The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-02-02 00:00:00

VEnitumly

indefinite demand is sufficiently intelligible It is like
-the people of this community demanding Justice RATH-
BONE for Liverpool. It is Quaker justice—dipping
justice—unitarian just ice—one sided, partial, and factious
justice. O'CONNELL demands this sort of confessional
and purgatorial justice fur Ireland. He desires to have
the municipal corporations of that country opened to
papists, and protestant property conveyed to the priests.
He contends that Ireland is entitled to the same measure
of reform as has been meted out to Great Britain.
Do we deny it ? No. Ireland is entitled to the benefit
of every sort, for good or for evil, of English reform.
But before Ireland can honestly or justly call upon the
people of England to admit her to the same circles of
liberty and civilization, she must submit to the same
duties, undertake the same liabilities, pay the same
taxes, and forego her existing exemptions. We have no
objections whatever to municipal reform in Ireland,
disastrous as that measure would be ; but before we allow
even the measures of O'CONNELL to be entertained, we
beg and claim on behalf of our country, that the Irish
population be taxed, and stamped, and excised to the full
measure of these our heavy burdens. Ireland has been
a death-drag—a drowning weight upon the neck of
England. She is the spoiled child of this country.
She has had out of our common purse a sum quite
adequate to give an impetus to her national industry.
We have built factories for her, which the priests have
ordered their slaves to burn. We have made roads which
the same fellows have destroyed. We have dug canals
which the priests have made unnavigable. We have
built harbours guiltless of shipping—custom-I
Whose revenues do not pay the interest of the money ac.
vanced—quays, beautiful to walk upon, but over or
against which no British flag, beyond that of a West-
moreland collier, ever waved—docks, wet and dry, which
occasionally some foreign-bound ship visits, and •by that
token morp indicates their emptiness than their utility—
all this, and a thousand times more, England has done for
Ireland ; and, before the demagogue-has a tight to claim
additional sacrifices at. our 'lauds, lie must prove, not only
that the people of Ireland are entitled to them, but that
they are in a condition to appreciate them.
To open up the corporations of Ireland to the priests
and their slaves would be the sure way of alienating from
England the hearts and the affections of our protestant
brethren. Ireland to us in that case would become a
greater curse than ever. 'Tie protestants would not sub-
mit to the insolent tyranny of popish mayors, magis-
trates, town clerks, and other bigoted and superstitious
functionaries. If the corporations must be reformed, far
better would it be to suppress them altogether. If the
present system cannot be maintained, repeal the charters
at once, appropriate the corporate funds to protestant
charities, and give no triumph to either party.
But before any reform of this or any other kind is in-
troduced, we hope and trust, for the sake of peace and
justice,' that the taxation of the two islands will be equa-
lized, and that a system of poor laws will be forced upon
Ireland which will compel the landowner and the wealthy
householders to support their native paupers. Do this
we say—tax her whisky as English gin is taxed—tax her
newspapers as English newspapers are taxed—tax all
her products and mauufactures as those of this country
are taxed—and then she may have vi hat municipal re-
forms she desires. This is the only way to render
"justice to Ireland." She owes a large debt of justice
to England, which we call upon her to discharge before
She prefers any fresh claims upon our bounty. Let strict
justice—not the beggar's justice—not the priest's justice
--not the filthy justice of the confessional—but let whole-
'tome and real justice be done to Ireland, and we shall be
content; for O'CONNELL would in that case come in for
a silencing share of it—by way of example!
If At -

ouses

.r. WILLIAM RATHBONE were not more than half
crazy, owing to the elevated position in which circum-
stances have placed him, he would blush at the bare men-
tion of his conduct on Wednesday last. But Mr. Justice
RATHBONE of 1836 is not the plain WILLIAM RATHBONE
of 1833, nor the Friend RATHBONE of 1812. He is now,
as Slender says, "of the commission," and he perhaps
fancies that he has a right to commit himself when he
pleases, by perpetrating acts of folly and inconsistency
without restraint and in defiance of public derision.
We have stated in another article that this Mr. RATH
BONE was the Irish beargeader on Wednesday last. He
was the patron of O'CONNELL, and head dancing-master
or master of the ceremonies to the rabble who made up
for their short allowance of solids, by an extra inpour-
ing of drink at the Corn Exchange. In that capacity he
is entitled to special notice at our hands.
It will be recollected that this RATHBONE. was in 1833
one of the most persevering of the persecutors and
calumniators of the old Liverpool freemen. He and
others of the same cloth charged the freemen with divers
acts of corruption, such as taking bribes at elections,
selling their votes to one RosteroN for so much money,
giving their votes to EWART for an undeclared quantity
of ale and.gin, and for various antiquated and illiberal
=misdemeanours of this sort, No doubt the charges, to a
certain extent, were true; for the poor men who so
seriously committed themselves, were bribed by the very
scoundrels who afterwards became their accusers, and
who have lived ever since upon what they have gained
by turning informers against their companions. Liver-
pool certainly did disgrace itself in the election of
EWART and DENISON, and merited a severe punishment;
but ten thousand times more disgrace has been brought
upon the town, and on themselves, by the despicable and
heartless persons, who professing liberal opinions, could
firstbribe and then peach—first seduce and then betray
--first corrupt and then turn round and swear away the
character, the privileges, and the property of the bur-
gesses! They have been, we admit, most successful in
this base and criminal work, but the day of awful re-
taliation and stern justice will come.
However, this man RATHBONE, at the period we have
alluded to, professed more than ordinary purity. He had
an intense hatred of bribery and corruption. He con-
templated with horror the idea of a working man drink-
ing a tankard of good ale at an election. But what
made this pure and exemplary person shudder the most,
and drive into convulsive fits, was the extraordinary guilt
and shame of trafficking in parliamentary honours, and
buying and selling seats in the House of Commons.
_But look at this worthy patriot now ! Stand forth
WILLIAM RATHBONE, common councilman and Justice
°J. the Peace, and let our readers have a fair view of your
features, the twist of your countenance, the geography
of Your hat, the colour of your coat, and the suavity of
Your manners ! Speak out Mr. Justice RATHBONE, and
give us a. notion of your vernacular,—a peculiar slang,
being a mixture of quakerism with unitarian rudeness
w.raPped
up in a Kentucky dialect ! Stand forth Colm-
an(' Justice of the Peace, and tell us who that
evulgar-looking person, dressed like a showman, or a
You are escorting through the town, and who, no doubt,
4DA"Ntrlighty grear--LION ? Who is lie ?
RATDANIEL
,°'CONNELL ? impossible ! What! you WM.
finnNE the
puritan, the hater of bribes, the persecu-
tnr the
burgesses, the detester
of seat-selling
and all sorts of
RATHBONE e2arliamentary corruption—you WILLIAM
bracing DANIEL O'CONNELL—it is in-
LIAM! or a verity it
credible Some fiend bath maligned thee friend Wu,
flayeth so of thee cannot be so. The man that
ought to be spit upon as General
G4sc"NE Was'
a_H.e ought to receive a "bad name"
like a filthy cur,
'll the streets. ytnd .be pursued and pelted by the boys
say ? Why, it would say
this were true what would the world
'4Y that you, b this of thee Mr. Justice. It would
Yaith Y Patronising, shaking hands, and dining
•-401`INELtave for ever disgraced yourself, in-
tizust:tnionnh 1/18033ur professions of reform and hatred of cor-
th seem only to have been a cloak to cover
e grosser venality toi and corruption which you recognise,
"ate, and encourage
seller
of
c_r. outage in DANIEL O'CONNELL, the seat
Poor Rap..a__l°N who, in jobbing for a seat, cheated
conriemnenda out of some two thousand pounds. You
were the freemen of Liverpool for taking bribes
administered by your most intimate friends;
444 Ye', Mr. Jo it 7, ,
utterable
Stiee ixA.THBoNE, you fawn and do un-
h civittties to the Carlow seat jobber—the dis-
oliest
tu
pt, the
in tt What was not his own—the most cur-
vend, the most heartless and abandoned