The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-04-13 00:00:00

The honour, without alloy, hrlunge to tlora ; the di.s.

credit, if, any there be, to others, As to the celestials,
although it is evident that they are quite unequal to
cope with us in war—(less, perhaps, from want of

courage than from want of acquaintance with modern
European arts of destruction)—and although they have
been taught an humbling lesson in naval and military
matters which, it is to be hoped, may induce them to
treat us with a little more deference hereafter—yet we
must say that, on the whole, we have learned nothing
through this expedition which tends to lower them in
our eyes. That they possess considerable talents for
diplomacy is admitted. Nothing can depress the mag-
niloquent style of their official papers, " The English
barbarians are now obedient to orders," says the great
Ke-shen, the imperial commissioner, with inimitable
gravity. "At present all affairs are perfectly well
settled." And thus did he announce his own submis-
sion and the good behaviour into which our fighting
men had
.just been at the trouble of thrashing him.
This may be laughable, as certainly it is ; but words
are sometimes " things," and Nvho can tell how much

the very existence of the celestial dynasty may depend
upou this pre-eminently celestial and top-lofty mode of
speech in all the official servants of the government ?
The Chinese character and nature becomes every day
a more interesting subject of speculation.

All who admire purity of election must feel deeply
indebted to Mr. Blackstone for obtaining an order to
print the evidence taken before the St. Alban's Com-
mittee. It is no libel to say that there never was
grosser or mare manifest bribery than the circumstan-
ces of that case disclose. This, indeed, was admitted;
but the committee were of opinion that it was not le_
gally brought home to the principal, and that they
were, therefore, bound to dismiss the petition. Strange
as their decision must appear, it was contended in the
House of Commons that it was according to rule, and
all perfectly right. Sir R. Peel said that he did not
consider the committee at all in fault, and Mr. Black-
stone himself declared that he (lid not mean to cast
any censure upon them by his motion. What, then,
is our conclusion to be ? There is a palpable case of
bribery to carry the election of a Whig lord of the bed-
chamber, and plenty of evidence to satisfy any twelve
men out of parliament that the individual who actually
paid down the wages of corruption was the agent of
the noble lord—and yet a parliamentary committee may,
it seems, dismiss the case as unproven, without the
slightest imputation on their impartiality or discern-
ment. If this be so, then, our inference must he that
the law is in a most imperfect state, and calls loudly
for amendment.

By way of set off against this flagrant transaction,
as it affects the purity of parliamentary election, the
morals of reformers, and an individual holding an
office so near the crown, it is said that a case of retali-
ation would have been made out against Mr. Smyth,

the conservative member for Canterbury—but that a
compromise took place which withdrew both from the
committee ordeal. We know not how this may have
been; but there is at all events a wide difference be-
tween a case actually proved, and one which we have
only somebody's word that it might have been so. The
counsel for the Canterbury petition threw up his brief
in an early stage of the business, finding that, with the
rule as to agency in his way, which the committee of
the St. Alban's case had set up, he could not progress.

After this, petitioning parliament on grounds of
bribery must he regarded as a joke. If Dr. Webster,
of St. Alban's, was not deemed a sufficiently-proved
agent of the bed-chamber lord, it would be impossible
to prove any man an agent, except one that could shew
a written authority from his principal, and that would
be fool or knave enough to slim it if he had.
We are not half sensible of all the prodigious aci-
vantages and benefits we enjoy under a reformed House
of Commons.

We read with very great pleasure the leading article
of the Mercury of Friday, which, amongst other re-
commendations, had that of being particularly " short
and sweet." " Would to Heaven," said our contem-
porary,—it was thus he began,—" that men would
keep their hands from picking and stealing." Ay, in-
deed, we wish they would, and we wish also that there
were no " best possible instructors" abroad to en-
courage them in so evil a practice. One might sup-
! pose, in their simplicity, that the Mercury, who was so
good and so pious on Friday morning, (we certainly
approve of his choice of the day for being so, although
it comes rcund but once a year,) would be the last in
the world to recommend to others, or to practise him-
self, that " picking and stealing" which he appears to
deprecate so strongly. Yet, if we mistake not, it is
but a short time since we had to reprove our ancient
brother of the quill rather sharply for hallooing on the
Dissenters to a wholesale plunder of the Church ; and
everybody knows that on the subject of the corn du-
ties he rarely keeps his pen from lying and slandering,
and is, perhaps, only prevailed upon by the terrors of
a gaol from keeping his hands from picking and steal-

When levelling doctrines were, once upon a time, in
great vogue, it was a fact obvious to remark, that the
most prominent leveller was invariably one who would
indeed bring all things down to his own level, but was
as strict and severe as any other against bringing any-
thing or anybody up to an equality with himself. And
really when we hear a full-figure advocate of the abo-
lition of church rates and corn duties—a whole-hog
promoter of church and gentry spoliation—praying
that " men would keep their hands from picking and
stealing," we are reluctantly compelled to put this con-
struction on his devotions—namely, that he very sin-
cerely desires they may keep their hands ont of his own
pockets, but that he may be at perfect liberty to dip his
fingers into theirs, so far and so often as he feels in-
clined.

But our contemporary's doctrines, it appears, come
back upon him—(yes, Whig doctrines are apt to play
this trick)—and the cousequence is, that " appalling
record of human crime and depravity of the deepest
dye" wall which he complains that he is obliged to fill
his pages. Such records it is certainly most grievous
and deplorable to have to compile ; but under what re-
gime, let us ask, is it that we have this terrible harvest
of iniquity to reap ? Whigs rule in the land. Whig-
gery presides over the councils of the Sovereign—is
taught by journalists, anti-corn law lecturers, political
dissenters, and various others; the church and the
aristocracy are arraigned before the people, and plenty
of false witnesses are brought forward to support the
charges against them ;—and is it wonderful, is it sur-

prising that crime abounds, and iniquity is rife in the
land
Here is a Whig journalist confessing and la-
menting the fact. He is grieved beyond measure that
twice in the year he is forced to overload his pages for
successive weeks with an " appalling record of hunzan
crime, and depravity of the deepest dye." And do we
go too far when we say that there is here something
more than a mere concomitancy, and that between the
ill-omened ascendancy of Whiggery, and this lamenta-
ble prevalence of crime, nay " depravity of the deepest
dye," there is the positive relation of cause and effect ?
We think not ; nay, we are persuaded that the relation
is real, and might be traced with little difficulty. Im-
morality is the natural fruit of Popery ; but when Po-
pery forms a matrimonial alliance. with Whiggery, we
may expect the brood to be more numerous, though
we can look for no improvement by the cross. The
Whigs make light of church instruction, and do their
utmost to confine and restrict its agency; but what
do they offer, or what have they given in its place ?
`Whatever influence they possess is bestowed in favour
either of superstition or scepticism ; and is it astonish-
ing, we say, nay is it not a result naturally to be looked
for, that crime should abound ? The population has
increased beyond the reach of the church's ministra-

There is nothing more obvious nor certain that,
unless the people are to be abandoned to ignorance
and criminality, which will be every year growing
worse, means must be taken to extend the church's
services in proportion to the increase and wants of the
people. But do the Whigs skew favour to proposi-
tions for this purpose ? Quite the contrary ; they
Oppose them : for whatever their own sentiments, or
of some of them, may be, they are bound down by
their Popish and dissenting connexions, and private
opinion must give way to positive compact. What
wonder, then, we repeat, that crime should flourish,
and that heavy groans are drawn forth even from a
Whig journalist, under the intolerable weight of the
record ? But we have dote. We might perhaps ask
why the Mercury, who expresses so much distaste to,