The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-12-08 00:00:00

fat Eiturpoot &tanbarb.

TUESDAY

MORNING, DEC.

8, 1846.

r We really did hope that the question, whether
the present mode of conducting the magisterial
business of this borough is susceptible of improve-
ment, might have been discussed without the in-
dulgence of personalities, and upon higher grounds
than those of mere party predilections. It is un-
doubtedly one of vital interest to the entire commu-
nity, involving, as i t does, the impartial and effect-
ual administration of justice to all classes; and we
have ourselves, in the humble share which we have
taken in it, endeavoured to divest ourselves of every
consideration beyond that important one, the public
good. There are, however, gentlemen—and they
profess themselves to be the admirers and friends (?)
of Mr. Rushton—who appear anxious to convert it
into the ground of a party struggle : gentlemen who
cannot permit an opportunity to pass, however in-
appropriate, of discharging their venom against
former opponents, or former condition of society;
and who do not even scruple to profit by the occa-
sion, by implication, to heap their spiteful obloquy
upon the names of some, over whose ashes the
grave has long closed.
Mr. Wm. Rathbone is one of these gentlemen.
He cannot see in the question under discussion any
thing higher than the sordid consideration whether
Mr. Rushton is to have £2OOO a-year, or £l3OO, his
present salary ; and, when his fulsome adulation of
that gentleman can go no further, he gratifies him-
self with an explosion of malevolence against a
body of men, his equals if not in every respect his
betters, the bulk of whom, unfortunately, are no
longer here to refute his slanders. Mr. Rathbone
is himself a borough magistrate. It mlt be said of
him, at least, "slat nominis umbra." He is one of
the whig-created satellites, who revolve round the
stipendiary, shining in his borrowed light ; and,
because he appears to be unable to point to any
service which he has ever performed for the public
in his nominal capacity, he had, on Wednesday
last, the bad taste to indulge in the following re-
marks upon his predecessors, who did discharge
the duties of the office, which he contents himself
with the mere honour of holding:—

" He had known the difference between the present
magistrates and some:of those who were acting before the
municipal act. He had known the difficulty in which
some former magistrates had been placed, when friends
with whom they bad been in drunken revels the night be-
fore bad the misfortune to fall into the hands of justice!
he had known their difficulty when those friends were
brought before them, and the way in which justice was
administered in former times under such circumstances.
The man in b,oad cloth escaped, while the poor devil in
buckram was severely punished. This was an abuse of
justice."

Now, here is an imputation thrown out, which
may light upon any of the heads of members of that
body, living or de d—a somewhat discreditable im-
putation ; and, if Mr. Rathbone be a lover of truth
and justice, he will point out the offender or offend-
ers, and release from it those gentlemen against
whose fair fame it cannot, in honesty, be levelled.
There are the sons of many of those old magistrates
in the Council ; and there are many of those old
magistrates themselves in the Council ; and many
more occupying distinguished stations in the estima-
tion of their fellow townsmen, who have retired from
public life altogether. We call upon Mr. Rathbone
to name the "drunken revellers" to whom he refers,
and we trust some member of the Council will press
the matter home upon him.
But why introduce the comparison between Mr.
Rushton's conduct and talent on the Bench, and
those of the old magistrates, at all ? It is somewhat
dangerous ground for one of the Whig elevated
body to touch upon... The old magistrates gave up
a large portion of their time to the public ; and, as
so much has been said about the universal correct-
ness of Mr. Rushton's decisions, we may invite Mr.
Rathbone to tell us how many of the decisions of
the old body were reversed by superior authority.
They were not lawyers, it is true. They were men
of business—men of common sense—and quite ca-
pable of deciding equitably nine-tenths of the cases
ordinarily coming before a police court, which the
majority of the present body practically confess they
are not. The old magistrates did not content them-
selves with dropping in now and then and exhibiting
themselves upon the bench for a few minutes when
an interesting case was corning on. They worked

in their harness, like men who had the good of their

fellow citizens

at heart; an

we never heard that
ity, or the morals of
se, in their days than

crime enjoyed greater immuni
the community were much wori

111 ours

We have distinctly repudiated the wish to regard
the question (as to the desirableness of having two
courts and two police magistrates) as one, in the de-
cision of which the personal merits of Mr. Rushton
are to be considered. Some remarks, however,
which fell from Mr. Aikin, on Wednesday, and the
tone of Mr. Rushton's friends throughout the dis-
cussion of the question, render some reference to
that gentleman's claim almost impossible to avoid
Mr. Aikin says .
" It bad been said that Mr

lushton came to them at a
understood he was to have
vely applied to the court.

..
That was not so. Mr. Rushton came there to give such
time as

ary to conduct the business of the

court, but he was at. liberty to practise in chambers.
Every individual who had passed through the civic chair
counsel for the Cor-
applied to by every
ierally consulted him
r. Rushton had dune
to his

knew- that he had acted

as star

poration. He h

Mayor, and the tow

as to town and dock offal
all this without fee or r
salary. He understood tl
and dock affairs so well, t

'crease

employing

♦ery great expense,
so well, that they

Aikin f took bi