The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-05-27 00:00:00

FRIDAY MORNING, MAY 27, 1836.

The new corporations created by Lord JOHN'S famous
municipal reform act, who have adventured upon
the hazardous experiment, have been singularly un-
fortunate in their appeals to the Court of King's Bench
to check the growing inclination entertained by the " pro-
' lane vulgar" to laugh at the solemn fopperies of these
immaculate bodies. The Leeds Intelligencer was dragged
into court for giving a graphic sketch of a scene in which
the mayor of a Yorkshire new corporation was described
as being ignorant of the rules of military etiquette by
commanding a soldier to do that which his Sovereign
would not exact from him, namely, to take off his hat.
Tills application for, a criminal information was fairly
laughed out of court as unworthy of being seriously en-
tertained. The next case was instituted by the corpora-
tion of, we believe, Maidstone, whose mayor and other
official local representatives of the King waited upon Sir
N. TINDALL and Mr. Justice VAUGHAN, the judges
of assize, without the usual insignia of office, which, in
unreformed times, indicated the presence of those to
whom. the authority of his Majesty was delegated. This
case of libel the judges of the '4rst criminal court in the
land also refused to entertain. The third case occurred
nearer home, or at least nearer our own locality. The
proprietor of the Stockport Advertiser had to appear be-
fore their lordships, the judges of the Court of King's
Bench, to show cause why a criminal information should
not be filed against him for permitting the following pa-
ragraph to appear in his paper :

"BETTER TO BE BORN FORTUNATE THAN RICH.-At the
election on Saturday last in this Borough, under the Municipal
Reform Act, one of the persons elected to supply the place of
a councilman elevated to the alderwanic seat, had the misfor-
tune, a few sessions ago, to take his trial at Salford New Bai-
ley, charged with having removed from the premises and ap-
plied to his own use, from the warehouse of which he hail the
sole custody, a hogshead of sugar belonging to the assignees of
an insolvent grocer of this town. The man was acquitted on
his trial, but the circumstances, from the extraordinary nature
of the charge, created no little astonishment amongst our
townsmen, and inflicted no share of mortification on the
accused; but what adds somewhat to the remarkable state 'of
the affair at the present moment is, that the parties who pre-
ferred the charge, and were the principal witnesses, are two
brother councillors, and the prosecuting attorney uas the pre-
sent town-clerk. Influence, itt is said, has lately been indus-
triously at work, in order that some proud and distinguish-
ing mark of favour should be awarded to the innocent man, for
his sufferings, with this recommendation from the parties
Live godly; suffer persecution; for you shalt be exalted in
due time.' "

,Success and the changes produced by the march of
reform, as well as misery, have brought many a man to
an acquaintance with strange bedfellows. That a gen-
tleman who, at one period of his life, had been indicted on
suspicion and brought to trial on the vile insinuation of
having forgotten the eighth article of the Decalogne,
should find himself, after being placed at the bar, asso-
ciated with his accusers on the seat of justice is not to be
wondered at, when the extraordinary liberality of the
times we live in are taken into consideration. These
are the natural effects of causes upon which, however, it
appears to be somewhat unprofitable for a journalist to
speculate.
Sir WILLIAM FOLLETT, as counsel for the defendant,
showed cause against the rule, which the court dis-
charged, the Lord'Chief Justice DENMAN observing that
"he thought there must certainly be some scope given
for discussing the merits of men for these situations.
Persons interested in the matter, as an elector, for in-
stance, had undoubtedly a right fairly to express their
opinions, that persons in situations of trust were not the
fittest for them ; and a man might say, moreover, that it'
was remarkable a person was elected."

tut, unfortunately, in all the cases tve have enume
rated, the discharge of the rules olitained did not exon,--
rate the defendants fioin one of the consequences whicl•
would have followed a Conviction, ai heavy lawyer's bill.
nitherfti the rule ohfterved in the: ~election of men fop
publiC offs es; rithetlitt at honour/ trust, or emolumAt,