The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-08-07 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

JOSEPH HUME A " REPEALER."
( From the Manchester Courier.)
Mr. Joseph Hume, the rejected of Middlesex—the
prating, cackling, pragmatical Mr. Hume—has once
more hung up his insignificance to the contempt and
ridicule of the world. He has fallen into the caeoe-
thes seribendi which so eminently distinguishes the
respectable gentleman under whose protection he
placed himself when he was ejected from Middlesex at
the general election ; and has written a letter to the
Mayor of Kilkenny, in which he very pathetically
sympathises with " the oppressed people of Ireland,"
and on certain conditions declares his intention of be-
coming a "repealer." It is said that the cackling of
the geese in the capitol, once saved Rome. The ef-
forts of emigrant poultry from Middlesex will hardly
work so important a result for Ireland, or we should
already have had a foretaste of the happy consequences
of Mi. Joseph Hume's introduction to " the boys of
Kilkenny."

Bat hear what he promises :
" In the present Parliament (says he) the support of the
church establishment in its present extent and resources
stands in the way of all reformers for the benefit of Ireland;
and though much opposed to the repeal of the legislative
powers as regards Ireland's having a separate legislature, I
am obliged to confess that the conduct of the House of Lords
in denying justice to the people of Ireland, as it is now doing,
must soon alter my opinions, and urge me to support the
proposal for a separate legislature, in which the best interests
^f Ireland may be attended to.
" I regret much that tu. at. justice Lo
Ireland, by the Imperial Legislature, has forced me to these
conclusions, which I thus communicate to my constituents,
that they may be acquainted with them, and consider what
should be done by them at this important crisis"
It must strike every one as being exceedingly
strange that Mr. Hume's motive for "communicating"
his " conclusions" to his constituents, is "Mat they
may be acquainted with them." For ourselves we
know not whether most to admire his logic or the bold-
ness of his declaration in favour of " repeal." Both
are remarkably absurd, and we pay him a just com-
pliment in which sincerity has a large share, when we
say, both are exactly characteristic of his nature.
But Mr. Joseph Hume is not precisely the sort-of
man to commit himself to "repeal" without weighty
reasons. He is proverbially selfish and crafty, and
every, public act of his life has been strongly marked
by these ruling passions—or, rather, actuating princi-
ples. His political baseness has been such as to lead
us to the conclusion, that if nature had given him a
strength of mind and firmness of purpose qualified to
keep pace with the emotions and principles of his
heart, he would have been the greatest curse that this
country ever knew. We have seen that neither sense
of shame, fear of punishment, nor compunctions of
conscience, have formed any obstruction to his career
and wickedness; and even in his old age, with one
foot as it were in the grave, we are shocked with direct
evidence that he aided and abetted in producing the
bloodshed consequent on the rebellion in Canada.
All these facts are as familiar as household words
with the electors of England, and Joseph Hume well
knows, that henceforth, as far as the parliamentary
representation of England is concerned, lie is an out-
cast. Kilkenny, therefore, at. present, is his only
hope. As a joint of " the tail," O'Connell is his mas-
ter, and he must secure the mountebank's favour, by
echoing his clap-trap nostrums for the "misery," or,
pr,operly speaking, political distemper of Ireland. The
electors of Kilkenny are the instruments by which he
holds a seat in parliament, and he must accordingly
cajole them, by sympathizing with them in their "op-
pressed" state, and by holding out expectations of his
becoming a " repealer." What a refuge for the des-
titute (in character) has Ireland become

THE QUEEN AND ETON COLLEGE.
( From the John Bull.)
Monday last was election Monday at Eton—but her
Majesty was not present at the speeches. This marked
deviation from an established custom is in the highest
degree discreditable to the tact and sense of the Queen's
ministers. As we have before ventured to suggest, it
is from amongst the young men of Eton, and the other
great public schools, that the Queen in all probability
will have to select her ministers, when the elders who
now surround her Majesty's throne and dinner table
are quietly reposing in their several family vaults, or
parish church-yards, according to their several degrees.
The elders, who, to do them justice, seldom look be-
yond the shirking& and subterfuges of the day, are
playing a most extraordinary game in alienating the
affections of such a school as Eton from a young and
amiable sovereign, by advising her Majesty, upon
every occasion when it can be publicly shown, to ex-
hibit a marked neglect of an institution which her il-
lustrious relations and predecessors delighted to ho-
nour and support.
_ •

We say this is most injudicious, unless, as some
people have hinted, it is part of the government policy
to check the Queen's popularity in order to induce her
Majesty to fancy herself entirely at the mercy of her
ministers. As for Lord Melbourne's reason for the
marked withdrawal of the royal favour from Eton,
that it is a tory school, it is a bad reason. His lord-
ship, who was at Eton himself, and was a tory at that
tory school, is a living proof that royal favour can
sometimes convert even an Etonian tory into a radical
whig; and moreover, as we have already said, as mat-
ters now stand in the country, Eton is not likely to get
less tory by repeated manifestations of royal neglect
and disdain.

THE GREY FAMILY AND THE MINISTRY.
(From the John Bull.)
With the present Ministry, Earl Grey either would
not, or could not, continue. But his Lordship's eldest
ion, Lord Howick—his eldest son-in-law, the Earl of
Durham—and his eldest nephew, Sir George Grey,
remain to comfort and console, with their official com-
panionship in his Ministerial career, the lamb-like vic-
tim of the Irish Satan—in the various capacities of Se-
cretary at War, Canadian Dictator, and Under Colo-
nial Secretary.
Now—barring- poor Lord Minto's disagreement—
and, though great, it is not much to bar; for, Scotch-
manlike, the head of the Elliott's has all that perseve-
rance of fortitude which, under what others might think
unbearable, shows itself "more in patience, than re-
signation"—these three members of Lord Grey's fa-
mily are the only placemen who are descentients, to
the policy and regime of the pet but destined Lamb.
Lord Durham appoints to Canadian office Mr. Tur-
ton, and Mr. Gibbon Wakefield, in spite of the insu-
perable objections, which, as the Chief Minister of our
pure and innocent young Queen, Lord Melbourne so
very naturally persists in making to the morals of those
two entlemen ; Lord Howick flies in the face of Lord
sell on the Irish Tithe Bill ; and Sir George
Iveteep, the moment it reaches the Com-
.
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