The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-02-26 00:00:00

have no right to complain of the New Poor Law Act,
because in Parliament Tories as well as Whigs assisted
in the passing of it. This is his editorial whig law,
which, however good in itself, we fear, he will not find
so efficient in its sanctions as he might desire. For
our part, though we allow that for our sins we must
sometimes submit to the infliction of Whig legislation,
we know of no right that a Whig gentleman of the
fourth estate has to make laws for us, and we appeal
against his jurisdiction. Let it be a rule for Whigs to
persevere in ill-doing, if the fates
,will have it so ; but
for Tories, we claim the right of retractation and
amendment when they perceive that there has been
error in any of their proceedings.
We are now threatened with a brace of nuisances
against which the inhabitants of Liverpool ought, in
our humble opinion, to make every resistance, at least
in their own behalf, let others do as they may : we al-
lude, certainly, in the first instance, to the introduction
of the New Poor Law Act into the borough, and, in
the second, to the extension of the powers of the pro-
posed commission under Lord Normanby's Building
and Drainage Bill within our jurisdiction. •
We take, as a common ground of objection to these
twin Whig blessings, that here at least we stand in no
need of them, and may well claim to be exonerated
from their bestowment. We do not say that in other
places the Building and Drainage Act, when properly
modified, may not be found useful; nor is it at all ne-
cessary for our purpose that we should go at length
into the questio vexata between the new poor law and
the old. Enough is it for us to contend, simply, that
Liverpool is sufficiently well able to take care of its
own poor upon the existing system and principle of
self-government; and as to the building and drainage
measure, that if it required one, Liverpool would na-
turally prefer a local act for itself, to being compre-
hended in a general enactment such as that projected.
It is, we conceive, nothing less than an insult to include.
under the centralising administration of Government
Commissioners, a city of the magnitude, importance,
and character of Liverpool, as if it were incapable of
self-government ; and we think that the more wealthy
and intelligent classes of its inhabitants ought—not for
this reason only, but for the prevention of great prac-
tical evil and injury to the poor especially—to use every
exertion that the operation of these bills may be kept
without its boundaries.

As to the Bastile system, and its grinding economy,
enough has been said to make every man who feels for
the poor of the neighbourhood in which he resides
both anxious and alert to save them from such a cala-
mity; and, as to the Building and Drainage Act, even
in that case also we are called upon for the sake of the
poor still further to stern the torrent of Whig tyranny
and injustice. Some of the clauses of that act inter-
meddle with the concerns of the poor and the rights of
Englishmen in a manner which we trust will never be
endured either in legislation or in practice in this
country.

Lord Normanby proposes to settle by act of Parlia-
ment the size of rooms and the height of windoms.—"No
room in any house built after the passing of this act in
any such town or village, having only one room on the
ground floor, or having four rooms in all, shall be less
than 8 feet in height from the floor to the ceiling ; and
in every such house there shall be at least one room of
not less dimensions than twelve feet from the back to
the front in the clear thereof, and 12 feet from one side
to the other side in the clear thereof, exclusive of any
space which may be taken of for any closet or stair-
case."

And, " In every room containing 144 square feet of
flooring in any house built after the passing of this act
in any such town or village, there shall be at least one
window, the dimensions of which shall be not less than
4 feet 9 inches in height, and not less than three feet
wide in the clear of the sash frame ; and every such
window shall be either a casement window opening
on hinges, or the sashes shall be double hung, opening
both at the top and bottom.",
If this becomes law, not only cannot a man build,
but we suppose (if there .is
.to be any consistency in
the thing) he cannot alter or divide a room in his house
without running the- -risk of.having it pulled down ;
yes, incredible as it may appear, pulled down.
By the 29th and 30th clauses, any two justices of
the peace are enabled to declare a house " irregularly
built" a common nuisance, and to order it to be
" abated or taken down" at the owner's expense.
"This reckless and wanton invasion of property and
liberty," justly observes the Times, in commenting on
this bill, "is proposed by a liberal government in the
nineteenth century, and in a country where every man's
house' was formerly said to be his castle.' Any un-
fortunate workman who may wilfully, carelessly, or
negligently" make a window an inch too short, or a
room a foot too small, is to be visited with heavy pe-
nalties ; and public surveyors are appointed, to whom
every master workman or other person who, after the
passing of this act, shall build, or cause to be built,
any house, or any addition to a house, in any such town
or village,' will be obliged to give notice, before it is
begun, and after it is finished ; and these public sur-
veyors are authorised to take the whole direction pf
the works into their own hands, (and to demand a fee
for so doing,) and are required to inform against any
deviation from the statutable dimensions."

Such being the extraordinary provisions of this mea
sure, well may we wish that Liverpool should be ex
empt from its operation.

In another part of our paper this day will be found
a report of the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne, and
Manchester Railway Company. The very satisfactory
statements made in the report cannot but prove highly
gratifying to the shareholders. When this line is com-
pleted it will doubtless be a very profitable one, as it
will command not only an extensive carrying trade,
but the number of passengers upon it will be very
great. Seven or eight miles of the line will be opened
this year.