The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-03-22 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1853.

more minute inquiry, before any one of the Polytechnic Society
would venture to say
.it would be prudent to adopt the scheme.
But though we are not, perhaps, as a society, or individually,
prepared to endorse the estimates as they have been presented
to us, yet it is within our province to recommend the scheme
on every other account to the Dock Committee, or any public
company, whichever may be considered best to carry it out.
Some of the most important details of the case may be profit-
ably discussed, but which have nothing to do with the great
question now before us as, to whether we approve of the scheme

or not in its main points.
On this my own opinion is most decided, and, as a member
of the Polytechnic Society, it is my duty to say I most cor-
dially support ➢fr. Grantham on the main question, without
being bound to his details.
1 must beg respectfully and with deference to differ with him
as to the mode of working the proposed railway. My own im-
pression is, that the plan lie proposes of propelling the trains
by several fixed engines and several endless ropes—which has
been proved in the Blackwall case to be too expensive—and,
having the required rope in short lengths, is not an improve-
ment upon the Blackwall system, and would be found too ex-

pensive in practice. And as to locomotive power, it has been
presumed would be too dangerous for the purpose. In this I
am disposed to agree, and on this account I shall propose ano-

ther plan, which I think will commend itself to general ap-
proval, 'because it is not only less expensive than any other
plan, being altogether free from loss by friction, but readily
applicable to work the discharge and loading of ships. My
belief is, that by the plan I shall endeavour to explain it could
be worked by two powerful engines—one fixed at the north end
and the other at the south end of the line. Now, the principle
I am about to introduce to your notice is not the atmospheric
of South Devon that proved so disastrous, nor that now at
work between Kingstown and Dalkey, which has continued to
work so well ; but what I shall recommend to your notice is
that of Cunningham and Carter's patent, by which you have a
perfect tube, and not that of the longitudinal valve and slide-
It will be difficult to convey the plan to you in words. I will,
however, attempt to explain what I mean—which, as Cunning-
ham and Carter say—a sound air-tight main pipe of sufficient
size, extended throughout the line beneath the surface, and a
partial vacuum maintained therein by the stationary engines
placed at each end of the line. In a doubleline of railway three
wheels are fixed horizontally on the road above the rails, and
at right angles with them—one wheel being placed within and
filling the centre space, and the other two, say 6 feet in diameter,
outside the rails. Each carriage is provided with traction or
friction rails attached outside its wheels, and extending its
whole length on both sides. Propulsion is caused by these
rails being brought into contact with the peripheries of the
horizontal wheels, which at the proper moment are made to
revolve with the required velocity by the simplest machinery,
acted upon by the vacuum through branch pipes connected
with the main, the action ceasing when the train has passed.
The vacuum being maintained, trains may be started at any
moment, and the amount of power used proportioned to the
train and speed required. The arrangements for starting,
stopping, backing, and crossing the line, are simple and effec-
tive; and authorised persons on the roadside may be ern-
powered to stop the trains, independent of the conductor.

This mode of propulsion is a saving of a very large propor-
tion of working expenses, and in wear and tear of rails and
road. Besides this, the same power can be applied with the
greatest facility to the use of ships next to the railway for hoist-
ing and lowering cargo as may be required, and with the
greatest safety. The economy in the application of this power
would, no doubt, be very great, and at least worthy of the best
consideration of the town.

I trust my remarks may at least provoke discussion.—l am,
Sir, yours, respectfully, WILLIAM RO WETT.

DESECRATION OF THE LORD'S DAY.

To the EDITOR of the LIVERPOOL STANDARD,

Slll,—As I was passing along Scotland-road yesterday morn-
ing, a little before ten o'clock, the congregation was coming out
of St. Anthony's Romish Chapel, and my attention was directed
to a crowd collected close by its gates. On crossing the road, I
found a man vending tracts at the price of one penny each, and
announcing the title-page at the top of his voice. The publi.
cation in question was (as far as I could gather from the state.
ment) "a full and correct account of the conversion of Lord
Charles Thynne from the errors of Protestantism unto the
bosom of the glorious and Holy Church," and met with a brisk
sale, principally from the congregation as they emerged from
the chapel. A little distance lower down was another man ex-
posing for sale a large sheet of coloured woodcuts, the principal
of which were a portrait of his Holiness Pope Pius the Ninth,
a representation of our Saviour on the Cross, and the Adora-
tion of the Virgin Mary. The previous Sunday I witnessed
similar proceedings.
Now, it occurs to me that as the police have particular in-
structions to prevent the vending of oranges, apples, Sze., in
the streets on a Sunday, even when unaccompanied by a dis-
sertation upon their merits, they ought also to be instructed to
prevent the sale of such publications as I have described. The
same rule which applies to apples ought to apply to basks; or,
if there is to be an exception at all, it ought to be in favour of
the fruit, seeing that most people agree in opinion as to its
good qualities, while the two prints referred to are at least
questionable as to their character.—l am, Sir, yours, most res-

pectfully,
Liverpool, March 21, 1853.

ST. JOHN'S CHURCH

J. R. 13

RAGGED SCHOOLS,

HODSON-STREET.

To the EDITOR of the LIVERPOOL STANDARD,

Sra,—The Rev. W. B. S. Mathias, curate of St. John's
Church, in a letter inserted in last Tuesday's Standard, says :
It is a " mystery" how the compiler of the tabular statement
of the attendance at the various places of worship in Liverpool
obtained his information as to the above-named schools.

Will you kindly allow me, in the same public manner, to.
state that I obtained the information from Mr. Parsonage, the
clerk of St. John's Church ; that before the publication of
the letter in question, Mr. Parsonage informed the Rev. W. B.
S. Mathias that he had furnished me with those particulars;
and that also, before the publication of the letter, the Rev. W.
B. S. Mathias had censured his clerk for giving so small a
return. The " mystery" is not as to who gave the particulars,
but how a clergyman, under the circumstances, could so far
forget himself as publicly to pretend ignorance on a subject on
which he had been privately fully informed.—Yours, &c.,

218 t March, 1853

JOHN CALDERWOOD

P.S.—I ought, perhaps, to state that, on Friday last.
I attended the Ragged Schools in Hodson-street, when the
number present was 101. The return complained of gave the
average attendance at SO. The clerical and lay superintendents
stty the average is 150 to ISO.

--~-

THE REV. DR. M'NEILE AND HIS REVILERS

To the EDITOR of the LIVERPOOL STANDARD

Sin,—Eighteen hundred and fifty-three has scarcely
dawned, when the Papal flag flaunts over Liverpool.
The chapel bell summons the faithful, to gladden their
sight with the spectacle of ecclesiastics about to constitute
themselves into a secret synod—a synod now held for the
first time in England since the Reformation. As the
crcwd swells in the busy thoroughfare, lo!! a wide space
is cleared for the approaching carriage, to which all eyes
are directed. And now, descending from those downy
cushions, see his most serene Eminence, the Pope's Car-
dinal in England—sleek and oily in body as he is in
tongue and hireling-written pamphlet. Rags and tatters
baw at the feet of the rotund Red-stocking, who, through
massive spectacles, complacently looks down, and blesses
his dear children—a sweltering mass of sanitary sweetness.
His Eminence has journeyed hither to view the Romish
institutions of a community among whom the meek and
gentle Cahill sheds his active goodness. Inflated with
visions of the future, he ascends a height which overbrows
the city, and, as his eye twinkles from spire to tower and
tower to spire, he turns to the band of cowled conspirators,
and breathes the hope into their greedy ears, that ere long
England will be as she was in days of old—ruled by the
Bishop of Rome, and that they shall have possession of
those goodly sanctuaries which have been wrested from
them by the heretic ! And this man, who breathes the
pious wish—who has outraged the British law, and merits
the hulks—rolls grandly through our streets ; and the
people—those people blessed with the free light of Pro-
testanism—stand smiling by, while the air is rent with
shouts for the bloated emissary of the Papal power.
" Thanks to the improved tone of public feeling," the
smiles and cheers of free men salute this Cardinal—he who
sets our laws at defiance—the leader of a rebellious
faction—the appropriator of titles which the Crown of
England only can bestow—the sower of sedition, and the
prime propagandist of the Pope. Yes, " thanks to the
improved tone of public feeling," says the Journal, pan-
dering to the Papist for his pence.
Oh, mistaken scribes ! Ye of the Many-faced Mercury,
and the Tolerating Times, and the Jesuitical Journal !
Know ye not that the Pope and the Press cannot agree
except where Romanism is less rife than the Christian re-
ligion. Only when they are not in power do the priests
become your cordial, obliging, and most courteous
friends, and your most ready paymasters. But he who
would restore the Pope to England would put out the
Press; or, if it were permitted to live, it would only be
under a thraldom the most abject, a degradation the most
thorough, and a prostration the most complete. Ye would
find an unpleasant priestly police, and not the public,
would then be the gods of letters. Ye would then suffer
martyrdom—not a brief, easy, and profitable imprison-
ment in the well-ventilated gaol at Lancaster ; but the
martyrdom of an unknown dungeon, mayhap an untold
death—alleviated by not even the prospect of the sym-
pathy of a public permitted to criticise the law or find
fault with those by whom it is wrongly administered.
The Times would no longer thunder from Printing-house-
square—its Liverpool namesake would be no more ; the
tedium of railway journeys, or the dulness of the dullest
homes would alike be unrelieved by the merry Fleet-
street hunchback; the Martyr-Editor of Liverpool would
not, alas ! be seen gleaning gossip from the lips of talkers
on 'Change ; the Mercury would be a thing of the past;
and the conductor of the Times would awaken some fine
mornine to find his innocent antiquarian works honoured
by the Pope with a place—in the Index Expurgatorius.
Why, then, even for present gain, make yourselves clac-
quers and pimps to the harlot who sitteth on the seven
hills ? The priests will serve you and fawn to you only
till the time comes when they may persecute and extin-
guish you. You laugh right merrily, ye drivers of a
Mann trade, ye artful perm of two meters go disci.