The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-11-09 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, NOV. 9, 1847.

The election of a Mayor, and of eight Aldermen
for the borough (in the room of those retiring),
will take place this. day. We believe that both
Mr. Bramley-Moore andzhir. T. B. Horsfall will
be proposed to fill the Civic chair. The radical
press have done their utmost to foment disunion
in the election : but we entertain no doubt but
that we shall be enabled to present in our
second edition a list of aldermen, which will be
highly satisfactory to our intelligent townsmen,
and of course there cannot be the smallest objection
to either of the gentlemen who are named to dis-
charge the duties of Chief Magistrate.
We expect that the second edition will be ready
at two o'clock.

"Another Assassination" is the heading of a
paragraph in nearly every Irish paper which conies
into our hands. Shooting a landlord, or an agent;
beating out the brains of some wretch, who has
dared to become the tenant of an unoccupied farm ;
firing a volley into the cabin window of a poor
half-starved peasant, who has committed some un-
intelligible breach of the agrarian code received in
Tipperary, in Clare, or Limerick, and lodging half-
a-score of slugs or rusty nails in the breast or the
back of his wife or his daughter, seem just now to
be the approved pastimes of the finest peasantry in
the world. And so keen is the enjoyment of the
fun on the part of the bulk of the population
amongst whom these semi-civilized Thugs perpe-
trate their antics, that not a hand is raised to pro-
tect the victims, or to track the criminal to his lair,
The murderer is allowed to walk away unmolested ;
the doomed man's fate is known for months and
years before the blow falls which ushers him into
eternity, with all his sins upon his head. Thou-
sands of men and women, boys and maidens, cog-
nizant of his coming fate, meet him daily in his
walks, in his fields, at the fairs, or at the relief
board; partake of his charity; cringe to him for
favours :—thousands of such—men and women—
thus cognizant of crime before its perpetration and
after, 'go weekly or monthly to the confessional ;
breathe the tale of their guilt, meditated and com-
mitted, into the ears of profess:n,l ministers of
God,—men arrogating to themselves the power of
forgiving the sins of their fellow worms—vicars
apostolic of Christ and his representatives on earth,
—yet no warning is sent to the victim thus hovering
on the precipice which separates time from eternity.
The priestly receptacle of a knowledge of guilt is
dumb. His lips are sealed. We hear him in
public denouncing, for alleged oppressions, the
class doomed to fall beneath the assassin's blud-
geon or musket. Sprung from the peasant class
himself, and still little removed from them in his
sympathies and his interest, too often the great in-
fluence which he possesses in virtue of his sacer-
dotal office is used rather to increase the acerbity
of the popular feeling, than to erect a spiritual bar-
rier between crime and its consummation.

The religion of the people of Ireland has in it
something of vitality, or it is an empty profession.
The Roman Catholic priesthood of Ireland have a
certain sway on the minds of their flocks, or the
vaunted discipline of that church is a mere pre-
tence—vox et preterea nihil. Are the religious ad-
visers of these organised bands of murderers—these
approvers of murders, before and after the fact—
cognizant of what is going on around them ? Are
they aware of murder perpetrated, or to be perpe-
trated, and make no sign ? The question is a seri-
ous one. It concerns the temporal and eternal fate
of a whole people, taught to believe that, as a fal-
lible man, invested with the power of absolving
from sin, inclined to be merciful and approving, or
harsh, the otherwise well defined crime of murder
is a praiseworthy or a damning deed. The Roman
Catholic population of Ireland, we are told, are
strict in the observances of the duties of religion ;
regular in their attendance at the confessional ;
rigid in the keeping of their fasts, the performance
of their penance, and the maintenance of the privi-
leges and immunities claimed for their church.
Yet all this external conforming appears to be not
at all incompatible with the practice or the know-
ledge of deeds of blood. We are bound in common
charity to conclude that they lay bare the surface
of their hearts only to the priesthood; that there
is a dark recess which they never open to his view,
the key of which is kept only by the Ribbon con-
spiracy, whose mandates are regarded as more
binding, and obeyed with more fear and respect,
than the mandates of their church and their God.
The record of the last of these hideous crimes
which has reached our ears affords ample proof of
the inefficacy of the Romish system in Ireland to
repress the criminal acts of its people. We quote
it from the Dublin Evening Mail :

" STROKSTOWN, Tuesday night.—As Major Mahon
was returning home from a meeting of the board of
guardian; of Roscommon Union, this evening, he was
shot dead by an assassin, about four miles from Strokes-
town. The melancholy occurrence took place about 20
minutes past six o'clock.
" Major. Mahon has been in possession of the Hartland
property for a couple of years. The tenants owed three
years' rent, amounting to £30,000.
" At first the tenants refused either to pay rent, till
the land, or give it up. Last year, however, a large por-
tion of them agreed to leave the country, and Major
Mahon, at his own expense, chartered two vessels, and
sent a number of the tenantry to America. Long, how:
ever, before this occurred, it was well known in the
country that Major Mahon was a doomed man. His
name stood first upon a list of 12 gentlemen, all of whom
have been doomed to death on account of their refusal to
continue the conacre system. The failure of the potato
crop saved them for the time. As Major Mahon has
been taken off, there is little doubt that other gentlemen
will soon follow.

" Major Mahon, within the last few days, was publicly
denounced, in one of the reports to head-quarters, as an
absentee, and one who refused to contribute to the local
subscriptions of the neighbourhood."

It was " well known " that this gentleman, en-
gaged though he was in active efforts to promote
the welfare of his tenantry, was to die by violence.
It was matter of notoriety to hundreds of his own
tenantry and his neighbours. Hundreds of these
people must have approached the confessional, and
received the absolution of their priests, with the
knowledge of the coming perpetration of this deed
of blood locked fast in their breasts, At this mo-
ment, doubtless hundreds are acquainted with the
name, the person, and the hiding place of the
assassin ; if indeed a hiding place is regarded as
necessary amongst a people, whose sympathies even
beari more strongly towards the criminal than to
his llfated victim. Should the law be enabled to
reach him and to visit upon him the penalty due
to his offence, he will doubtless in his last hour
at length make a clean breast, and unburden his
soul to his priest; and probably, such is the
strangely contradictory. course of perverted human
nature, he will die loudly protesting his innocence !
And more strange still, the minister of God, who
has heard the truth from his
i lips, may hear also,
without contradicting it, the lie with which he per-
mits his soul to be hurried into the presence of his
Maker.
It has ever been held that the Church of Rome
wielded a spiritual power strong enough to crush a
far more potent machinery of evil, than that which
binds together the ribbon conspiracy in Ireland.
It is clear, however, that beyond the utterance of a
few feeble protests, that church is not disposed to
interfere, although it is only fair to presume that,
through the confessional, its priesthood possess
details sufficient to enable them to band over its
leading agents to justice, and to free the mass of
the peasantry of Ireland from the slavery in which

they are unwillingly held. The government, then,
must put forth its strength. The miscreants who
are filling the country with terrorism and rapine
—serving threatening notices, administering illegal
oaths, and otherwise outraging the law—must be
disarmed. The peace of the country and the
security of life must be preserved at all hazards,
even should it be found necessary to resort to
martial law, and to make of the turbulent districts
in Ireland one vast camp. This must be done,
however, and something like habits of order and
industry restored' to the country, before the En•
glish people can be brought to listen with any
sympathy to appeals to their charity, however dark
the tales of suffering which may be brought before
them.

THE cruel irony and flippant accusation of past
misconduct, with which the complaints of a suffer-
ing people are met by the organs of Government
and the ultra bullionists, are fast exciting an amount
of indignation in the public mind, which will burst
forth on the opening of Parliament in a storm,
whose force the Ministry will find it difficult to
withstand. It may appear to gentlemen, writing in
the editorial sanctum, or issuing their mandates
from Downing-street, a very simple, if not a very
agreeable, process which the commercial and the
industrial classes of the country are Undergoing.
It may seem to them no hardship for honest and
honourable men to be condemned, to see, the pro-
ducts of years of anxious striving and saving, melt-
ing from beneath their grasp—to see the convertible
value of fields, of mines, of mills, of railways, and
other property, without distinction, depreciated
twenty, thirty, or fifty per cent., and to watch the
shuffle by which they are transferred from the
hands of their present holders, by whom the bulk
of their value has been created, into those of the
fortunate holders of specie or bank-notes ;—but by
the sufferers the abstracting process is very differ-
ently regarded. It is not in the temper of men to
sink down from affluence to comparative poverty
without repining—without, at least, demanding to
know the nature of the machinery which is crushing
them by its remorseless pressure, and which they
have had no hand in erecting. The poor wretch
who prostrates himself before the wheels of a
Heathen idol is a free agent. He contemplates his
fate beforehand, and submits to it for the prospect
which it offers of an hereafter. But those who are
just now being crushed beneath the pressure of the
monetary Juggernaut, have neither wilfully sought
their fate, nor have known, in time to save them-
selves, its annihilating power. They demanded
inquiry, and will, after a very brief while, insist on
their demind being complied with.
One of the most powerfully impelling reasons
for making a demapd for such an inquiry, as was
well remarked by Mr. Salt, of Birmingham, to
Lord John Russell, at an interview last week, is
to be found in the gross ignorance displayed by
Ministers themselves with respect to the working
of the measure, and the extent of the mischief
which it is producing. Mr. Salt said—
" He hoped his lordship would not think him disres-
pectful if he offered him proof of the ignorance of the go-
vernment. So late as February, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer boasted of the sound state of the country, and
treated as visionary the fear of danger. On the 28th of
September he told the Newcastle deputation that there
was plenty of money for those who could offer good secu-
rity. His lordship, twenty days after, acknowledged the
difficulties of the country to the Liverpool deputation, but
told them he could give no relief.
" His lordship here observed that he had told the Li-
verpool deputation that he would give them an answer the
next morning. _

" Mr. Sallresumed, ' Very true, my lord, but the an-
swer was a refusal, and a declaration that your lordship
would not violate the law. Within five days your lordship
did violate the law, and, in the letter by which your lord-
ship did so, your lordship, with singular candour, acknow-
ledged that all your calculations and all your anticipations
had been shown by the events to be wrong.' "

A similar impression was made upon the minds
of some of the members of the Liverpool Deputa-
tion, as to the Government's ignorance of the ex-
tent of the suffering felt throughout the country.
Men cannot, moreover, lose sight altogether of the
fact that every calculation of the Free Trade party
in parliament and out of doors, with respect to the
compatibility of a restricted currency with un-
limited imports has been falsified. We began to
import more extensively the breadstuffs of Europe
and America; we threw our markets open to the
planters of Brazil and Cuba ; we encouraged the
importations of foreign silks and other articles of
luxury ; and we were assured that, pari passu, we
should extend our manufactures and pay for these
new supplies in increased exports of the products
of machinery on our industry. We saw, however,
in the first instance only a drain of specie from the
country, to pay for our increased imports; and
when at length a prospect presented itself of ma-
nufactured goods being in demand; when orders
poured upon us from those countries, from which
we had been drawing our supplies of breadstuffs
and other foreign commodities; the bank inter-
posed its veto. It had itself to protect. The
specie which had been extracted from its coffers
compelled a resort to limitation of discounts and
of paper issue ; and, with orders to be executed,
and bills, remitted to pay for them, we were in a
dead lock. The usurious interest demanded for
cash, for bills of unexceptionable character, swept
away the margin of profit derivable from the exe-
cution of such orders at legitimate prices. As the
result, our mills are standing ; our manufacturing
population idling in the streets of our large towns,
hunger and penury are in the poor man's home, and
insolvency stares his employers in the face.
This great commercial country, by the aid of its
vast mass of capital and its indomitable industry,
was to become, by the aid of our free trade system,
the depot of the produce of the globe. We were
to be the merchants, the warehousemen, the
bankers, and the brokers of half mankind. We
duly received the promise of consignments • but
our means to hold them broke down in the effort.
Only an artificially restricted currency is given us
to transact a business which was to be without
limit. The result has been ruin to the merchant
who has embarked in large transactions on the
faith of the promises held out to him, and serious
loss to the foreigner who has entrusted his adven-
tures in our hands. We have failed in fulfilling
the trust reposed in us ; and we shall be trusted
no more until a better and more healthy regime is
provided for us.
It is urged against commercial men, that they
have been improvident ; that they invested too
freely in railways and other similar undertakings.
It seems that we have done so. We did not, how-
ever, find out that fact until our boasted system,
which was to check improvident investments, re-
minded us of it, when it was too late to retrace our
steps. Did any of our currency doctors tell us any
thing of this in time ? Did Sir Robert. Peel, when
he was performing on the Trent Valley Railway the
part of an amateur navvie, whisper a fear that the
prosperity surrounding us was too exuberant to
last ? Not a word. We saw the price of the na-
tional securities run up until the Right Hon. Bart.
was enabled to perform the financial operation, by
which half per cent. was saved in the payment of
interest upon a portion of the national indebted-
ness. But we never heard a word about any diffi-
culty until we had to perform the clumsy operation
of paying into the Exchequer the railway depoSits.
Still Parliament never interfered to stop us in our
railway mania. Lines were sanctioned which it is
now said are not needed, and for the construction
of which there is not money ; but for the evidence
of a check or a hint on the part of Government or
of Parliament, we look in vain.

PORTRAIT OF THE REV. DR. M'NEILE.-Of the
various portraits of this excellent divine, we were last
night favoured with a sight of decidedly the best—at
least as regards an inimitable likeness—which has yet been
taken. The reverend gentleman is represented as stand-
ing on a platform, with his arms folded in his characteristic
dignified posture, addressing a public meeting, and the
attitude and expression of countenance are, we think,
precisely those which Dr. M'lsTeile's friends would wish
the painter to have caught. The portrait is painted in
water-colours, and has, we understand, been taken by
Mr. Tatham, the artist, for the purpose of being intro-
duced into the painting of the stone-laying of the Sailors'
Home, now in course of completion, by that talented
gentleman. We observe that the painting will be on view
for a week at Burland's rooms, in Church street. _ _

POLICE COURT.—There were about a hundred and
twenty prisoners brought before Mr. Rushton yesterday,
but none of the charges were of importance, by far the
greater number of cases involving a charge of " drunk,
and booked for safety,". or " drunk and disorderly." The
prisoners of the former class were nearly all discharged
without other punishment than their ni*ht or two nights
lodging in Bridewell—the gathering having included Sa-
turday and Sunday—the gaol being, we believe, full.—A
female, named Elizabeth Smith, was charged with steal-
ing several salted hams from a person named John Woods,
on Saturday last. The prosecutor kept a stall, and the
mother of the prisoner the adjoining one. Four hams
were stolen, but two of them only were traced to the pri-
soner. The entire value was £2 4s. As further evi-
dence was expected, the case was remanded to this day.

COMPENSATION UNDER THE SANATORY ACT.-
THE APPEALS AGAINST THE TOWN COUNCIL.

Yesterday morning, Gilbert Henderson, Esq., the
Recorder, gave in his decision upon the appeals made
against the decisions of the Town Council by the several
parties who, having been deprived of office by the opera-
tions of the sanatory act passed last year, had, under the
provisions of that act, claimed compensation. The first
case was that of

E. G. DEANE V. THE MAYOR AND BURGESSES.

In this case the appellant, in addition to his salary of
£lOO per annum, as clerk to the Highway Board. was
employed as an attorney to enforce the payment of the
highway, &c., rates, and also for promoting any bills in
Parliament. The fees from that employment were much
larger than his salary ; and the Town Council contended,
that in awarding him compensation, it should be entirely
confined to his salary, as the fees which he had obtained as
attorney might have been given to any other attorney. It
was upon the construction of the clause in the act, whether
he was entitled to compensation on the salary only, that
the dispute had arisen. The learned Recorder here cited
several cases in which the judges had given opinions in
similar cases, one of which was the town clerk of Norwich
against the corporation. In this case, in addition to his
office of town clerk, he had also held a situation in con-
nexion with some property over which the corporation
were trustees. The learned judge in that case ruled that
he was entitled to compensation for the loss of the bene-
ficial interest he had by holding that situation, equally
with his claim for losing his office of town clerk. After
pointing out the :particulars of the case at great length,
the learned Recorder observed that no nice distinction
should be raised when the principle of compensation was
conceded, and (although sorry to differ from the Town
Council) under all the circumstances of the case, he was
clearly of opinion there was an intimate connexion be-
tween both offices, and ti.at the appellant was entitled to
have all the sources of emolument he had enjoyed taken
into consideration. The decision of the Court, therefore,
was, that the appellant was entitled to the sum of £5,800
as compensation, and £llB for costs, and an order for
that amount would be made accordingly.