league,
and subsequently in any hole or corner where parties
such as we allude to, could be found to undertake the
agency. In every instance the attempted agitation has
been most ludicrously abortive—the anti-corn-law sea-
son was found to be over—the thing was defunct, and
there was no resuscitating it.

Among the last of these lame and drivelling attempts
we believe we may reckon the miserable farce of last
Saturday night. The thing was so bad that even Mr.

W. Rathbone disclaimed having had any hand in get-
ting it up. "He wished the public " he said, "to be
aware that it had not originated with what was com-
monly called the broad cloth. They had consulted
about it indeed, but did not think there was sufficient
spirit in the town to justify them in assembling the inha-
bitants." They left it therefore to " Kelly the cobbler
and Jones the porter," and these men with a few of
their companions, nothing loth, went to work—aidcd
most likely by a little greasing from the millocrat junto,
and the result was that respectable assembly in whose
name our worshipful chief magistrate had the honour
to sign a petition to the Queen, requesting of her not
to dissolve parliament till their wishes were attended to.
The request was certainly most particularly modest,
and whatever her majesty,s intentions, or those of her
ministers may have heretofore been, we do expect that
they will be immediately re-considered, or perhaps en-
tirely changed at the instance of such gifted and re-
sponsible advisers as Kelly the cobbler, and Jones the
porter.

As to our " Thomas Bolton, Esq., Mayor," he cer-
tainly is, what they call in Ireland, "a broth of a boy."
He had been sent a copy of the resolutions intended to
be passed at the grand carouse; but he declared that
he had not had time to read them : but, gentlemen,
said he " any thing from you must be good." This
was received with immense applause ; and Billy Rath-
bone afterwards declared, that in all his life he had
never met with so superhumanly and transcendantly
excellent an .tithority" as his worship. By the by,
we should mention, that it is likely we shall soon have
to count this worthy Whig and Radical—we mean Mr.
Itathbone—in our Tory lists. He has certainly got
his foot upon the pivot, and will most likely be brought
round in a short time: We make this important. an-
nouncement upon the best possible'authority, and have
only to add, that we shall feel happy in recording so
remarkable a conversion.

In conclusion, we cannot but remark that the con-
duct of the Mayor in presiding at such a meeting was
in bad taste, if not without precedent. When the late
Mr. Wallace Currie was chief magistrate, he had the
manliness and good sense to decline taking the chair at
a meeting on the Irish Corporation Bill, on the, same
grounds that Mr. Thomas Bolton accepted the honour
on the present occasion.
As to the rest of the sayings and doings of this
Saturday night convention, they are not worth wasting
ink upon. There was a row, of course ; nothing less
could be expected; in beer and Radical politics there
was an action and re-action which must inevitably
work this result on a Saturday night. The Mayor,
however, threatened one of the Jones's with the
police; and after much confusion, brawling, and non-
sense, the muddled mechanics were at length sent
home. We would recommend his Worship, the next
time he intends gracing such an assembly with his
dignified presence, to choose some other night of the
week, instead of Saturday, for the work. Such pas-
time forms but an indifferent preparation for the
services of the sanctuary on the following day.