The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-07-24 00:00:00

counsel, in the opinion of Mr. O'Connell, examine a
witness whose testimony might let out the awkward
fact " that the ribbonmen were murderers." No, no !
Let the detected criminal pay the full penalty of his
incaution. Let him hang or be transported ; but let
not the hidden mysteries of ribbonism be laid bare to
the public gaze ! Let no irreverent eye be permitted
to intrude into the inner chambers, from whence her
blood-stained agents send forth their death-dealing
warrants, and direct the sharpened dagger to the heart
of their unsuspecting and unofFending

victims

We cannot conclude without noticing the following
" rich " passage in the address of this double-dyed
scoundrel—O'Connell, not the murderer Kennedy—to
his Corn Exchange auditory. " How often "—he ex
claims, the innocent lamb !—" How often and often
have I cautioned those who belonged to associations of
ribbonmen that the time would come when their fellows
would betray them, and the arm of the law would reach
them ? " The fear of being betrayed—the fear of the
arm of the law, and not that of God, was the fear held
out by the hypocrite to the poor ignorant beings who
were risking life and soul for the furtherance of his
villanous schemes—" more than twenty-live years ago
I denounced the system to Saurin, and put him in pos-
session of the means of prosecuting the system with
success ! " Where, we ask, did he get the means—
where and how did he gain admission into the myste-
rious secrets of this dark and hellish conspiracy ? And
why has that knowledge slept for twenty-five long years,
and only oozes out at this time, when it is convenient
to disavow sympathy with those traitors whose bungling
has rendered further concealment next to impossible ?
It is a mockery to ask the cause of all these things.
That cause is too evident and too palpable. A few
months ago, who so ready to deny the very existence of
ribbonism as O'Connell and his press ?—his press, for
that is his which does his work. Yet for twenty-five
years this traitor and hypocrite has possessed a full
knowledge of the secret workings of ribbon treason,
outrage, and murder ; and that knowledge has been
allowed to sleep undisturbed in the darkest and most
polluted depths of his malignant mind !
Protestants of Liverpool This is the man with whom
you are called to ally yourselves at the approaching
election. Oh ! if you love your own peace of mind—
your own self respect ; if you love quiet dreams and
an undisturbed conscience, spurn the contamination
which such unheard-of infamy is calculated to bring upon
your names and the character of your fellow-townsmen I

Well ! after all the pamphleteering of Alderman
Evans—after all the speechifying in the Council
Room—the Dock Warehouse Bill has been withdrawn.
The lateness of the session is the ostensible reason for
this procedure ; but we apprehend that the powerful
opposition which was anticipated in the House of
Lords was the strongest argument in favour of the
so-called " suspension" of the bill. We heartily con-
gratulate the warehouse-owners and the mercantile
interests of the town generally upon the defeat of this
measure. We have little fear of its re-introduction
next session into Parliament. If the promoters of the
bill should have the temerity to make a second attempt
we confidently venture to prophesy for it the same fate
as that which the late bill has experienced. It is pro-
bable that the expences attendant upon the futile en-
deavour of the majority of the Town Council and the
Dock Committee will amount to considerably mere
than ten thousand pounds. What will the public say
to this lavish waste ? The money might as well have
been thrown into the Mersey.

Freemen of Liverpool ! Once more we call upon
you to see that your names are upon the register ; and
once more we call upon the influential conservatives of
Liverpool to strain every nerve for increasing the roll
of freemen. There is no time to be lost. Surely, the
wealthy and powerful phalanx of conservative mer-
chants and tradesmen are not prepared to hand over
the representation of Liverpool to the treasonable rib-
bonites of the Protector Association. It is not yet too
late to rescue the town from this degradation. If pro-
per exertions are used much may be accomplished,
during this and the following days, in neutralising the
efforts of your opponents. See that every reasonable
facility is offered for the registration of the freemen.
Their rights must not suffer from any trickery on the
part of the functionaries at the Town-hall. Again we say