The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-01-05 00:00:00

CON TE PORARY PRESS.

THE EVILS OF WHIG LEGISLATION.
• (From the Mut•ning
There is_a fatality abdut Whig legislation. which turns
every thing coining front whig " liberality" under the
name of improvement into an evil add a nuisance.•,---.
Sometimes, indeed; this is intentional, and the result of ,
deliberate dishonesty, as was the case when, in pretend-
ing
to destroy all nomination boroughs from a virtuous
abhorrence of all other than real representation, the wing
reformers, by their " second Magna Charta," created
several nomination-boronglis for their own use. That
get is now in the same evil odoUr with the radical sup-
Niles of ministers that the system which it superseded
wt is about. seven years ago, and they call as loudly
for its repeal as they did for its enactment. Then look
at the quantity of litigation which has been found neces-
sary to ascertain the construction of various parts of the
Municipal Reform Act on account of the clumsy and
bungling manner in which it was drawn up. An impor-
tant decision given in the Queen's Bench some time
since against the poor law commissioners on a ipiestiOn
litigated between the parish of St. Pancras and them,
shoWed that the framers of that statute also, sometimes
coupteracted by the language of their law their own le-
gislative intention.
- We haVe been reminded once more of the fatality
Wide) attends whig legislation by the working of the
"'ctfor cfre registration of births,' deaths, and marriages
in England," which was passed with the avowed purpose
of "carrying ont,"•the great principle of " religious li-
berty"-by relieving the tender consciences of disSenters
in regard to the matters of which the act treats. It is
certainly a new mode of carrying out the principle of.
religious liberty by extinguishing religion itself, as has
been done in the case of the solemn conti act of marriage.
heretofore regarded as holy in this Christian country,
but now divested, in the eyes of the people, of that
sanctity of obligation becoming a rite divinely instituted-,
and which was the best safeguard of domestic virtue and
social morality.
But independently of divesting the marriage contract
of its religious character, (unless when performed by the
clergy of the established • church,) the whig statute has
violated the very principle of liberty of conscience upon.
which it was supposed to be founded. The clergy of
Lincoln and its neighbourhood have petitioned the legis-
lature for the repeal, or essential alteration of the act ;
and in their petitiiiii we find the following passages re-
lating to those two points, concerning which we have
just now spoken : •
"That as respects marriages, the religious part of the cere-
mony .may be :utterly cancelled. to the great grief of all good
men, who have ever regarded marriage as a sacred institution,
which if degraded into a mere civil contract must prove of
dangerous tendency to the public morals."
" That a cleryyinan may be compelled by an order from the•
regi4har to solemnize marriage ie a way forbidden by the canoes
of the established' church."
Here is a relief to conscience ! Here is a "carrying
ont" of the great principle of religious liberty ! The
whig law, in order to relieve the consciences of dissen-
ters, coerces the consciences of the • clergy of the estab-
lished church. They are bound by and by .ec-
clesiastical law to obey the canons, but they are compelled
by the whig law, and the registrar's order, to violate
them. This is whig legislation.
We have to speak again of, the grievances which this
act inflicts upon the poor, and the covert attempt to.
ttii-
christiattize the country by making the name of the in,
fant registered altogether independent of the baptismal
sacrament.

A CHRONOLOGICAL AND STATISTICAL TABLE
FOR THE YEAR 1837.

(Concluded from our lust)
JULY.
3 £200,000 is voted on account of her Majesty's civil list.
4 In a mutiny of the. Spanish regiments at llernani, General
Lanitur is wounded, and General Mirasol is obliged to yield up
his. command, and with difficulty escapes with his life.
5 The King of Hanover, ci-decunt Duke of Cumberland,
announces to the Hanoverians his disapprobation of the exist-
ing constitution, and expresses. an intention of waking some
modifications and alterations.
7 The renAktis of his late Majesty lie in state at Windsor.
8 The full of his late Majesty takes place in St. George's
Chapel, Windsor Castle.
Sermons are preached at most of the churches in London
on the subject of the loss sustained by the nation in the death
of his Majesty William IV.
10 The cholerit at Naples ceases about this time, when it
appears that, in 21,465 cases, 13,578 hail died.
11 A discussion on the state of Ireland takes place in the
house 'if Lords, on the motion of the Marquis of Westmeath,
for the production of Papers relative to the removal of Sir
Richard Nagle, Bart., from the lieutenancy of the county of
Westineath:

The King of Hanover assumes the command of the army.
At Palermo, in Sicily, the deaths from cholera amount to
tome thousands daily.
12 The royal assent is gix en by commission to upwards of 40
public and private bills..
Her Majesty receives at St. James's Palace the congra-
tufatory address of the co-poration of London.
13 The Portuguese government seizes the types and prohibits
any further publication of an English newspaper in Lisbon,
catted the Lisbon Mail.
-'— tier Majesty takes up her residence at the new palace in
St. James's Park.
A military insurrection takes place amongst the troops in
the north of Portugal, who, under the Baron de Leira, proclaim
tbe constitution.

It The Society of Friends in Ireland petition parliament,
through the Duke of Sussex, for the abolition of the punishment
of death. The petition is withdrawn in consequence of an in-
formality, having been addressed to "the peers," instead of
" the loids spiritual and temporal" of the united kingdom.
The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge present ad-
dresses to her Majesty on her occasion to the throne.
Upwards of 180 whales, averaging from 15 to 2'2 feet in
length, are captured near A rmaday, the Marquis of Breadal-
bane's residence in Argyleshire.
15 Oraa claims a victory over the Carlists in the environs of
Chiva.
17 Her Majesty in person prorogues parliament, and gives ,
her assent to the municipal corporations act amendment bill,
the forgery hill, the piracy bill, the transportation for life bill,
the o&nces against the person bill, the burglary bill, the robbing
and stealing from the person bill, the burning and destroying
bill, and other bills.
Col. Thompson gives notice that early in the next session
he slialfmove for leave to bring to a bill to vest the-succession,
in (be ,event of the demise of her Majesty, in Prince George of
CathbriAlge and his heirs.
- proclamation appears in the London Gazette dissolving
parliaMent.
The charter is proclaimed at Estremos by the troops of
Donna Maria stationed at that place.
18 'Fhe Queen issues letters patent, continuing iu their offices
all his late Maje,ty's ministers.
19 'The Queen holds her first levee, which is most numerously
attended.
" The Peqyasylvania," of 136 guns, the larg'st vessel afloat
in any waters, Itlaunc4ed at Philadelphia.
20 The Nassuck diamond, weighing 357 i grains, is sold for
the sum of £7200.
The Queen holds her first drawing room, at which the
attendance is unprecedented.
Opening of the London and Birmingham Railway.
21 The Que a receives addresses from the church of Scotland,
the society of frienda, the general body of dissenting ministers,
and the dissenting ministers of the presbyterian denomination.
22 'the business of the elections throughout the country com-
mences by the nomination, of candidate,s for the city of Condon.
The other metropolitan elections take place on tie succeeding
days.
The Spanish governs ent. in retaliation for a similar act
on the part of Sardinia, excludes Sardinian vessels from the
ports of Spain, and deprives Sardinian consuls of their offices.
2-1 Mr. Cocking ascends in a parachute. attached to Mr.
Green's ballcson, from Vauxhall-gardens, and in the descent is
killed on the spot?
Dr. Edward Grey, Bishop of Hereford, brother of Earl
Grey, died at his palace at. Hereford.
26 Twenty-two vessels, riding at anchor, are destroyed by a
hurricane at Barbadoes.
27 Up to this date the number of emigrants arriving at Que-
bec was 16,459, being fewer by 3787 than during the correspond-
ing period of last year,
I'he Marquis of Saldanha joins the charterists, and issues
a proclamation in support of the cause.
2$ An inquest takes place op tb,e body of Mr. Robert Cock-
ing, which terminates in a verdict ascribing the catastrophe to
accident, and levying a deodand on the parachute.
A grand conservative festival takes place at Newton,
South Lancashire, at which upwards of 1000 persons are present.
27 Lives are lost by the irruption of the sea into a coal-pit
at Workington, in Cumberland.
30 The King of Hanover dissolves the royal commission
which had been appointed to inquire whether the constitution of
IrViObtin IV. was binding upon the present monarch.