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

MR. FERRAND AND HIS OPPONENTS.

At the Leeds meeting upon the " Short Time Ques-
tion," Mr. Ferrand took the opportunity, after the busi-
ness of the evening had been disposed of, of explaining
hie feelings and intentions with regard to the proceedings
recently instituted in the Court of Queen's Bench. He
said :

" His beet wishes were accomplished when that rule was
made absolute. Mr. Lewis and Sir James Graham had gone
arm•and-arm into the citadel—he had locked the door behind
them, and they should go through the ordeal of a jury. Sir
James Graham should stand in the witness-box, and he should
expose him to be riddled by a cross-examination which would
expose him to the back-bone. (Cheers and laughter.) There,
before that meeting, he openly challenged him and Mr. Lewis
to go into the witness-box; if he shirked it he would brand him
as a coward, and the country would brand h m as a guilty man.
He had pursued the course of filing a criminal information
against him c Mr. Ferrand) ; his only chance was to appear as a
witness; and he challenged him, he wooed him, he dared him
to the combat. He would not lose an hour in bringing the
case before a jury—he had been branded with base and dis-
honourable conduct, and before that jury he would prove his
opponent guilty of b ife and dishonourable conduct. He had
hitherto kept his character as an honest man in the face of the
country—he pledged himself that he would come clear and spot •
less from the ordeal of a jury, and be pledged his word of ho-
nour that his opponent would not do so. (Hear.)'4

This, we should presume, will render it imperative on
Mr. Lewis to go to a jury,—in which case there is every
chance of Sir James Graham being brought into the wit-
ness-box, there to give an account of the Keighley case,
and all his doings with the Poor-law Commissioners
and their officers. If the prosecution be not instituted
next term, Mr. Ferrand will be in a condition to discharge
the rule against him in the following term, but we cannot
contemplate the possibility of the prosecution being aban-
doned ; we may, therefore, look forward to some pretty
exposures on the subject.

ANOTHER DEATH

(From the Cork Constitution.)

Yes, we are sorry to write it—another, and from star-
vation too. The victim was a poor fellow named Andrew
Barry, and the evidence was of the same melancholy cha-
racter as that to which we drew attention on Saturday.
" He was so changed by starvation," says one witness.
who found him unable to rise from weakness, and in whose
house he died, " that I did not know him at first, though
very intimate with him for many years." There was
neither food nor fuel in his own wretched home. "On
the Saturday night before he died," says his son, " none
of the family bad anything to eat; had a little broth, and
then went to bed, not having light, fire, or fuel in the
house."

On the Sunday previous to his death (says his Wife), had but
three or four turnips for herself, deceased, and three children,
and on Monday had about four or five quarts of meal, which
she got from her sister's children, on which they lived until
Wednesday morning; on that morning witness's daughter got
some broth at Mr. Barry's, of Glaudore house. and from that
to 'her husband's death (the Sunday night following), had

nothing to support her family but some broth and turnips, and
the last three days previous to his death, Mr. Barry gave him
work on the Ross and Glandore line, but was scarcely able to
work, but for which he got Wages ; deceased was working on the
the road in a dying state, from want of food.
Yet these are the people with whom a foolish government
are dealittg on the principles of a rigid political economy
—at whose expense of limb and life they are cultivating
" the success of commerce," and to whom they will not
consent to sell a quart of meal except at the enormous
profit brought by the market price! We wonder the
whole kingdom does not rise and demand their dismissal.
If ever ministers deserved impeachment, it is the minis-
ters who, sacrificing a people to a postulate, look calmly
on while the sufferers are sinking silently under the des-
potism of a decree that dooms them to starvation. We
care not for the intent, this is the effect of their policy;
and palter as their apologists may, all the ink that their
pens can carry will not clear them of the consequences,
nor restore to the widow and the orphan, the father and
the husband, of whom that policy has deprived them.