The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-01-05 00:00:00

markable shrewdness, discernment, and by a strenuous
and honest regard for fair play. Mr. RIC2ARD SulEL's
was equally commendable. That address has raised him
fifty degrees in our estimation ; for with all his preju-
dices which are strong to excess, and as we fear ob-
noxious to his own peace of mind, he had the frankness
to oppose a motion which he considered as inexpedient
as it was unjust. 111 x. SUM. may depend upon it that
we shall bear this in mind, in his favour, as a friendly
countersign, in adverse circumstances, which will bear
him harmless through more difficulties than all the pass-
ports of his radical supporters. While Mr. Sno.r.. shows
the same feelings of independence and honour which he
manifested in the common council on Friday last, he may
rely upon having the support of the protestant LIVER-
POOL STANDARD.

But what a different scene opens upon us when we
contrast the sentiments of the conservative candidates in
the new corporation, assisted as they were by the
Mayor, Mr. SHIEL, Mr. JOHN CRDPPER, Mr. MooN,
Mr. FREME, Mr. EVANS, Mr. AIKIN, Mr. WILLIAM
EARLE, Mr. JORDAN, and others, with the senti-
ments of such intemperate persons as Mr. Was. RATH-
BONE, and Mr. THOMAS BOLTON, and such intolerable
blockheads as poor EGERTON SMITH, COGLAN, of the
floating tub, the unknown Mr. SHARPLES, and a surgeon
of the name of BLACKBURNE, who really bleeds our for-
bearance we suppose in resentment against the poverty
of his plentiful lack of patients?
We confess with reluctance that in no adverse or un-
fortunate state of society into which circumstances have
thrown us, did we ever discover such a lamentable dis- •
tinction between facts and evidence, or between oratory
and argument, as we find manifesed in the speeches of
these radical councillors. BOLTON, BoT, BATH, and
Company, are so mixed up with all that is ridiculous in the
town of Liverpool, that to name the one in the gravest
company that ever assembled is to provoke laughter at
the expense of all. Mr. BOLTON, in his character of pro-
secutor, is the ideal spinning-top of the radicals, whipped
into motion every Sunday upon the floor of some usurped
socinian chapel ; but poor Bot Smith, Esq. is the genu-
ine spinning top who delights in flagellation -for the sake
of motion, and who in the cause of the people would ra-
ther be drowned in an aqueous resistant of cork, than
wafted to the regions of smoke from cigars in an air bal-

We allude to these silly matters merely to give our
readers some notion of; the odd creatures who by years
of cant, and philosophy, whose pedestal is ignorance,
have so long imposed upon themselves and the people of

Liverpool.
But we come to the facts. The wiseacres we have
named, THOMAS BOLTON, amongst the number, COGLAN
following in the wake, and all the leaders of that self-
sufficient but truly despicable faction have maintained
that the compensation of the old town-clerk might be
saved out of the reduced salary of Mr. FOSTER'S succes-

sor. They are so silly as to tell the burgesses that Mr.
FosrEa's income was a burden upon the corporation fund
—that having £6OOO or £7OOO a-year, the sum saved
would be an ample income to the new town-clerk, and
that the excess upon that income would provide for the
pension of the retiring town-clerk.
These erroneous calculations show that the parties who
make them know nothing of the circumstances of the
'The town-clerk of Liverpool had only £lOO a-
year as salary from the corporation. His emoluments
were derived chiefly from his services as an attorney, and
his bill was between himself and the corporation as his
clients. He had his fees for the performance of certain
official duties—but what was of most importance to him,
he had his costs for the professional duties rendered to
the corporation.
The idea that the corporation, or the burgesses of Li-
verpool paid, or were taxed with the emoluments of the
town-clerk, is founded in gross error. The borough
fund only contributed something less than £2 a week
towards the support of town-clerk. Every fraction
above this sum was derived from fees, and over which fees
and charges as a solicitor, the corporation had and have
as little controul as they have over the stars in the firma-
ment. The charges of a solicitor are fixed by the rules
of court, and he cannot compromise his-claims without
violating the law. He may do more or less-business,
but the scale of remuneration is fixed, and he cannot
deviate from it.

How does this apply to the case of Mr. RADCLIFFE, the
new town-clerk ? Certain councillors tell us that Mr.
RADCLIFFE has undertaken the discharge of the duties
upon a reduced salary—upon such a reduction of salary
as will provide for ths compensation of Mr. FOSTER !
There are some pedple brainless enough to believe this.
But to tell the truth, the corporation cannot on the one
hand, nor Mr. RADCLIFFE on the other, make any such
bargain. Mr. RADCLIFFE knows that any compromise,
or compound claim, on the part of an attorney, is illegal,
and that he is empowered to break through all
obligations or contracts made for such a purpose, no
matter how seriously it may damage his client. Mr.
RADCLIFFE knows this. He must be laughing in his sleeve
at the idle and patriotic bombast of his illiterate friends in
the common council. He must, in a quiet way, when no
man sees him, chuckle over the emptiness, the rapidness
the senselessness, and the downright farcicalness of Mr.
THOMAS BOLTON'S law, and all the absurd and ridiculous
legal enterprises he has embarked in for the last ten years.
The notion of making Mr. RADCLIFFE pay, by means of
an economical engagement, the compensation annuity of
Mr. FOSTER, is excessively foolish. Mr. RADCLIFFE
cannot compromise his fees or emoluments as an attor-
ney under any circumstances whatever. He must have
what Mr. FOSTER had or he cannot be town -clerk of Li-
verpool. His engagement to do certain things at less
cost than the legal rate he well knows is not binding
upon him. He may however promise, but, in case of
death, his heirs can recover, and in this predicament the
corporation, though reformed and amended, would find
itself in a worse position than ever.
Such, we confess with shame, are the absurdities
through which we have been compelled to wade in the
first two days' proceedings of the reformed corporation.
Such ignorance is enough to make a man sick of the
Engik&language. To hear some fifty or sixty elderly
persons, gathered round a table and talking twaddle that
SIIAKSPEARE'S grave-digger would have been ashamed
of, is quite sufficient to bring contempt upon the very
name of reformed corporations. These people cannot
understand that the emoluments of the town-clerk are
not derivable from the corporate funds—they fancy that
he is paid an enormous salary out Of the revenue of the
borough, and that a new and reformed town-clerk, being
content with a reduced income, so much would be saved
for the benefit of the burgesses Men who talk in this
way are unfit to discharge the duties of lamplighters or
scavengers iu any town in England. Need we remind
the public that Mr. FOSTER'S income was not derived
from the corporate e state—that it was not paid by the
burgesses—that it formed no charge upon the borough
income, but that it was swelled by the costs which every
attorney is authorised to charge, and that Mr. THOMAS
BOLTON himself, has, by his foolish and intemperate
love of law and legislation, put many thousand pounds
into the pocket of Mr. FOSTER ? This, we think, w
have rendered tolerably clear. To assume then that any
saving can be effected by the appointment of Mr. RAD-
CLIFFE is to assume as true what is a glaring fallacy and
a vul

lgar error.

LONDON LATEST NE WS.

City, Saturday Evening, Half-past Seven o'clock.
The apprehensions of a war between France and America
having subsided into a general belief that the mediation of
Great Britain will put an end to the squabble, the consul mar-
ket has been improving in the absence of any extensive specu-
lations for a rise, consols for account opened this morning at
92i, advanced to 92k, and, up to the close of business, ma►n-
tained those prices. The new 31 per cents. were sold to-day at
one per cent. above par for the opening; and the reduced stock
at 991 ; oninium closed at 42 pm.; Exchequer bills 14 to 16;
India bonds at 3 to 4 pm.; eonsols for account 9'4
The foreig❑ stocks have been operated upon by the improve-
ment of the English market ; Spanish-bonds were done et 51,
Portuguese 851, 3 per cents. 55f, Dutch ver cents. 55, 5 per
cents. 1022, Belgian bonds 1391. In the republican bonds a
slight advance has also taken place.

On Christmas-day, Mr. Alderman J. M. Gilbertson, of Hert-
ford, hospitality regaled at his house twenty-three aged widows
and widowers, with the good old English fare of roast beef,
plum pudding, and ale, a hose ages amounted together to 1,777
years, icing wore than an a:•erage of 77 years.