The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-01-19 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

LIVERPOOL POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

CAUTION TO SMOKERS.—On Wednesday last, Captain
Stewart, of the ship Celia, appeared before Mr. Rushton,
at the Police-court, and was fined ss. for smoking a cigar
on the quay of George's Dock.
STEALING CARPETING.—On Friday, at the Police-
court, Matthew Morton was charged with stealing a roll
of carpeting from the warehouse of Mr. Hutton, No. 22,
Byrom-street. Constable Burnie, 272, deposed to having
apprehended the prisoner with the carpet in his possession
about seven o'clock on Thursday evening, as he was making
his way along Cheapside. Mr. Wm. Dixon, assistant to
Mr. Hutton, identified the carpet, and stated, that he
missed it from the warehouse about six o'clock on Thurs-
day evening. Committed to the sessions.
ROBBING A TlLL.—Janhes Taylor, a well-known thief,
was brought before Mr. Rushton on Friday, charged with
having stolen 16s. out of the till of a shop in Forbes-
street, kept by a person named Cubbin. The fellow
watched his opportunity, and seeing Mr. Cubbin leave
the shop, rushed in and abstracted the money from the
till. He was seen by a girl, who identified him. This
occurred on Saturday week ; and on Tuesday evening last
he was detected in a similar depredation in the shop of
Mr. M`Millan. Mr. M`Millan having occasion to go out
on the evening in question, left his shop in charge of his
daughter, a mere child. Taylor came into the shop, and,
after striking the little girl with a stick, ran off, taking a
lump of butter. He was committed to the sessions.
AN IMPOSTOR.—Patrick Shaughnessy, an Irishman,
was brought up on Friday, charged with begging on
'Change the
,previous day. The man had been exceed-
ingly importunate, and was repeatedly cautioned to leave
the town before he was taken into custody, but without
effect. After being put in bridewell, it was found that he'
had £6 in the Savings Bank in this town. A letter was
also taken from him, by which it appeared he was pos-
sessed of money in Ireland. Upon Mr. Rushton saying
he should be sent to prison, the fellow became greatly
alarmed, and, in a whining tone, begged for mercy. The
magistrate said it was a gross case, in which advantage
had been taken of the public sympathy in a time of great
distress, and ordered him to be imprisoned for one month.
Two grown-up lads were brought before Mr. Rushton,
on Thursday, on a charge of having created a disturbance
at the house of Mr. Rowland, one of the assistant over-
seers of the parish, the night before. Mr. Rowland stated
that they were in the habit of coming to the Parish-office
daily, and making it a sort of rendezvous—that they re-
fused to remain at the Workhouse, and that one of them
had broken the windows of the London Mansion-house
some time ago, because the lord mayor refused to relieve
him. Five of them came to his (Mr. Rowland's) house
the night before, supposing that he was busy at the
Parish-office at the time, and had he not, fortunately,
been at home, they would, in all probability, have pro-
ceeded to extremities. Mr. Rushton ordered them to
find bail, themselves in £lO, and two sureties in £5 each,
or to be imprisoned two months in default.
FELONY IN BOLD-.STREET.—On Saturday, two females,
named Anne Akehurst and Margaret M'Gill were brought
before Mr. Rushton on a charge of having been concerned
in a robbery of Mr. Thomas Smith's glass and china es-
tablishment, 54, Bold-street. It appeared that the felony
was found out through the instrumentality of Officer
Bates, one of the detective force. On Saturday morning
he observed the prisoner Akehurst, who is a policeman's
wife, knocking at Mr. Smith's kitchen window. In the
course of a very short time she was admitted into the
house by the other prisoner, M`Gill, who acted as Mr.
Smith's servant. On coming out she was pursued and
apprehended by Bates, in Berry-street, and in a basket,
which she carried under her shawl, were found some can-
dles. On searching her lodgings Bates discovered four
china cups and saucers, an amber-coloured phial, a cream
jug, and other articles of glass and china, which were all
identified by Mr. Smith as his property. There was very
little doubt, from the evidence, that M`Gill had given the
property to the other prisoner, as she had access to the
ware-room, which adjoins the kitchen. Both the prisoners
were committed for trial.

LIVERPOOL MENTAL IMPROVEMENT
SOCIETY'S ANNUAL SOIREE.

On Thursday evening last, the annual soiree of the
members and friends of the Liverpool Mental Improve-
ment Society, was held at the Royal Assembly Rooms,
Great George-street, and on no previous occasion do we
remember to have seen that capacious apartment present
a more pleasing appearance. The number present would
amount to nearly three hundred, and amongst them was
a fair proportion of those " gems of nature," the ladies—
whose presence gave a cheerful and enlivening tone to
every proceeding. On the platform we observed Mr. G.
Holden and Mr. H. H. Singlehurst, delegates from the
Literary and Scientific Society of the Mechanics' Insti-
tution ; Mr. J. F. Turner, Mr. Leake, and Mr. Barker,
of the Essay and Discussion Class of the Manchester
Athenaeum ; Mr. Samuel, Mr. Hogg, and :many of the
leading members of the society.
At about seven o'clock the chair was taken by
Dr. HODGSON, who in opening the business of the meet-
ing, stated his reasons for supporting societies of the kind.
He said—The first thing that strikes me is the improving
associations to which they lead. At a time of life when
npn
ooe
ret
td;
nogi
degrading,
grt
hsocietyaad:sietnahlngveied, ssbk
iwg:lrahndodn.
but tioesidT:,truhoa:ntnnor
ei;tnni
is
ss mostconscious
tuut lslde
of
beflilettkh,
oeeiflt
trueahi nso
likelihood
surely
dt
siai elevating,
ch
::_erii)eotiien:s,mwehnocit,does not feel a love of men-
talnlOlnf et
ee. joining
anUndgl tbrsiaul rfar a m the intimacies formed at
other places, not perhaps
any o marked upward t9n-
vilPirnogtrheesms
ly toofarise,
dency, with such friendships as
and surely we must feel that, were it only la;
vention of evil, such societies deserve our wai?rmestPre
en-
couragement. Nor is their spirit merely negative. The
good dispositions which each brings with him are strength-
ened by sympathy and combination; each shares in the
good of all, alternately giving and receiving good. The
good resolutions, which in solitude might have languished
and died away, are here conjoined into consistent habits
by the silent power of example and unanimity cf feeling,
compared with which the most serious and solemn
didactic exhortation is but a sorry teacher of morality.
Good of every kind becomes animated with congenial
thoughts and pleasing recollections ; it is a part of enjoy-
ment, not a check on enjoyment ; and becomes uncon-
sciously but powerfully the rule of life. And further, we may
be assured that the only friendships which endure through
life are those which ate based on good. Evil divides not
less than it corrupts; alienation succeeds to such friendship
as exists among the vicious ; and even when the yoke is
shaken off, there is a bitterness not to be escaped in the
remembrance of confidence misgiven, time wasted, and
powers abused. Friendships, on the other hand, which
have taken root and sprung up will not fail to blossom
and bear fruit through after life. Again, by such societies
as these a purpose and an object are given to private
reading and study. Persons designed for certain profes-
sions, such as the bar, have a definite course of study
marked out, from which they must not depart ; but to the
great majority of young men who are designed for busi-
ness life, the whole field of literature is open—the whole
world of thought is before them, where to choose, " but
without a Providence to guide." Or if the lighter sorts
of literature be not systematically preferred—if history,
and biography, and philosophy, find not unwilling stu-
dents, the reading is sure to be desultory and discursive,
having .no point at which to aim. It thus becomes, at
best, an intellectual dissipation, a higher order of trifling,
a literary lounge, a shelter from one's own tedium, a sup-
port for one's own weakness—which, again, it tends to in-
crease, not to diminish. Very different is the effect of
systematic and continuous reading on a given subject, for
a certain time, and for a certain purpose. The mind is
more acute, and active, and on its guard ; it sifts and.
compares statements which before it might have received.
implicitly or rejected without inquiry; it adds fact to fact,
and thought to thought, in an orderly and close connec—
tion ; and the ideas are no longer an undisciplined rabble,
but a compact,well-armed,and well-drilled phalanx,ready
for action at the time of need. Reading thus becomes a
mental gymnastics, and ceases to be a pleasant dream, from
which one wakes with a chaos of confused andindistinct im-
pressions. But again—the power of uttering thought, so as
to transform it into the mind of another,, or still better,
so as to stimulate another's independent,thought, is a pos-
session which it is as important as is difficult to ac-
quire. Practice—practice—practice 131 the only. recipe.
He who will not speak till he knows precisely. hew to

speak, is like the old scholastic who would not enter.the
water till he knew how to swim. And when, and where,
and how, is this practice to be obtained ? When the se-
rious business of life has been begun, it is too late. The
apprenticeship must precede the journey-work. Save in
such societies as these, I know not where the needful ex-
perience and self-possession can be gained. Here they
may be gained to a very great extent ; and be it observed,
it is not sought to produce finished orators, or special
pleaders, or powerful declaimers, but to give to every one
such a control over his own language and his own feelings
and thoughts, as to enable him, without trepidation, or
bashfulness, or hesitation, to utter forth what truth is in
him ; so that neither his own attention nor that of others,
shall be fixed on the• vehicle and mode of utterance,
rather than on the substance of that which is uttered. I
know that there are persons fluent and glib of speech,
without a correspondent depth of thought, persons who
dilute an infinitesimal portion of ideas with a copious de-
luge of watery truth ; and that such persons excite in the
minds of the discerning a distrust of all ready speech.
But the two things are surely not incompatible. Nor can
it be truly said that clear utterance has no reflex bearing
on clearness of thought. Our own, ideas gain greatly in
precision and in force by the very attempt to impress others
with them. A thought seen through the medium of ano-
ther's sympathy is no longer the cold abstraction which it
was in the solitude of our own mind. It has a new warmth,
vitality, and energy. By speaking then, and writing too,
but more especially by speaking (for then the communion
of mind with mind is more rapid and direct), do we greatly
aid our efforts to obtain order, precision, and accuracy,
and readiness of thought. Nor let me forget to allude to
the excellent school for temper, for taste, for presence of
mind, which is here presented. One here learns to bear
with patience and good humour, the dissection of his ar-
guments and the exposure of his mistakes ; to seize with
instinctive quickness the salient points of an opponent's
reasoning, or of a statement of facts, and a promptness of
reply, without which a man may, as it were, have much
money in the bank, but is really poor, for want of ready
cash to meet the exigencies of the moment. The French
speak of " les esprit des escaliers," the wit of the stair-
case, which remembers only in going down stairs the re-
tort or repartee which, in the dining room, at the proper
time, would have been most effective. Here we learn to
substitute a ready and timely wit for this lagging, tardy,
staircase wit. And further, I know no better, or so good
way of disciplining the various powers of mind to effec-
tive, bemuse combined, action. These may be, and often
are, trained apart, but memory, and imagination, and ob-
servation, and wit, and reflection, must all work together
to produce any great result ; the sun's rays must be drawn
into a focus, ere they kindle a flamc ; by such contrasts as
are here afforded, there is a new call for concentration of
all the faculties of the mind.

Mr. HUGH GAWTHORP, of Birkenhead, then addressed
the meeting, and eloquently descanted on the many happy
days and numerous advantages he had enjoyed since his
first connection with the society. When he joined it, he
could not have uttered two words consecutively before
such an assemblage. He was so nervous that he would
have been laughed at • and though now he might not have
altogether got over the objection, he was enabled to con-
vey to them his ideas of the benefits such an institution
had the power of disseminating. He argumentatively
combatted the assertion of some, that such societies, by
occupying the attention of youthful minds, disqualified
them for business, and asked where one had been thus
deteriorated by attending to mental improvement, how
many were there unable to follow, beneficially, their avo-
cations from not having attended such societies. He con-
cluded by hoping that the Mental Improvement Society
would go on prosperously progressing from year to year.
Mr. HAYLOCK was then called upon by the president,
and amidst frequent rounds of applause, spoke nearly as
follows :

When Julius Caesar, 1900 years ago, landed on this
island, he found it a wild, uncultivated country, and its
inhabitants for the most part little, if at all, superior to
that of the brutes by which they were surrounded ; they
were, in fact, what Shakspere says men must be—" if the
chief good and market of their time be but to sleep and
feed—beasts; no more !" They had no fixed abode, no
settled occupations ; they lodged in miserable huts, or na-
tural caves ; they painted their bodies as the American
Indians do at the present day, and, like them, were the
victims of a bloody superstition ; the undressed skins of
animals formed their only covering, and for food they
were dependent upon the precarious supplies of the chase
or the spontaneous fruits of the earth. Such was then the
condition of this island and its inhabitants; now it stands
at the head of all the nations of the earth, and its
people are the chief of men. Not alone is England
supreme on land and mistress of the sea ; not alone is
she preeminent in war, in commerce, and in manufac-
tures ; but she is first also in literature, in science, and in
art. Unequalled and unapproached in all the elements of
material greatness, she towers far above and beyond all
others in moral dignity and grandeur. To use the lan-
guage of a distinguished foreigner, with whose eloquence
this very room has recently resounded—" This is Britain
the peerless, that centres within herself all that the most
favoured nations, ancient and modern, could boast of."
Various have been the means by which a change so vast,
improvements so wonderful, have been effected. The
speaker then briefly pointed out some of these, and conti-
nued,—Did time permit, I might cite numerous other
valuable aids to our progress as a nation ; it would be de-
lightful, for example, to expatiate upon the blessings of
commerce, but I must pass on to the most important—
the ONE before which all others " pale their ineffectual
fires,"—an instrument of capabilities at once so vast
and so minute as to be equally potent in preventing
wini(iliicviva
hdhasl vice
already
national
lynsubverte
subverted
empires, injustice—an
changed instrument
dynasties,
exploded superstitions, emancipated slaves, given liberty
to conscience, and unfettered the industry of nations—
an instrument which is now striking terror to the hearts
of tyrants and oppressors, and cheering the drooping spi-
rits of the injured and oppressed, and which, we are well
assured, will eventually, by God's blessing, convert this
earth into a Paradise, realising the poet's prophecy—

Oh God ! the future yet shall see,
On this fair world of thine,
The myriads wise, and good, and free,
Fulfil thy blest design.
The dawn of Truth, long overcast,
Shall kindle into day at last,.
Bright, boundless, and divine!
And man shall walk the fruitful sod,

A being worthy of his God!
I need scarcely add the instrument I allude to is the
Printing Press. With its introduction into this country
commenced, as it were, a new era. To it, unquestion-
ably, may be attributed that diffusion of knowledge and
general enlightenment whichbrought about firstthe Refor-
mation, then the Revolution, and subsequently those other
important political and social changes, which have made
us what we are—the dread and envy of the world.
Through its instrumentality, the deep-thinkers amongst
mankind, the chosen men of God, as I may with truth
reverently call them, have given forth to the world their
noble thoughts, their glorious imaginings; and while un-
folding to men their rights and duties, have imparted to
them the spirit bravely to seek and guard the one, and
honestly to perform the other. This holds good of
literature in general, but it applies with peculiar force to
to that particular department of it which is designated,
par excellence, " The Press"—our newspapers, maga-
zines, and reviews. It may be true that these do not ge-
nerally, or even frequently, first promulgate great original
ideas, but if they are not the fountain head, most assur-
edly are they the channels through which the evergushing
streams of truth and wisdom flow around, fertilising, pu-
rifying, beautifying the earth. Worthily has The
Press" been named the fourth estate of the realm—
against it the other three are powerless—the public opi-
nion it generates, and fosters, and embodies, is omnipo-
tent ; and whether for good or ill—l believe for good—
sweeps all before it. Nor is its influence solely poli-
tical: it is equally at home whether occupied in hold-
ing up to popular scorn some petty local job or im-
position, or in forcing upon the attention of the legisla-
ture some great social wrong. It is useful, aye essential,
alike to the merchant, the tradesman, and the mechanic ;
in fact, it is incalculably beneficial both to the community at
large, and to each individual member of it. Every one who
pays the least attention to the signs of the times, cannot
fail to note its important bearing upon the best interests
of society at the present day, by the discussion of such
questions as the health of towns and sanatory improve-
ments, poor-laws, and the hours of labour in factories,
the condition of Ireland, and national education, What
it is doing now, it has been doing to a greater or less de-
gree ever since it had an abiding place amongst us. If
further evidence is wanted of its power,—its beneficial
power,- we need only look to other cuuntrico. It would
appear to form an esssential element in national freedom
and prosperity ; for whether we look on the old world,—
to France or Spain, or Germany, or Austria ; or on the
new, to the United States, or the South American re-
publics, we shall find that the freedom and prosperity of
_these nations correspond with the freedom and ability of
their press. So much is this is the case indeed, that given
the one we can predicate the other. We are sometimes
reminded of the old proverb, " We never know the value
of a friend until we feel his loss." By way of application,
it is asserted that the journalists and literary men of this
country are not esteemed and honoured as they deserve.
True,- we do not decorate them with' crosses of the legion
of honour, or often make them prime ministers as in
France, and yet we have had a Canning at the head of
affairs ; and Macaulay, the most brilliant essayist of the
age, has a seat in the present cabinet. True, we don't,
like America, send our Everitts and Washington Irvings
on foreign embassies, but neither do we even occasionally
hand them over to the tender mercies of Judge Lynch, or
familiarise them with the bowie knives and rifles of the
far west. If we do not honor our Dickenses and Jerrolds,
and Fonblanques, and Carlyles, our Times and other able
editors and writers, in the same ostentatious way as do
our continental and transatlantic brethren, it may be the
shrewd practical good sense of John Bull has discovered
that such men of genius are better employed in the closet
or at the desk, than in leading parties or in dancing attend-
ance upon foreign potentates. If they are not ministers,
they are minister makers and directors, which I take to
be the nobler office ' • and I believe after all, they are paid
as. liberally, and esteemed as highly, and venerated as
much as the literary men of any other land. Be this as
it may, however, let it not be said that we are wanting in
our allegiance, and while we honour the great men of our
common country, let us not forget our local journalists.
Liverpool can boast a press which, whether taken singly
or in the mass, will bear comparision with that of any
other provincial town in the kingdom, and a portion of it
has peculiar claims upon our gratitude. If we are im-
pressed (as I venture to take for granted we are) with the
importance of a free and independent and intelligent
press, we should be desirous- to diffuse its blessings over
all the land,—we should wish it to enter the cottage of the
peasant as freely as the mansion of the peer, and we ought,
therefore, to honour those who have recently so greatly
enlarged the circle of its influence. It was fitting that
Liverpool, so celebrated for the enterprise of her mer-
chants, should have journalists animated by the same
spirit. It was fitting that she should be the first of pro-
viaciattowas to indulge the poor man in the luxury, I

might say necessary, of a good and cheap newspaper. The
experiment is a bold one, but the result I hope—l believe
there are already good grounds for hoping—will prove it
to be as wise as it is bold. Long may its projectors and
adopters prosper !
"Let us aid them all we can,
Every woman, ever man ;
Smallest helps, if rightly given,
Make the movement stronger;
'Twill be strong enough one day,
Wait a little longer."
I am far from wishing to depreciate the value of the other
portion of our local press. I acknowledge its importance
and its merit. There is " ample scope and range enough'
for all ; and I trust all will prosper, and continue to in-
crease in public usefulness.
In conclusion, I beg that you will join me heartily in
wishing—with especial reference to the cheap newspapers
of Liverpool—