The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-06-05 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

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' our county and city, and are progressing amongst our
people.. I have become fully and satisfactorily cognisant
of the truth of this statement with a depression of spi
which far outweighs anything I have felt in by-gone suf-
fering; and I address these hurried lines to you asking
that the press and the clergy would combine' their united
influences to dissuade from so ruinous a movement the
misguided men who are falling into the snare. You know
I ever deprecated secret associations—and, surely, it must
be now deprecated more than ever."
THE TRISH STATE PRISONERS.—It is said that Smith
O'Brien and his companions in guilt have received an in.
timation that their sentence has been commuted with
banishment for life to Van Dieman's Land. whel,e they
are to have tickets of leave so that they may be spared
the degradation of associating with ordinary convicts. It
is added, that Mr. O'Brien was labouring under consider-
able depression of spirits, as though he had abandoned
all idea of any further mitigation of his punishment. The
ill-fated gentleman had insured his life to a large amount,
for the benefit of his younger children, and had already
paid a sum of £2OOO on the policy of insurance, which
becomes null and void in the event of his transportation
for the crime of which he has been convicted.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL AT A DISCOUNT.—At the sale of
O'Connell's library, the Freeman's Journal says :—" A
little portrait of that little man, Lord John, was then put
up for competition ; but, amongst a sale-room full of
gentry and citizens, not a solitary bidder was found willing
to hazard the risk of even by chance becoming the pos-
sessor of this work of art. The accomplished salesman
displayed the portrait in every possible light, and solicited
an initiatory movement towards setting Lord John a-
going, by infinitesimal beginnings in specie; but non
eundum erat. It was ni use—in vain was the noble lord's
eidolon turned towards each group of bystanders—in vain
did Mr. Jones insinuate ' Any advance ? " Sixpence for
it ? " Eightpence, did you say, sir ? ' said the indefati-
gable Mr. Jones Co an old gentleman with a white hat.
No, sir, I didn't, nor fourpence,' replied the gentleman
angrily. Oh, T beg pardon ; well, then, fourpence.
Any advance ? ' Alas, no ; not a solitary bidder. Even
the Liffey-street picture-brokers looked angrily at this
useless and protracted inquiry as to whether there was
any advance with regard to Lord John. Finally, the little
lot was withdrawn, and placed side by side with rejected
tracts and seedy pamphlets." Poor Lord John !

STATE OF THE WEST OF IRELAND.
A correspondent of an Ulster paper (the Newry Tele-
graph), at present on a tour in the west of Ireland. thus
in a great measure confirms all that has been said and
written of the prostrate state of the province of Con-
naught :

" It is a true report that has come to the north con-
cerning the ignorance, the indolence, and the present suf-
fering of the lower orders of the people in the west ; it is
not to be conceived of till you witness it ml,o ;,,

wiinebs iu. inere Is not,
here, as in the north, a respectable and independent yeo-
manry, forming a connecting link between the higher and
the lower ranks of society. You pass, at once, from the
princely demesne into a region of barrenness and want—
from the Drooriptor'q moncin.. al L•_ . .

umusion to the mud cabin of his
..,,,,urant, and starving cottiers. There does not
.ppear to be a desire, on the part of landlords, as in the
north, to have an enterprising and respectable tenantry.
The Thunderer 'of London—the great leviathan of the
newspaper world—has dealt very severely with them, and
not without cause. It is most distressing and harrassing
to the feelings to see the two extremes of society—empty
gaiety and fashion, and abject wretchedness, placed in
such juxtaposition as they are here. The heartless aristo-
crat, living far above his means, has been grinding the
faces of the poor to support his extravagance, and never
dreaming of training up a sturdy and intelligent peasantry
on his property. On the other hand, the bigot priest has
been fleecing the people as far as he was able, and neither_
advancing tht.ii