The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-02-16 00:00:00

Grand Total .. 11,503 6282 17,785

Miscellaneous Cases (in addition to the above) heard before
the Magistrates during the year :

Informations, for penalties
Assaults, by summons ....
For damage to property, by summons
Against pawnbrokers, by summons ..
Against apprentices, by summons ....
By seamen, for wages, by summons ..
Against benefit societies, by summons.
For unlawfully pawning, by summons
For detaining a stolen dog, by summons
For threatening violence to the person, by summons
Masters against handicraftsmen, by summons ....
Complaints under ships passengers' act, by summons
Detaining effects of seamen, by summons
Detaining ships' registers, by summons
Complaints to recover possession, under the small
100
tenement act
Information, for Excise penalties 62
Ditto Ditto 20
Recruits attested 828

8,296
1,362
173
121
167
224

Applications (average 15 daily)
The following is an account of business transacted
for the Parish :
Complaints by overseers against persons for re-
fusing to support their parents, whereby 2
they become chargeable
By overseers, for non-payment of poor-rates.... 619
Ditto, for orders of Irernoval of paupers 1 109
to parishes in England
Passes of Irish and Scotch paupers .. 3091
Orders in bastardy
Complaints against parties for non-payment of } 1568
watch and sewerage rates

- 5,471

39,240

An abstract of the accounts of Ellis and Shuttleworth, the
clerks to the magistrates, with the Treasurer of the Bo-
rough Fund of the Borough of Liverpool, from Nov. 1,
1839, to October 31, 1840 :
By cash received for fees, and paid over to 1 £2,383 16 3
the Borough Fund
By amount of bills, for business done 1,357 4 6

Less salaries, selves and clerks, printing,
stationery, law stationery, advertising,
and all other expenses

J 03,741 0 9

Balance in favour of the Borough Fund

2,068 14 6

£1,672 6 3

* This disparity with regard to the sexes, as compared
with the offenders in other—and particularly Manufacturing
—places, probably may arise from the general want of em-
ployment for females in a maritime town, and the allurements
to which they are consequently exposed.

A GLANCE AT THE POLITICS OF THE WEI3K.

(From our London Correspondent.)

The subjects which have this week occupied the attentiore
of parliament, although productive of no decided results as
regards the relative position of the two great contending
parties, have yet not been unimportant. The ministerial
measure for prolonging the existence of the poor law com-
mission, and increasing the already too extensive powers, by
which the Somerset-house triumvirate are enabled to " grind
the faces of the poor," may, I fear, be considered as already
carried. Some alterations may perhaps be made in the bill
when in committee ; but there is little hope that an important
amelioration can be gained in the working of the law, by any
thing short of the destruction of the absolutism at present
vested in the commissioners, and which it is obvious that the
ministry are resolved upon perpetuating.
As an instance of the cold-blooded philosophy of its I ni-
nisterial advocates in the House of Commons, I cannot re-
frain from calling the attention of your readers to a few r
marks which fell from Lord Howick, and which occupy a
prominent position amidst the general mass of heartless sen-
timent, emanating from the whig party during the debate. It
was urged upon the house by Sir Edward Knatchbull, as an.

instance of the unfeeling principle upon which this malthu-
sian measure is at present worked by the Somerset-house
trio, that the guardians of a parish in Kent had been refused
the privilege of saving from utter starvation, by the admi-

nistration of temporary out-door relief, a number of their in-
dustrious poor who, during the late severe weather, were un-
able to pursue their ordinary argricultural employments, and.
consequently deprived of the means of providing for the

pressing wants of themselves and their families. And what
was, in substance, the reply of the utilitarian lordling ? Why,
that the utter impenetrability of the poor law commission-
ers to any feeling resembling humanity constitutes the very
essence of the system. The starving to death occeasionally
of a few men, women, and children, will afford a useful les-
son to the labouring poor of the necessity of encouraging
habits of provident saving, and of laying up n store for such
emergencies as the one in question ! Upon the same princi-
ple the charity which has been so humanely administered in

Liverpool during the last month should have been withheld,
and its recipients lacerated into the acceptance of the corn-

forts of the union &utile (not the Liverpoo 1 Workhouse),
unless they should have preferred to die of starvation in a
ditch, or to earn, by the commission of crime, the compara-
tively humane shelter of a prison.

But enough upon this topic. One thing, however, I may
as well remark. The people of Liverpool are about to expe-
rience the coil of the serpent round their necks, and the sys-
tem is threatened to be put in force in all its cold-bloodcd
atrocity—damming up the sluices of that charity which 110`11
prompts the parochial authorities to minister to the tempo—
rary wants of the poor, and rendering poverty a crime, pu-
nishable with perpetual imprisonment, and with the severing
of every social tie, whenever the alternatives of starvation,
suicide, or the gallows are not embraced in preference.
The proposition of the Board of Trade to equalize the du-
ties upon East and West India rum will, there is little doubt,
be carried into effect during the present session. It is grati-
fying, however, to notice the intimation which was afforded
by Lord John Russell during the debate, that at length the
government are ready to bring in a measure of immigration,
to relieve the present difficulties of the West India planters.
It is presumed that his lordship is in earnest.
So far as the session has progressed, notwithstanding their
defeats out of doors, the ministry have carried matters with

a tolerably high hand. The conservative party in the House
of Commons appear to be dispirited by the unaccountable
apathy which hangs over the proceedings, and. is evident in
the man►►er of their leader, Sir Robert Peel. Upon every
question hitherto upon which he has addressed the house,
his remarks have been full of the most biting—l may say
bitter sarcasm ; yet, whilst thus lashing the imbecility and
inconsistency of the ministerial policy, the spirits of the great
leader are manifestly unprepared for a movement en avant,
and his vote is ever ready to give the negative to his reason-
ing. It is probable that Sir Robert may be waiting his time;
but it is not altogether certain that the conservative par ty
may be always disposed to pursue the same course.
Connected with this immovability of the right hon. baronet,.
considerable interest has been excited by the able letters
which have appeared in the Times, , under the signature
" Catholicus." It is very improbable that the sentiments
which the writer deduces from the language of his unfortu-
nate Tamworth speech, can be those ,-which Sir Robert in-
tended to convey to the world as his own ; yet the castiga-
tion which he has received will not be unproductive of bene-
fit, if it serve to convince the right bon . baronet how much it
is beneath the dignity of a statesman And a moralist. such as
he confessedly is, to clothe his real opinions, upon so im-
portant a subject, in a garb which, at the least, is susceptible
of being mistaken. Sir Robert has no reputation for sin-
cerity to throw away; and the experience of the past ought
to remind him how valueless is that species of popular ap-
plause which is gained by temporising with principle.
The approaching trial of Lord Cardigan continues to ex-
cite considerable interest, which has been deepened by tlys
publication of an admirable letter addressed to the membors