The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-01-03 00:00:00

A CHRISTMAS BALANCE-SHEET.

(FROM THE ENGLISH CHURCHMAN.)
IT would be well if, at this season, we were to prepare,
seriously and indiVidually, a Christmas balance-sheet,
which should exhibit on the one side our duties, and on
the other our deeds. Spiritually and morally, perhaps, we
should all of us find ourselves nearer to insolvency than
our self-complacemey would lead us to believe; but the
knowledge of our true position would, or should, exercise
a wholesome influence upon our thoughts and actions in
the coming year.
Let us glance for a moment at our indebtedness, socially
speaking, as co-operators of a great community, bound to-
gether by ties of blood, and race, and language. What do
we owe to it, and what derelictions of duty are chargeable
upon each of ns Who is fortunate enough to possess means,
influence, intelligence, and a recognised position ? We owe
to it the eradication of crime, ignorance, and utter desti-
tution. It may charge us with having punished all three,
without having first employed the means of preventing
any. Are the lust, avarice, malice, cupidity, envy, hatred,
and revenge of the law-breaker, entirely chargeable upon
himself, or have we some participation, as accessories, in
the crime ? Have we placed within reach of the wrong-
doer, when he was most accessible to-beneficial influences,
the ministrations -of religion, the lessons of morality, the
restraints of education, and the powers of a good example?
Or have we established penal settlement§ when we ought
to have built churches, erected prisons when we should
have opened schools, banished poverty to reeking cellars,
undrained courts, und fever-poisoned alleys, when we might
have miven it a b!earkly and cheerful borne, and have sur-
rounded it With all the appliances necessary to morality
and health If, week after week, we are fated to read the
hideous details of 'brutalised husbands maltreating their
wives with a ferocity almost incredible,'have we no portion
in the offence? 'lf such men are brutal, ignorant, and in-
temperate, what was their warning ? How were they
taught ? Whose was the neglect ? If woman, forgetting
the instincts of maternity, crushes the love of her own
offspring out of her breast, and destroys the child of her
bosom that she may. sbtain from the burial clubs, in which
death was insured, the means of subsistence, or, more fre-
quently, riotous debauch, are we guiltless of any partici-
pation in her applliag crimes ? Follow that red-handed
murderess back to her childhood, and usk yourself what
could be hoped from early days so wild; i;ntaug,ht, undis-
ciplined, nnre,gulated, and depraved ? If'for many conse-
cutive months, tens of thousands of operatives abandon
their industrial occupations, and league themselves in an
unwise combination against their employers, upon whom
they endeavour to impose conditions incempatible with
the permanent prosperity of either, who is --to blame that
these men are ignorant of those social and r,olitico-econo-
mical laws which govern the relations of labour and capital,
and which, if understood, would prevent them from sub-
sisting in idleness upon the industry of !•their fellow
operatives ?

- But this enumeration of the protean forms of crime and
error, in which the intelligent, the influential, and the
well-to-do classes of society have• a copartnership of re-
sponsibility, might be indefinitely prolonged. The evil,
in so far as it affects the "dangerous classes" of the pre-
sent day, is, to a certain extent, irremediable. Prevention
is too late ;we can only endeavour to reclaim. But for
those who are growing up ,around us—the young, the
plastic, and the impressible—we may manifest a thought-
ful care and a prudent foresight, and in that particular
amend our Balance Sheet another year.
Individually, in our own households, in our ownlmme-
diate circle of friends and dependants, in our own sphere
of influence and usefulness, we have also to prepare
Balance Sheet of deeds and duties. Is there no deficit
here ? No difficult adjustment of assets and debits ? no
10n..' array of claims unsettled, and-of duties unperformed?
Some duties there are—minor duties. if we like to ac-
count them such—which the season appears to impress
upon us with peculiar force : Compensation for wrongs
'Waded, for harsh words and uncharitable thoughts, the
healing up of old feuds, the magnanimous admission of
Our own error, (whereinsoever we have erred,) and the
frank and generous forgiveness of our enemy, if the fault
rest with him ' • help for the destitute, pity for the weak,
sympathy for the solitary, and toleration towards all ;
gentle words of comfort for those who are in sorrow, a
charitable oblivion of bygone occasions of bitterness, a
more rigid censure of our own feelings, and the exercise
of a more kind and lenient judgment upon those of our
neighbour.
So shall we honour Christmas in a Christian spirits and
so shall the pealing bells which welcome in the Not
Year's birth

" Ring in the valiant man and free,
The lar4er heart. the kindlier hand,
Ring out the darkness of the land."

HORTICULTURE.

STOVE, CONSERVATORY, AND GREENHOUSE. - The
temperature of these houses should be maintained the
same as indicated in our last. As a matter of course, the
snow will be removed from the tops of the houses. Many
persons allow it to lay on the vine borders, outside the
vineries; this, however, should not be. They ought to be
covered with straw, and over it a tarpanline ; but an accu-
mulation of snow would be Injurious, when thawing, from
the dampness it would cause; therefore, the snow, which
slides off the glass roofs, should be removed from the
borders. The Dutch and other bulbs now showing flower
will be much improved by an occasional watering with
weak, clear liquid manure. The same may be given to
Camellias, Orange trees, Coronillas, Daphnes, and other
ornamental hard-wooded greenhouse plants now coming
into flower. The snow-fall has, of course, suspended all
out-of-door operations.

PARIS.—The Emperor is anxious to make the Barri6re
de l'Etoile the finest entrance to a city which ever existed in
ancient or modern times. It is proposed that the space
around the Etoile shall be traced in a periphery of 172
metres, and the Avenue de Neuilly (situate before the
Etoile) shall receive a breadth of 180 metres, and a length
of 180 metres, up to the arch of the Etoile. This im-
mense space, longer than the former Quarrl in the
Champs Elvsee, now occupied by the Paris Chrystal Palace,
is to be devoted. to public festivals and military manoeu-
vres. The present barracks of the Beale Militaire_will be
enlarged and completed.

SPORTING LIVT_ELEIGENCE.

TAYIERSALL'S.—TirrnapAr,

The room was re-opened pursuant to notice, but owing to
the very scanty attendance of subscribera,the business that
was transacted Wa S confined to the following beta:—

CHESTER CUP, 1854,

1000 to 15 agst hir. Howard's Catsp. awtaken.

TR K DERBY 1834.
1801 to 200 agst Baron Rothschild's King Tom—taken.
500 to 25 Mr. Merry's Wild Huntsman—taken.
IWO to 43 Mr. J. Adkins's Ruby—taken.
250 to 10 Lord Derby's Acrobat—taken.
1000 to 30 Mr. Morris's Knt. of St. George—taken.
1010 to 25 Mr. St. George's Bro. to Chanticleer—taken.
1000 to 25 Mr. Howard's Scythian—taken.