The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-05-26 00:00:00

pretty largely, be adventures upon new ground, and
bases upon a quibble a new misrepresentation. Lord
Stanley's bill, he says, " subjects the voter, or renders
him liable, to" the production of his title-deeds "twice
a-year instead of once." Now, if we were disposed to
rest satisfied with a quibble, we should at once say
that this was an untruth. It is, in fact, morally, if not
literally, an untruth. Lord Stanley's bill, we repeat,
enacts no fresh necessity for the production of title-
deeds by a claimant ; and the assertion that it " ren-
ders him liable to" such production " twice a-year
instead of once," is a stretch of fact which is quite
worthy of being called a wilful perversion of truth.
It does, we will admit, render the claimant who has
failed in proving his right before the assistant barrister,
and who chooses to appeal to the judge of assize, liable
to be again asked to produce evidence in support of
his appeal ; and what mighty hardship can this be ?
The claimant was liable to the same hardship by the
act of 1832 ; and the only alteration effected by Lord
Stanley's bill is, that an objector as well as a claimant
may appeal from the decision of the assistant barrister,
subject, however, to the imposition of costs, if his appeal
has been made vexatiously. It no doubt suits the pur-
pose of the Mercury and his faction to dwell upon and
distort this feature of the bill; but they are perfectly
aware that their objections to it are mere fudge.
Let us, however, leave for the present our contem-
porary's quibbles, and advert briefly to the astounding
discovery which he has made. as to our identity, and
the awful denunciations which he has thought proper
to hurl against us. We are highly gratified, we can
assure him, by his flattering notice of the " raciness"
of our style, and our " correctness of composition;"
but what he means by our having a " private grudge
to gratify," or " a personal wrong to avenge," we really
are at a loss to know. We found this man'impugning
the motives of honourable men, and misrepresenting
the provisions of a useful measure. We detected his
ignorance, and exposed his trickery to the public.
We showed him the sallow thing he is, when stripped
of his 'usual covering of bombast and impertinence;
and if we have effected this to his own content and
that of the public, our object is complete. The Editor
of the Mercury may rest assured that we have no
" private grudge" against him, and that all the decla-
mation which he pours forth so volubly upon our un-
lucky head is so much fine writing absolutely thrown

away.

What an absurdly inflated idea our contemporary
must have of his own importance, if he supposes that
to contravert the silly twaddle which flows from his
pen, it is necessary that the powers of some " great
unknown" should be called into requisition ! Yet such
is the ludicrous idea which has now taken possession
of him. We are not, it seems, the editor of the STAN-
DARD, but some evil genius of the Mercury who has
" crept behind the editor's chair," and been guilty, in
so doing, of " a compound of meanness, perfidy, and
utter disregard of principle, such as hardly ever be-
fore disgraced any individual, public or private, in this
or any other country" ! ! There's a climax for you,
reader ! "We think," adds the Mercury, "we could
lay our hands upon the man" ! ! Horrifying thought !
We are assassins too, " cowardly and perfidious," be-
cause we have neglected to send our card and compli-
ments along with the trifle of correction which we be-
stowed upon him this day week. It is lamentable to
witness this delusion of our contemporary; and, in
order to ease his mind and enable him to settle down
to his usual harmless and trifling pursuits, we assure
him that, never having had the honour of his intimacy,
we have no personal grudge towards him ; and that we
most certainly never entertained such an exalted opi-
nion of his powers as to lead us to ask for assistance in
any contest we might have to wage with him.
In good time we have no doubt of being able to
convince the Mercury of this fact, as we shall occa-
sionally venture upon the liberty of giving him a gentle
shake up. He must learn, however, to correct his
temper, and lay aside the Furioso style of writing with
which his remarks to us are concluded. Such stilted
swagger only makes a man look supremely ludicrous.

How vastly considerate and correct some of our
modern Whigs become when they discover that they
are no longer able to advance their own cause by dis-
honest means ! They can agitate when it suits their
turn; they can.brawl and threaten with the loudest;
they can spout treason and excite rebellion;—but let
any of these weapons be .turned against themselves,
and forthwith the brawling democrat becomes a quiet,
easy-going soul, who dreads excitement, and " depre-
cates" anything likely to promote dissension, or awake
unpleasant feelings.
We have an amusing instance of this one-sided
propriety in the Liverpool Journal of Saturday. It
has been announced that on Friday next, the anniver-
sary of the restoration of King Charles the Second,
the Shipwrights' Society of Liverpool would resume
their ancient practice, and form a procession through
the principal streets of the town, the same liberty being
always allowed to the Temperance Societies, and to
the Irishmen on St. Patrick's Day. But no ;—the
shipwrights are a loyal and respectable body of Eng-
lishmen—of Protestants—of Conservative Protestants;
and our contemporary on a sudden makes the disco-
very that a display of such a body of men is impolitic
and unwise-:—that all such processions ought to be
forborne as likely to provoke disturbance,—and then
appeals to the authorities to interfere and prevent the
procession of Friday from taking place, reminding
them of the circumstance that on the same occasion
last year some disturbance and contention were the
consequences.

Our contemporary will hardly expect us to believe,
that if the shipwrights of Liverpool were to submit to
waive their ancient custom, and, in deference to the
law, and from a regard to the peace of the town, to
abstain from their, procession, the example would be
followed by the hodmen and lumpers, who are accus-
tomed, on St. Patrick's Day, to display their sweet
persons decked out in the trappings of rebellion, and
marching to tunes which recal only the recollection of
bloodshed and outrage. The experiment, we remind
our contemporary, has been tried. The Irish popula-
tion of Liverpool will persist, on every occasion, in
insulting the feelings of their English fellow-towns-
men; and there is no occasion in the world why such
profound deference should be paid to their insolent
and factious demands.

We have no fear of any disturbance being the result
of the procession on Friday. The loyal and true-
hearted men who will compose it are not the common
biawlers who are likely to seek an occasion for riot
and outrage. They have the same right as other bo-
dies to enjoy their humour, and we trust that the
authorities will take care they are not insulted or in-
terfered with. Our readers will perceive that a sermon
will be preached to the society, at Christ Church, by
the Rev. Fielding Ould, and that a collection will be
made in aid of the funds of the Blue Coat Hospital.