The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-10-30 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

The letter of " A Conservative Correspondent"
on Tuesday.
We do not agree with " Alter" in his estimate of the qualih
cations required in a candidate for municipal honours_
Among the least fit for the office of Town Councillor we
reckon such men as Mr. Blackburn and Dr. Carson. We
want practical men of business.
We shall endeavour to prevent a recurrence of the trick of
which " E. C." complains.
" Vulcan" is somewhat too coarse.
" A Friend" shall appear on Tuesday.
We are afraid that " Veritas" has imposed upon us a task
which we cannot accomplish satisfactorily.
We cannot afford " Inquirer" a positive answer to his ques-
tion. Rumour answers in the affirmative.
We trust that it will be unnecessary to act upon the sugges-
tion of " A Constant Reader." We trust that the peace
of Europe will not, after all the vapourings of the French
press, be seriously disturbed.
We are sorry that vve cannot make room for the verses by
"H. W." The manuscript is preserved for him according
to promise.
" A Reformer of All Abuses" complains of the absurd and
oppressive regulations which the corporate authority have
recently endeavoured to enforce against the tenants in St.
John's Market. The preposterous nature of the new laws
of our reforming Solons is too glaring to allow of their con-
tinuance in force. The tenants have a prompt remedy
against these tyrants by eating against them at the next
municipal election.

shall appear

CIA) Etbcrpool &tan Darb.

FRIDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 30, 1840

We have received our files of the Guiana Times and
of the Guiana Chronicle to the 4th ultimo, inclusive.
The former of these papers gives a very unfavourable
view of the state of the Colony. With reference to the
island Leguan, which has frequently been denominated
" the Garden of the Colony," it remarks that in 1833
it made 7785 hogsheads of sugar, 1380 puncheons of
rum, and 7560 casks of molasses ; while, last year its
hogsheads of sugar did not exceed 2800, with rum and
molasses in proportion.

he papers before us contain very little news of
a. The want of labourers continues to form
thPinost prominent topic of discussion in British
Guiana.

We have received our files of the Jamaica Royal
Gazette, and of the Jamaica Standard to the 16th
ultimo, inclusive. We make the following extract from
the Jamaica Standard :

THE PROLIFIC SOIL OF JAMAICA
A HINT TO INTENDING IMMIGRANTS,

We have received the following interesting communication
from a gentleman, on whose veracity we can rely ;
" A few days ago, I cut a bunch of Plantains—commonly
known by the name of Maiden, containing the astonishing
number of ninety-six, weighing upon an average of a pound
each--69 lbs. in all ! Now suppose three of these plantains
sell for 6d. currency, or 3d. sterling, which is the present
price in our market, we have one single bunch of plantains
producing a trifle more than 12s. Bd. currency. Then, if we
suppose that each able labourer is allowed the use of 1 acre
of land for provisions, and he chooses (as he frequently does)
to cultivate Plantains. and that he plants each root 8 feet
square, which is- 676 suckers, and each sucker produces a
bunch annually. If, then, we take the average number and
weight at about half the foregoing, we have 1 acre of land,
giving the enormous sum of £214 15s. sd. ! !!"

Who, after reading this, can feel surprised that the gene-
rality of our peasantry will not work, and that Sugar, Runi,
Coffee, &c. have sunk within the last few years to a mere
trifle ! Or who can feel other sentiments than those of dis-
gust and contempt for the fanatical crusaders who have hi-
therto visited our shores, and gone back again swollen with
the lies and slanders which they have managed to collect
from every disreputable corner, instead of disseminating the
true character of our peasantry—and the capability of the
soil. If such men have a spark of common humanity in their
breasts, how must they feel, in reading each account of the
starving thousands in their own country—many of whom, but
for their opposition and misrepresentation, might have, at
this moment, been in the enjoyment of equal blessings with
their "poor, oppressed black brethren !" Faugh ! such one-
sided philanthropy and mock compassion are enough to
rouse the bile of an angel! And yet these men are consi-
dered vastly pious and consistent characters by a large mass
of the English people : so true is it, that excessive gullibility
and excessive liberalism are too often found existing in the
same persons.

Since the receipt of the news from Monte Video
which we have already acknowledged under the head
of foreign intelligence, we have been favoured by the
same respectable firm with the following extract of a
letter of a later date than that which is given by the
Morning Herald :

Monte Video, 17th Aug. 1840,

Since writing you on the 6thinst., business has been com-
pletely paralyzed by the followitig events. On the 9th a brig
of war arrived from Brest, which port she left 10th June,
informing us that an Admiral was immediately to leave to
treat with Rosas, or if negociation failed, he would be pre-
pared with a sufficient force to take possession of Buenos
Ayres, and to bring the dispute to a conclusion. On the
filth inst. a vessel arrived from the Parana, with despatches
for Admiral Dupatel, advising Lim of Lavalle having landed
at San Pedro, 30 leagues from Buenos Ayres, that he had
mounted one half of his troops, and had engaged and defeated
a body of Rosas's troops, commanded by Pacheco, and in-
tended to march direct upon the city of Buenos Ayres. On
the 14th another brig of war arrived from Brest, which place
she left on the 24th June, bringing accounts that Admiral
Baudin had been appointed and would sail early in July with
a considerable force, and although we are much less sanguine
than we were, still we do hope that the blockade will be
raised in two or three months. The affair, however, may
take another turn. Rosas, if defeated, may take to the
country, and by a mantonera war may destroy Lavalle, as he
did in 1829. We are most anxious for the arrival of the
packet now at Buenos Ayres, and trust she may bring us fa-
vourable accounts of the proceedings of Lavalle. The wea-
ther still continues very wet, so that little produce can be
brought to town. The Saladeras have not yet began to kill,
but may do in the course of two months. If the blockade
should, however, be raised in the mean time, it will imme-
diately cause a ver'y great advance in the price of salt, and in
freights. Doubloons at Buenos Ayres had fallen to 340
dollars each. Here exchange has been done at 42d.

As this is the last opportunity which is left us of al-

'luding to the approaching municipal elections, we shall
embrace it for the purpose of laying before our readers
a comparison of the merits and character of the dif-
ferent candidates. But, first, we may be allowed a few
words of general application.
On no previous occasion has so important a result
been attached to any party contest in Liverpool as that
which hangs upon the issue of the elections of Monday
next. A gigantic effort is now making by the whig-
radical party to secure to themselves the unchallenged
control of the corporate funds. To effect this object
no means, however disreputable, have been spared,
and no exertion, no fraud, no trickery, will be spared.
The most lavish expenditare was resorted to, in order
to foist upon the registers in every ward a horde of
their slavish dependents, whose votes would enable

hem to trample upon the respectable portion of the
.onstituency ; and when baffled in this attempt by the

conservative spirit of the inhabitants of Liverpool,
they fell back upon the mean and miserable expedient
of disfranchising, by a factious and prolonged opposi-
tion, the whole of those parties who would this year be
entitled to be enrolled on the burgess list. They have
openly and deliberately allied themselves with an alien

Popish party; they have feasted its truculent agitate,.
at the table of their mayor, and contributed largely to
the fund by which he is enabled to run riot in his
mendicant and traitorous career. In every popular
movement the whiff;-radical members of the Council
have been found busily and slavishly exerting them-
selves to fraternize with the mobocracy. Their voices
mingle in every ruffian howl which is raised against the
established institutions of the country. They are
amongst the bitterest enemies of our Protestant
Church : the defilers and defamers of our illustrious
peerage, and the personal slanderers of our clergy :
and they only offer up the filthy slaver of their adula-
tion to the Throne so long as its occupant is an instru-
ment in the hands of a reckless and unprincipled
faction.

The result of the elections, which take place on
Monday next, will decide whether such a party is to be
allowed any longer to fasten their unclean presence
upon the town of Liverpool—to infuse their infidel and
republican principles into its social institutions—to
banish the religion of the Protestant Church from its
public schools, and to allow Popery and Deism to en-
trap the minds and pervert the principles of our rising
generation. Upon the issue of the elections of Mon-
day it will depend whether the Council of this once
loyal borough is to reassume its ancient and dignified
position as the firm ally of the Throne and the Church
—the pure fountain of Protestant truth—a spot of sa-
cred ground upon which the tree of British liberty may
wave its lofty arms and defy the blighting breath which
issues from the cesspools of republicanism around; or
whether it is still to remain a thing of reproach, of
contempt, and of loathing, in the estimation of our
fellow-countrymen—a hotbed of utilitarian doctrines
in politics and of sectarian and infidel doctrines in re-
ligion.

Such is the broad basis upon which rests the gene-
-1•a1 question between the conservative and whig-radical
bodies in the approaching struggle for municipal ho-
nours. Let us now proceed to test the merits of the
different individuals who stand forward as the cham-
pions of their respective parties.
The wards to which the greatest importance appears
to be attached by both parties are Scotland, Castle-
street, Pitt-street, and Lime-street wards, in all which
we may anticipate that the contest will be waged with
unsparing zeal. The retiring candidates in Pitt-street
and Lime-street, Mr. William Rathbone and Mr.
Blackburn, are great guns amongst the whig-radical
party : the former being a restless and determined ra-
dical, a furious and foulmouthed opponent of the
Church of England, and perhaps the most bitter and
bigoted enemy of conservatism in the borough ;
whilst the latter has distinguished himself as the leader
of the 'crusade which succeeded in virtually expelling
Church of England Protestantism from the Corpora-
tion Schools. The retiring member for Scotland-
ward, Mr. Thornhill, may be viewed as a kind of jackal
to his party ; is styled a useful man ; and is a very use-
ful man when any whig-radical job is to be perpetrated
in the Council ; whilst in his own ward, and amongst
his constituents, he figures as a small tavern oracle—a
pocket edition of the statute for regulating weights and
measures, bound up in greasy calf-skin. Mr. James
Aiken, the candidate for Castle-street Ward, the
room of Mr. Pilcher, who retires from public lift; is
also a great man with the wliitvadical party. Mr..
Aiken is a feelosopher of the ScOtch school, a corn-
law repealer—in which character, he had last year, the
honour of making an egregious ninny of himself be.,
fore Lord Melbourne—and has all but declared himself
a repealer of the legislative union between Great Bri-
tain and Ireland.

This most illustrious quadrumvirate is opposed by
four staunch conservatives—by Mr. Thomas Murray
Gladstone, in Scotland Ward, by Mr. Peter Hope, in-
Castle-street, by Mr. Toulmin, in Pitt-street, and by
Mr. Kilshaw, in Lime-street Wards—all good men,
and loyal Protestant subjects.

In Everton Ward, Mr. David Hodgson, a member
of the conservative body, a sound churchman, and a
useful member of the present council, vacates his seat;
and is opposed by Mr. William Brown, formerly a
member of the council, and in politics a thorough
going ministerial hack. The contest in this ward will,
we have no doubt, be close ; but if the conservative
party, and especia4y the Church of England party, do
their duty, the result is not at all doubtful. The pro-
ceedings of the radical faction, during the late church-
rate contest, will, we: trust, not be lost sight of by the
electors on Monday next. In Vauxhall Ward, the
retiring member, Mr. W. Preston, is opposed by Mr.
Henry Copeland, a conservative, and unless the electors
allow their intellects to be bemused with wash, and
their principles to be drowned in the tap-tub, the
radical spirit-merchant will, we think, be, relieved of
the necessity of distilling his sweet wits in the council
chamber.

In St. Paul's Ward, a radical member;ietires, and
the vacant seat is contested between R. B. Hollinshead,
Esq., a member of one of the oldest families in Liver-
pool, and Mr. J. R. M'Guffie, a gentleman with whose
existence we had, until within the last few weeks, the
misfortune to be entirely unacquainted. We are in-
formed, however, that Mr. APGuffie—euphonious
name !—is no small man in his own estimation, and is
calculated to furnish—if elected—an ornament to any
mayor's feast, and to occupy a large space in the coun-
cil chamber. We are sorry, however, to hear that
there is little chance of the electors of St. Paul's Ward
rejecting the claims of a candidate like Mr. Hollins-
head, and swallowing such a bolus as is prescribed to
them in the person of this worthy dispenser of mint-
cakes and jalap.
In the Exchange Ward, the retiring candidate is
Mr. Thomas Sands, a conservative, deservedly popular
amongst his constituents, for his excellent character
as a merchant, for the attention which he has paid,
whilst a member of the council to their local interests,

and for the sound judgment and firmness which he has,
displayed upon every question affecting the general
interests of the borough. The candidate opposed to
Mr. Sands is Mr. Wood, a merchant of whig-radical
principles, whose influence we believe is considerable
with the " lads of the flags," and who is just now
striving hard, we hear, to increase that influence by a
liberal shower of patronage amongst them of sampling
orders from the firm of which he is a member. Whe-
ther a judicious application of these, and sundry other
baits of a similar description, is complimentary to those
to whom they are addressed, and will materially advan-
tage the success of Mr. Wood, is at present doubtful ;
but we trust that there is public spirit enough in the
ward to enable the conservative candidate to laugh and
despise them.

In St. Peter's Ward, the retiring candidate, Mr.
John Priestley—a thorough-going whig-partizan, is
opposed on the conservative interest by Mr. Ebenezer
Rae, a member of the Scotch Church, and a firm
supporter of our Protestant constitution. This ward
has been hitherto considered one of the strongholds of
Whig-radicalism ; but we are confidently informed that
on the present occasion conservative principles will
assert their supremacy, and Mr. Rae, will be placed,
on Monday next, by the exertions of his friends, in a
proud position upon the poll, and succeed in attaining
the object of his laudable ambition.

In Great George's Ward, Mr. Cooper, the retiring
member, a conservative, is opposed by Mr. Thomas
Taylor, a radical, whose claims upon the respectable
portion of the ward we are at a loss to know. We
have, however, the satisfaction to learn that, with mo-
derate exertions of his friends, Mr. Cooper is perfectly
safe.

In Rodney-street, Mr. NV. Lassell, the retiring whig
member is succeeded by Mr. Charles Holland—a gen-
tleman of the whig-radical politics, who is esteemed a
rising man amongst his party. Mr. Holland, however,
has opposed to him a thorough worker, Mr. Birkett,
who, in his capacity of churchwarden, has shown that•
he possesses claims upon the ward which a mere talker
like Mr. Holland will, we trust, compete with in vain-
In Abercromby Ward, Mr. T. Todd, the retiring
member, is opposed by Mr. Procter, an able conser-
vative, who is, we rejoice to say, considered perfectly
safe.

In St. Anne's Ward, Mr. J. Davies, a conservative-
of the old school, opposed by Mr. William Slater--
ex-draper—in the place of Mr. Edward Segar, who
retires. St. Anne's Ward, we trust, will not lose
sight of the insult heaped upon the member of her
choice last year; but will show that, in returning Mr.
Jones on that occasion, there was " no mistake," and
that in the present election her constituency are re•
solved upon doing their duty. Mr. Davies, the con-
servative candidate, is a gentleman well calculated to

Perform efficiently, and honestly, the duties which will
devolve upon him.
In "West Derby Ward, Mr. G. H. Lawrence, the
retiring conservative, is opposed by Mr. Lawrence
Heyward', jun., a worthy scion of the king of the tee-
totallers. We know little of the latter gentleman,
except that he professes to be an enemy to the strife of
Party which has formed hitherto so prominent a fea-
ture in the proceedings of the council. That this is a
bait thrown out to catch the stray votes of a few mo-
derate men in the ward, we have no doubt ; but we
think that Mr. Heyworth's hatred of party contention
might have been more fitly shown, than by obtruding
himself to contest a ward, in which he ought to have
no earthly chance, against a member possessing the
qualifications of George H. Lawrence.
In the Toxteths the retiring candidates are both of
the subservient Whig-radical class, and are opposed by
zealous and orthodox Protestant conservatives. Mr.
Sheppard, the candidate for South Toxteth, fought
last year a drawn battle in the ward ; and we have full
assurance that this year, opposed to such a candidate
as Mr. John Platt, he will be triumphantly returned by
the good men and true of the ward. Mr. Richard
Harbord, the conservative candidate for the North
ward, is well worthy of the support of that loyal and
patriotic constituency, and we trust will not ask their
support in vain. The scandalous jobbing of the Whig-
radical party in these two wards is notorious ; and we
believe we are not far wrong in anticipating that the
day of retribution is at hand.
Upon the whole, the personal qualifications of the
conservative candidates may, we think, be fairly tested
against those of their opponents ; and if we bear in
mind the result of last year's contest, we are fully en-
titled to hope for a triumphant result, leaving out of
question the reaction which it is well known has taken
pi ace
amongst the respectable portion of the consti-
tuency during the intervening period. In nine wards
out of the sixteen, the conservatives were successful
last year by good majorities ; and in three wards—
Everton, Exchange, and South Toxteth—the whig-
radicals were only returned by the casting votes of the
Presiding aldermen. In the whole of these twelve
wards we anticipate a victory this year for conservative
Principles; and we believe we may add to these at
least two more wards in which the present Whig-radi-
cal candidates will be sent to bestow their talents upon
their own private affairs.

To secure this gratifying result, one thing only is
necessary, an active and persevering eflbrt on the part
of the conservative candidates and their friends. Our
enemies are active and perfectly alive to the dangers of
their position ; they will spare no exertion, hesitate at
no fraud, and reject no weapons likely to advance their
cause. We are far from advocating a resort on the
Part of the conservatives to any of these unworthy
Practices ; but we must impress upon our friends the
necessity of counteracting them by continued watch-
fulness and energy. The present contest, we repeat,
Is one of overwhelming importance ; and it will be
abundantly disgraceful if it is lost by any neglect or
cowardice on the part of conservatives.

We avail ourselves of the last opportunity which
°.frers itself, prior to the approaching municipal elec-
.' -tl°rl, for appealing to the conservative electors of Li-
verpool, and: urging upon them the necessity for
Prompt and energetic measures, in order to secure the
return of a majority of conservatives on Monday next.
Before we proceed to speculate upon the prospects
of the conservatives this year, we shall lay before our
readers the final state of the poll in each of the wards
,for the last four years. In doing so, we shall take the
highest
number of voters recorded each year in those
Wards in which there have been two candidates. The
following was the return for 1836 and 1837