The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-03-12 00:00:00

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PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMEN'T

London Correspondent.)
LONDON, WEDNESDAY NIGHT.
'oceedings in parliament on Monday and Tuesday

(From our

ogs present nothing particularly worthy of comment,
the exception, perhaps, of the announcement made in
-louse of Commons on Monday, by Lord John Russell'
intention to modify the terms of his new poor-lav‘t
ore. The public were, however, to some extent pre-

n abatement of the ministerial demands upon this

question, by a leader iu the Morning Chronicle last week, the
writer of which professes to have discovered that many fea-
tures of the'existing system, as administered by the Somerse
House officials, are " distasteful" to the feelings of the grea
mass of the people, and are too grinding to be endured with
patience—a discovery which nine out of every ten men, who
are not either malthusians or images of stone, have made
many years ago, and which, I imagine, the ministerial writer
has only made " upon compulsion" at last.
The concessions in question do not after all amount to
much, but, I suppose, we must be thankful for what we can

- .
get. It is no easy matter to screw humanity out of a whig.
The duration of the poor-law commission is limited, in com-
pliance with the suggestion of Sir Robert Peel, to five years
instead of ten, the period fixed in the original draft of the
bill. An English pauper, too, is to he allowed Christian
burial beneath the shadow of the church in which, perhaps,

,ave worshipped in the better days of his existence,

and not, as at first proposed by this tenderhearted faction, to
be interred like a dog, in some hole attached to the bastile in
which he has breathed out the last hours of his miserable
will be scarcely credited, perhaps—it is indeed as-
;--that such a proposition could have been seriously

made in a Christian age by the government of a Christian
country—that a portion of the sentence inflicted by our
criminal law upon a convicted felon after execution—viz., the
burial of his body within the walls of his prison, should be
at tempted to be forced upon the wretched victims of poverty,
age, and disease, who crowd the union workhouses. Yet
such is, or rather was, the case. The bill of Lord John
Russell proposed to enact this monstrosity—to deprive the

surviving relatives of the unfortunate pauper of the trifling
consolation of following the ashes of their father, their mo-
ther, their brother, or their sister, to their last resting-place
in that spot of consecrated ground where they have hope&
through life to take their last sleep—by proposing that the
union workhouses should be provided with grave-yards—
(having been already well supplied with pork broth and cheap
doctors)—in which the punishment and degradation, awarded

to poverty during life, might be extended beyond that period
where all earthly punishments and distinctions should ter-
And it is a concession (1) we are told, that such
a provision—so devilish and harrowing in its position—is not
ed in by " the friends of the people—the libel ty-loving

minate

It will be observed in adclition, that the bill is not as yet to
be extended to those towns which already possess local acts
for the government of their poor—in which category, I pre-
sume, Liverpool will be included—a fact which, I have no
doubt, will be hailed with satisfaction by your community,
and for which their thanks are due, above all, to the conserva-
tive press throughout the kingdom, which has so unceasingly
protested against the entire principle of this inhuman and
wicked measure.

The arrival, last night, of the overland mail from Egypt
and India, has dashed the cup of hope and exultation from
the lip of whig-radicalism most effectually. But a few hours
ago did any daring wight presume to doubt the sagacity of
whig statesmen—to impugn their principles—to impeach
their honesty, or to question their success, he was told forth-
with by the " uppish " and stilted supporters of the faction
to admire the superhuman genius displayed in their foreign
policy. " Have we not settled the Syrian question '"

were asked—" Have we not got over our misunderstanding
with France ? Have we not frightened his sublimity, the
brother of the sun and moon, out of his seven senses,
dam-foundered all his mandarins, scattered his great warriors,

and planted the British flag triumphantly upoh the walls of
the capital of Chusan." Alas for the mighty ! Alas for
whig-radicalism. The boasted settlement of the affairs of
Syria is found at length to be no settlement at all. Lord
Palmerston's Egyptian acquaintance has still a lingering
fancy for a kick up ; and has provided as pretty a ground
for the interference of French bobadilism as could be wished
for. His sublime highness, after our indulging him with the
sight of a British man of war, within the waters of Pekin,
is not frightened at all.' His mandarins are laughing until
their very tails shake, to see " the barbarian islanders"
dying like sheep in a murrain amongst the swamps and mias-
mata of their magnificent conquest, the island of Chusan,
whilst commissioner Ke- shin is amusing them with " chops."
Admiral Elliott has got the heart-ache; and is coming home
to narrate the story of a British steamer being fired upon
whilst conveying his own " chop " to Canton, and to publish,
perhaps, the written apology which was " promptly made"
by this conquered and humbled people for the commission of
such an indignity. Altogether as pretty an assortment of
glorious news as ever blessed the eyes of a cabinet minister
is, by this time, in the possession of the guardian genius of
the foreign office ; and Lord Palmerston is, I have no doubt,
as heartily sick of himself and his "_ genius" (!) as the
people of Great Britain have been of the same valuable
articles years ago.

It is perhaps scarcely fair to attribute to Lord Palmerston
or to government the impediment which has been thrown in
the way of the settlement of affairs in the Mediterranean.
But in the case of the failure, so far, of the Chinese expedi-
tion, it is impossible to lay the blame upon any other shoulders
than those of the authorities at home, and of the officers who
have had its chief direction abroad—upon Lords .?almerston
and Minto, and the Elliotts. The whole Chinese affair ought
:o have been, and might have been, settled within a week of
:he arrival of the British force off Pekin, in June or July last ;
and yet, so late as the date of the last arrivals, December,
the negociations had not advanced one step, and the whole of
the work (?) of six months was to be commenced anew. In
the meantime, the troops on board the fleet, and those located
in Chusan, have been decimated by the miserable unhealthi-
ness of the climate ; and we are informed, from the letter of
an officer on the spot, that of a force at Chusan numbering
originally 3,420 men, " only about 500 or 600 men could now
be collected for service !" "The 26th regiment," says the
same authority, " exists but in name. They muster only 100
men for duty, and 500 are still in the hospital ; the cases of
many, too many, are quite hopeless."
Another authority (a military officer) writes of the regi-
ment to which he is attached—" We brought 900 men on
shore, and never were men in better condition ; all we have
now remaining, taking off the non- conamisioned officers, band,
and servants, is about 100 men for duty, and many of these
more or less ill. Graves are for ever open, and those who
assist in paying the last duties to their ill-fated companions
seem as f they would soon follow." May not her Majesty
with justice echo the language of the Roman Emperor, and
exclaim to Lord Minto and his imbeciles—" Vare redde
mihi Legiones ?" The British flag floated proudly enough,
I dare say—to use what was the language of the admirers of
whig-radicalism a few months ago—from the walls of a city
of the imperial empire; but it waves now only over the
mouldering ashes of the dead, or the sickly and ghastly forms
of miserable ague-stricken men who have scarcely strength
left to defend it against the onset of a battalion of women.
Will the country contemplate such a calamitous state of
things, without requiring a strict and a severe reckoning with
those by whom it has been brought about ? Surely not !
It will scarcely be wondered at that the feeling which has
been excited to-day in all circles by the general tenor of the
advices, is one of gloom mingled with the deepest indigna-
tion. Only two days ago the British people were insulted
by the publication of one of the most malignant and men-
dacious documents ever put forward by the government of
any civilized country. The democracy of America dared
openly to vindicate their right to commit, under the forms of
law, the cold-blooded and deliberate murder of a subject of
her Majesty ; and the only source of hope in which we could
indulge, for the preservation of peace between the two coun-
tries, was the expectation that by the speedy settlement of
affairs in Syria and China, we should be placed in possession
of such an imposing force, by the withdrawal of our fleets
from the Mediterranean and from the Chinese seas, as would
effectually deter attack, even from a country which no other
consideration except prudence could restrain from letting
loose upon us the envenomed feelings of the people towards
the very name of Great Britain. Can we indulge in such A
hope now ? Dare we venture to withdraw one ship from the
Mediterranean or from China, to beat back the assault which
threatens us from the other side of the Atlantic ? Assuredly
not. Hedged round as we are with enemies on every side'
we have nothing on earth to look to for support but the
spirit and idomitable resolution of the people of England and
Scotland—would that I could add of Ireland too !—and that
spirit, it is to be feared will not be put forth, until some
nobler hearts are found to direct its energies than those mean
and mercenary ones which beat beneath the breasts of her
Majesty's present advisers !

MURDER.—A driver, of the name of Billane,_
_seized some
potatoes for rent, belonging to a man named Magrath ; an
altercation immediately ensued, when Magrath, who held
mallet in his hand (with which he had been breaking clods),
struck Billane in tire temple, and he never spoke after. Davie,
Duff. S.M., and the chief-constable, shortly after attended
to take Billane's depositions, but he could not speak ; be
lingered for five days, and died. Magrath was taken thee
same day, and will be tried at the assizes of Nenagh, which
commence the 15th of this month. The occurrence took
place at Redwood Castle, the property of Major Bloomfield'
—Dublin Evening Mail.
A REASON.—At our assizes, a woman from the "
fat
west,"
somewhere about Stainmoor, on being asked bl
long she lived in Barnard Castle, replied that she really cool
not tell because " she was no scholar."—Durham Advertiser'

EXTRAORDINARY FACT.---On Friday last, a fine CO'
belonging to Cornelius Riordan, of Johnstown, near 10,5°'
room (a tenant and driver to Sir Richard Cox, Bart.), 'we„
.
about to calve, became so very unwell, that her owner it;
obliged to send for a " cow-doctor," who resided in t'"
neighbourhood. This man drew from her, on Friday ell;
ing, four calves, and a fifth on the following evening !! The
poor poor cow died very soon after, and was buried in a pit 111°7
with the five calves on Monday morning.—Kilkenny 110de
ratoi

Should the £5 qualification clause in Lord Morpeth's. 11;
gistration bill for Ireland become the law of the land, it a
to
understood to be an instruction of political unions, to petiteu
parliament immediately for an extension of the franchise
all the parliamentary boroughs of Great Britoin.-514Pr
shire Gazette.