The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-06-16 00:00:00

OPENINGS OF RAILWAYS

JUNE.—London and Biackwall (throughout) ; Eastern
Counties, to Brentwood, 18 miles, probably. Bth.—Lan-
caster and Preston (throughout.)* Midland Counties (the
remaining part.) 12th.—Maryport and Carlisle (partial), 7
miles, principally for coal and lime traffic. 18th.--North
Midland (throughont.)
JULY Ist or 2nd.—Preston and Wyre ; Hull and Selby,
bui not quite certain ; Ist, Great Western, to Farrington ;
Bth,—Birmingham and Gloucester, from Bassett-green to
Cheltenham, 11 miles.

AuGusT.-Chester and Birkenhead, and Chester and
Crewe.

AL GUST or SEPTEMBER.—Northern and Eastern to
Hoddesdon, 16 miles.—Railway Times.
* Postponed to the end of the month.

WEEKLY RETURN OF TRAFFIC ON RAILWAYS.
(Prom the Railway Magazine.)

NAME. • Passen- Cash. k y per day.
IpPrmile w. pi' ile ssen
day. Pag.
gers.
X. X. X.
Birmingham - 16675 148* 21* -
Grand Junction - 8833 904 13 -
South Western - 6278 82 11 -
Liverp. and Manch.
Great Western.... 23545 5503 971 14 -
North Midland.... 3364 826 21+ 3 -
Newcast. & Carlisle - 1926 32 4; -
Greenwich 71961 2528 663 94i 10280
Birmg. & Derby - 1812 34; 5 -
Mancester &Leeds 12504 893 66 91 1786
Croydon 18403 1010 96* 14 2629
York &N. Midland 2715 446 231 3; 388
Midland Counties 6839 713 19* 2i 977
Glasgow and Ayr 2344 - - - 391
Eastern Counties
Ulster 7026 191 24 3; 1004
Shore. & Brighton 7226 239 40 5j 1033
HARVEST PROSPECTS.—The appearance of the crops in
this district is exceedingly favourable, and if the present fine

HARVEST PROSPECTS.—Thc appearance of the crops in
this district is exceedingly favourable, and if the present fine
weather continue, the harvest will be early as well as abun-
dant. Barley has already shot in many parts, and the Wheat
too is coming rapidly into ear. Peas and Beans have been
growing apace within the last few weeks, and a very fine sample
of the former was exhibited in the Green Market, in this
town, on Saturday last, and sold for three shillings a peck.
Potatoes look well, especially the American early kind. The
meadow lands have been very prolific, but the clovers are
but ofstunted growth. Upon the whole, so forward a season,
or one likely to prove so abundant, has not been experienced
for many years. The hay harvest has partially commenced.
_ _

Mr. Prentice, of the Manchester Times, has instituted pro-
ceedings against Mr. Condy, one of the proprietors of the
Manchester and Salford AdvertisCr, for an alleged libellous
article which appeared in the Advertiser of Saturday last.
The action will assume such a shape, as to allow the defend-
ant to prove the truth of his statements, if such be can do.

Ebt Ribirpoot &tanbarb.

TUESDAY. MORNING, JUNE 16, 1840.

We have received our files of the Sydney Commer-
cial Journal to the Bth, and of the Sydney Gazette to
the 4th of February, both inclusive. It appears that
at the great annual sales of stock which took place at
Sydney, at the commencement of the year, 4,149 head
of cattle, 37,460 sheep, and 170 horses were offered
for sale, either by auction or private contract. The
whole of the stock realised upwards of £60,000. There
is no political news of importance from the colony.
In our next we shall give a few of the most interesting
extracts from these papers.
Private accounts from Port Philip describe the state
of wages there as enormously high—so much so, in-
deed, that men servants were demanding and obtain-
ing £52 per annum, besides board and lodging. If
this be true, and there appears no reason to doubt it,
this would appear to be the most eligible spot for
working men to proceed to. Those, therefore, who
are about to emigrate for the purpose of realising a
livelihood by industrious pursuits, will probably find
Port Philip, at the present moment, preferable to most
other places.
We are happy to learn that the commerce of New
South Wales continued to prosper. The quantity of
shipping in the harbour was very large.

We have frequently had occasion to deplore the
mischievous influence exercised over the minds of the
negroes in Jamaica by the Baptist missionaries, and to
lament the scandal brought upon the cause of religion
itself by their violent and inflammatory harangues. It
is, however, a consolation to reflect that there are other
missionaries, engaged in instructing the negroes in the
island, who have never meddled with political matters,
and who have succeeded in gaining the esteem and
affection of both employers and labourers, by their
mild and unassuming efforts to spread abroad among
the whole population the humanising .principles and
pacific sway of true Christianity. Among these we
must class the clergy of the Church Missionary
Society, as well as the ministers of the Moravian and
Wesleyan Methodist persuasions. The high estimation
in Which the labours of the Church Missionary Society
is held by the proprietary body connected with the
island may be • inferred from the proceedings at the
public meeting, held a few days since, at Willis's
Rooms, London, at which resolutions were passed
highly approving of the conduct of the missionaries
connected with the above society. That meeting was
convened for the express purpose of considering the
propriety of entering into a subscription in aid of the
funds of the society, as connected with Jamaica. It
appears that the society had been at very considerable
annual expense in sending out missionaries, and
affording other religious instruction to the population
of Jamaica. The immense exertions in other parts of
the world, made by the association, for the conversion
of the heathen, had recently so exhausted their
treasury, that the committee of the society were com-
pelled to declare their inability to proceed with their
missionary operations in Jamaica, without procuring
assistance from the merchants, planters, and proprietors
connected with the island. The meeting to which we
allude, conscious of the value of the religious instruction'
communicated by the society, and of the loss which
the withdrawal of its missionaries would entail upon
the island, determined to come forward and furnish the
funds requisite to sustain the future operations of the
association in Jamaica. Lord Harewood occupied the
chair on the occasion, and resolutions were passed
strongly approving of the objects for which the
meeting was convened. Among the speakers were the
noble chairman, Lord St. Vincent, Sir George Rose,
Sir A. Grant, &c. The resolutions, which spoke in
very high terms of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel in Foreign Parts, were unauimouslyadopted,
and upwards of £6OO were immediately afterwards
subscribed in the room. This is a noble beginning,
which we hope will generally be followed up, among
the merchants and others connected with Jamaica, in
other parts of the kingdom. The West India interest
in Liverpool will, we feel convinced, emulate the praise-
worthy example set before them by the promoters of
the meeting in London, among whom we are proud to
recognize the name of our distinguished townsman
John Gladstone, Esq. We feel assured that the sup-
port which may be rendered by them to the cause of
the Church Missionary Society, will be amply repaid in
the satisfaction which they will derive from the orderly
and industrious conduct of the coloured population of

Jamaica, which will result from the extended operations
of so excellent a society.

The late atrocious attempt upon the life of her Ma-
jesty has been eagerly seized upon by the ministerial
press as the means of damaging, in the public estima-
tion, the character of the conservative party. Without
a tittle of evidence to warrant so improbable a suppo-
sition, they have not scrupled in hazarding the insinu-
ation that a body of men, who have always been dis-
tinguished for their loyalty and devotion to the Sove-
reign, are willing to ally themselves in treason and mur-
der with so contemptible a being as this frantic pot-
boy; to dip their hands in blood for a party object, and
to climb into power by a crime which the heart of the
most hardened ruffian in existence shudders even to
contemplate.

That a charge so gross and incredible will have any
weight with the respectable portion of our fellow-coun-
trymen we do not for one instant fear; and we only
notice it to hold up to the execration of our readers
the character of the base and ruthless faction which
can resort to slanders so contemptible to advance their
mercenary objects. Fraud and falsehood ever were the
distinguishing characteristics of whig tactics ; slander
was ever a favourite weapon in a whig hand. From
their great progenitor, who " was a liar from the be-
ginning," they have inherited the subtlety which of old
drew even angels aside from their allegiance; and the
" bad ambition" which would " rather reign in hell
than serve in heaven." We call upon our readers to
examine this feature of whig conformation as evidenced
in the unmanly attempt to implicate conservative ho-
nour and loyalty in the murderous attack upon her
Majesty. We call upon them to watch the windings
of this serpent policy, and to crush beneath the weight
of their honest indignation the head of the foul mon-
ster, Liberalism, whose barbed tongue reeks with the
venom which emanates from a had and polluted heart !
We shall not need to wander from our own town to
produce an instance of this unmatched malignity of
mind. Where the will exists to be base, the perfor-
mance will always be most strongly and coarsely
marked where the ability is least. The polished bravo
stabs; the common ruffian mangles his victim : and,
whilst the fierce attack of a Junius is formidable from
its keen satire and graceful condemnation, the equally
rabid assault of a Mercury is distinguished only by its
vulgarity, its clumsiness, and the concentration of ma-
levolence by which it is prompted. From the pages of
,4 Mercury then let us gather a few choice specimens to
lay before our readers, in evidence of the feeling which
we have noticed as inherent in the character of modern
liberalism.

In an article, on Friday last, upon the subject of the
Queen's attempted assassination, our contemporary as-
serts that " sufficient had transpired to Tarrant a
strong suspicion that the miscreant Oxford was the
tool of others in the work of treason and death." We
may, for the sake of argument, admit that such a sup-
position might be made; but, we ask, had anything
then, or has anything since transpired, sufficient to
warrant the idea that any parties above his own station
in life, or having political views, were connected with
the murderer ? Certainly not ; and yet with what in-
decent haste the Mercury proceeds to insinuate that the
object of Oxford and his supposed accomplices was a
political one—viz., to "clear the way to the throne of
England for Ernest of Hanover ;" for, adds our con-
temporary, " even if the pistols were loaded only with
powder, the effect of such a shock on her Majesty, in
her present situation, was no doubt calculated, and
what that effect might have been or may yet be, will
readily be surmised." We presume the surmise in-
tended to be conveyed in this obscure paragraph is,
that the object of the ruffian was to cause, by fright,
the postponement at least of the nation's hopes ; but
we cannot really imagine that such a refinement of guilt
could be meditated ; and the public will scarcely think,
with our ingenious contemporary, that this vulgar ma-
niac could possess such "a method in his madness !"

Let us come, however, to the direct and astounding
charge which our contemporary brings against the con-
servative party of having been the cause of this attempt
upon the life of the Sovereign and of the Prince of
Wales—for our contemporary has had the sagacity to
discover the sex of her Majesty's unborn progeny !
From henceforth let Mercury take the precedence of
Diana as the tutelary deity of midwives. " From such
a calamity," proceeds our contemporary, as the death
of her Majesty and her unborn prince, " Providence
has, in its mercy, preserved Great Britain and the
world. That an attempt should have been made to
bring it about can excite surprise in the mind of no
man who has paid attention to the fierce ravings of the
Bradshaws and Robys, the Greggs and M‘Neiles, the
Times and the Mails, some of whom have denied that
the Queen is a Christian—others asserted that she has
forfeited her right to the throne—others all but de-
nounced her as a prostitute—and others quoted Jezebel
in such guise that the application, whether intended or
not, was made to her. For our own part, we are in no
degree, surprised at the horrible attempt which has been
made on the life of a sovereign so denounced, nor
should we be surprised at its recurrence. But, for the
present, until the mystery is unravelled, the treason ex-
posed, and the traitors discovered, we can only say,
from all such attempts may Heaven in its goodness
preserve her Majesty ! From all traitors, foreign and
domestic,