The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-04-06 00:00:00

April (;) 1841.

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE MERCURY AND THE RATEPAYERS,

TO THE EDITOR OF TILE LIVERPOOL STANDARD*
SIR,—It was once written that " the grand secret of all
government was to rule without being felt ;" but it will
be marvellously strange, if, after recent events and coming
changes, the "Liverpool Mercury" is able to maintain
its rule over that class of ratepayers who have been easily
moved, hitherto, into voting action at Easter, by the de
clamatory powers of certain potentates in that local
planet. After maintaining a higher price for advertise
ment columns, salved over by a supplementary readers'
sheet, I find that now its hebdomadal appearance is to
merge into two publications per week. How far this ar-
rangement may assist in preserving its usual quantity of
readers, I will not pretend to augur at this stage of the
effort ; but I do think that it must, finally, have the effect
of impairing its advertising influence. Be that as it may,
I sincerely trust that the Conservative press of the town
will hot relax in their efforts to serve the public faithfully
and, still more, that they will also keep a more watchful
eye over the " sayings and doings" of that mendacious
print than has of late been their wont. I speak not in-
vidiously; yet it were no unfair procedure to ask the
ratepayers who have hitherto followed in the wake of their
mercurial pilot at every Easter vestry meeting, how they
mean to act next week? Will they still place implicit
reliance upon their vestry leader, in opposing useful and
necessary rates, after witnessing his strenuous support of,
and condolement with, the parties who have so long
blinded and misled the Irish people, until they have be-
come a burden of extra rates to Liverpool, and a Mud
sounding cry for charity to the whole nation ? Will they
still listen to petulent objections to this vestryman or
that, from political spleen ; nay, against even those who
foresaw the fallacies of all this sham political economy;
when an accumulation- of rates is to be imposed upon
them, to relieve those whom a certain leader has, for
many years past, led to- believe were right, and every
British ministry wrong ? I ask these questions plumply,
for the question at issue must be no longer misunderstood.
It may be a-very easy matter for the Mercury to conti-
nually rail at the Rev. H. M`Neile, and impugn his
righteous motives ; and quite easy for that- print, which'
has so often fulsomely lauded our gracious Queen and her
consort, to throw a blasphemous slur at the illustrious
pair,. concerning the recent fast-day; but most surely the
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merit, or by private benevolence; but whenever the press.
abuses its power in the way that I hint at, more incalcu-
lable mischief is done amongst the labouring classes,
'who are not practical men of the world, or possessed of
thinking common sense,) than any man can calculate.- I'
went, on Wednesday last, to view the lamentable fall of
the viaduct on the North Shore; and, whilst viewing it,'
was hurt and disgusted, beyond expression, at the heart-
less buffoonery, blasphemous wit, and devilish rejoicing, of a class of labouring men, at this misfortune, who were, professedly at the time, readers and admirers of the Li-
verpool Mercury,—and who, when checked for their dis-
honest ribaldry, proudly quoted that journal in support
of their heartless assertions.
I could narrate much more, but I forbear.
Requesting your insertion of this in your paper of the
30th instant,

I am, Sir

Your constant reader and admirer,
March 27th, 1847. JOHN BULL,