The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-09-28 00:00:00

Vol-11T.

AN EPITAPH, TO THE
MEMORY OF MR. AND MRS. BOLSHAW,
Who departed this life, February, 1838, and were buried at
St. James' Church.
Embracing sentiments of esteem and Christian faith, as
expressed by surviving Children.

As long as letters last on stone,
Though into dust falls every bone,
We will your name record:
This tablet shall to all declare,.
In life you did no effort spare
To train us for the Lord.

We mourn our loss, but 'tis your gain,
Our hope is full with Christ you re►gn,
Enjoying: endless rest:
Eternal truth, the Scriptures say,
Of all who spend life in this way,
They are for ever bless'd. •

But, though the truth does thus, (jet:lure,
The infidel is alt despair,
..tiNie,”?:t3,o44
At morning, noon, airtfltithlt,f - ~_
• .
Yet faith, strong in the Sacred pare,
From fears and doubts will disengage,

Aud yield the soul delight.

Though bodies are from spirits torn,
They will rise and the soul adorn
Where there is no decay;
When the last trumpet breaks the ground,
And earth yields all within her found,
To enjoy endless day.
WM. CARTER, LIVERPOOL.

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

THE GREAT RADICAL « DEMONSTRATION"

ON KERSAL MOOR.
(From the Manchester Guardian.)
We have devoted so much space to the speeches and
proceedings of the radical meeting on Monday, that
we must postpone, until Saturday, any remarks that
may be suggested by those proceedings, and, for the
present, confine ourselves to a few observations on the
numbers who attended the "demonstration," with re-
spect to which the most absurd and laughable exagge-
rations have prevailed. In doing this, we must at the
outset admit, that the attendance very considerably
exceeded our expectations, and showed that the dili-
gent canvassing and placarding- by which the affair was
preceded, had produced considerable effect upon the
curiosity, if not on the political feelings, of the sur-
rounding population; and a meeting was collected
which, we believe, has nut been exceeded in magni- •
tude by any political assemblage held in this neigh-
bourhood since the memorable meeting on the 16th of
August, 1819. With respect to the numbers actually
present on Monday, they are calculated by the promo-
ters of the meeting at various amounts, from a bare
100,000, to the magnificent estimate of Mr. Fergus
O'Connor, who says, " there were eighty acres of full
grown men, women, and children," which, "at five to
the square yard," would make the very handsome
number of 1,936,000! Such are the estimates of the
ultra-radicals themselves. Perhaps some of our read-
ers who may feel disposed to laugh at Mr. O'Connor's
calculation may, nevertheless, be inclined to think that
there is some truth in the lower estimate to which we
have alluded ; but we can assure them, that the one is
just about as reasonable as the other.
4p order to form a moderately correct opinion as to
tilt number of persons present at a meeting like that
on Monday, it is necessary to look at the ground either
before or after the proceedings; because a piece of
land, when covered by a dense crowd of people, always
looks much more extensive than it really is; and when
we saw the meeting on Monday, we supposed it to co-
ver much more ground than we found, on a subsequent
inspection, to have been the case. Any person who
saw and mixed with the assemblage, who noticed how
it was placed, and who will now go and view the
ground, will find that the space occupied by that dense
portion of the meeting which stood near the hustings
may be readily distinguished by the way in which the
grass has been trodden down ; and he will find, very
likely to his astonishment, that it is very little, if at
all, more than forty yards square. He will also find,
that the line of flags and banners (which was a long
way outside of the. solid part of the meeting) was not
more than 75 yards from the front of the hustings.
Taking these data, we are quite satisfied that if the
whole of the persons present at one o'clock (when they
were the most numerous) had stood as close as those
who were immediately in front of the hustings, they
would certainly not have filled a space of 80 yards
square; and we do not believe that there were at any
one time so many as 30,000 persons present on the
ground. We understand that Colonel Wemyss, who
was on the moor with several other military officers,
and who took great pains to form a correct judgment
of the numbers present, estimated them at 30,000,
which we believe to he rather over than under the
truth ; but which all reasonable men will greatly pre-
fer to the calculations of Mr. Fergus O'Connor, or the
more moderate guesses of those who make the num.
ixe.s only some one, two, or three hundred thousands.

THE ANTI. CORN .LAW AGITATION.
( From the Metropolitan Conservative Journat.)
The present agitation and demonstrations of the
whigs and their radical allies, against the earn laws,
are in perfect harmony with all the movemeas of that
anti English faction, who are still permitted, for the
benefit of themselves and their master O'Connell, to
disgrace the offices of state and prey upon the vitals of
the country. The wings .know that the steady, sober
thinking, and intelligent agriculturists, whether land-
lords or tenants, are strongly opposed to them, their
selfish treachery, and their ruinous schemes; and that
their only ch nce of support is with the unwashed, im-
pudent, gin-drinking rabble of the large towns. Any-
thing, therefore, which shall tedd to reduce the power
and influence of the agriculturists, and to promote, or
have the plausibility of. promoting the interests of the
commercial and manufacturing population, will be at-
tempted by the whigs, if they can thereby prop up
their dying faction, retain their offices, and minister to
their corruption and turpitude. Several attempts have
been made by this vile crew to enlist the ignorance and
folly of the masses as warmly in favour of some farce,
which they are desirous of performinc, for their own
especial benefit, as was manifested in behalf of the pre-
lude to their reform delusion, which the people now
see was one of the most crafty and deceitful pieces of
party manoeuvre which even the whigs themselves ever
practised. The sole object of the reform bill, as the
whole country now see, was simply the benefit of the
whig party ; and so disgusted are the people with the
cheat, and treachery, and hypocrisy of the liberal, re-
foi7ning, economising, no-patronage whigs in that par-
ticular instance, that they treat their more recent
attempts to practise upon them another delusion
with silent contempt. And after various laboured and
vain efforts to raise a breeze of popularity in their fa-
vour, they have now hit upon one which they hope,
through the assistance of their hirelings of the press,
who are ever ready to do their dirty work, will par-
tially, at least, succeed in enabling them to retain
offices and fatten upon the public purse, a short time
longer.
" Cheap l3read"—"No Corn Laws"--"No Tax upon
Bread"—" Repeal of the Corn Laws"—" Take off the
Tax from the Staff of Life"—all these are very plausible
and catching sounds with the ignorant and gabbling
mobs of Birmingham and Manchester. But, neverthe-
less, ignorant and besotted as are the great masses of
the large towns, they cannot be made believe that the
men who could pass the new poor law bill care one
fly for the real interests of the poor, and whether they
be well and cheaply fed or not. The manufacturing
operatives must perceive that the price of corn cannot
be lowered without producing ruin to the husbandman
as well as to themselves. That corn can be grown
cheaper in other countries than in this is an undeniable
fact; and if foreign corn be allowed to come into this
country without any duty, to protect our own agri-
culture, the result would inevitably be that thousands
and thousands of acres of British land would be thrown
out of cultivation, because it would not pay the farmer;
and thousands of operative agriculturists would be
thereby thrown out of work, and driven to seek em-•
ployment in the manufacturing districts, which would
itself reduce the wages of the operative manufactu-
rers; for, on the principle that " half a loaf is better
than no loaf," the people would work for next to no-
thing rather than starve, or be thrown upon the tender
mercies of the whig new poor law.
Whether the difference in the expense of raising corn
in this country be attributable to the comparatively
higher rate of taxation or rents, is of little moment ; for
neither the one nor the other can be reduced without
injury to the manufacturers themselves. The whigs
say that they cannot possibly reduce the,taxati on of the
country, and their figures prove tire truth of their state
Illent ; and, therefore, as the same amount of taxes must
be raised, the agriculturist can only be .relieved by
throwing a greater portion of the taxes upon the marm-
facturers. Carry this also to the subject of rents, and
the same result will be seen to be inevitable. If the
rents be reduced, as. they would be very materially if
the corn law was repealed, agricultural property would
be proportionably reduced in value; and then, as the
taxes are imposed according to the value of the property,
a far less amount of taxes would be raised from the
agriculturists than at present; and then, again, as the
Same amount of taxes must continue to be raised, the
agricultural deficiency must inevitably be made up by
the manufacturers in some way or other ; unless, in-
deed, the nation is become bankrupt, which no honest
man or patriot would wish to see, however careless the
whigs may be upon the subject. It is quite clear that
the interests an a welfare of the agricultural and comfier-
cial portions of the community are so inseparably
bound up together, that the ruin of the one would al-
mustinurrediately be followed by the ruin of the other.
This must unavoidably be the case from the very cir-
cumstance of their each forming part of the same com-
munity. And we see no possible way of the manu-
facturer really benefiting himself hut by his going over
with his manufacturing knowledge, and machinery,
and so forth, into the countries where corn and taxes
are so much lower. There is, to be sure, the alterna-
tive of putting a complete end to the ruinous system
of quackery and free trade, and of strictly preventing
the exportation of machinery and unfinished goods of
every description. The manufacturer would thus be
far more benefited than he ever can be by the nostrum
of corn law repeal, which we doubt whether even the
whigs, profligate, unprincipled, and reckless as they
truly are, seriously intend, otherwise than as a dein_
mop upon the manufacturers and a bugbear to the
agriculturists,
and thereby t ie promotion of their own
party and selfish purposes.