The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-02-23 00:00:00

THE CLAYTON-SQUARE DEMONSTRATION,

Pursuant to notice by placard stating that a public meeting
would be held in Clayton-square, " to consider the propriety
of adopting a petition to Parliament in favour of Lord Mor-
peth's Irish Registration Bill,"—the " giants" thereof as-
sembled yesterday in full force—a motley multitude of would-
be legislators. Their numbers varied from about 1,200 at
the commencement of the meeting to between three and four
thousand, whose' ready voices willingly responded to the tor-
rent of invective and vulgar abuse which

'as levelled by

nearly every speaker at their talented and patriotic oppo-
nents, the Rev. Hugh M`Neile and Lord Stanley. There
were about seven or eight females present, three in the up-
per story of one of the hotels, and four or five in the crowd :
how different from the meetings in the Amphitheatre, the

importance and respectability of which the various speakers
sedulously endeavoured to depreciate—meetings in which our
fair townswomen dare to make their appearance, and blush
not to countenance! We noticed among the " giants" as-
sembled in the balcony of the Union Hotel, for the purpose
of addressing the mob beneath—Sir Joshua Walmsley, Col.
Williams, Messrs. Alderman Evans, William Rathbone,
Rosson, Duffey, Earle, Aikin, Molyneux, M'Enteer, Atkin-
son, Charles Holland, R. V. Yates, Sheil, Booth, Slater,

Sir JosnUA WALMSLEY, having been voted to the chair,
thanked the meeting for that honour, for he considered it
a great honour to preside over a meeting like the present.
He eulogised the " statesmanlike measure of Lord Morpeth,"
and felt surprised that their opponents " were not satisfied
with doing all in their power to oppose this measure, but in-
timated their intention to repeal the- Catholic emancipation
bill. Could political bigotry and fanaticism lead then: far-
ther ?" They were asked " Where were the giants of Clay-
ton-square ?" (Shouts of "We are here.") That meeting
was an answer to the question. He launched into a tirade
against Lord Stanley's bill, and viewed with satisfaction that
of Lord Morpeth, which set at rest the assertion that the
reform bill should be considered a final measure. He called
upon Col. Williams.
Col. WILLIAMS moved the first resolution—" That the
people of Ireland have part cause to complain of the laws
which regulate the right of voting for members to serve in
parliament for that part of the United Kingdom." After
great perseverance they got a House of Commons which
pleased them, but in two years that house was dissolved.
This put him in mind of the Apostle casting out certain un-
clean devils! The house was swept and garnished ; but by
and by the devils came back, and the` ast days of that house
were worse than the first. (Laughter.) Such was the pre-
sent state of the House of Commons ! (Uproar.) He told
them to watch the bill up to the House of Lords—[Qy.—will
it ever get there ?]—and see if the fellows would give judg-
ment somewhat after the manner of the Cardigan affair.
They had had enough of that house ! (Great noise.) He
concluded by telling them not to go asleep, when
Mr. RossoN- came forward to second the resolution, and
concluded an unmeaning speech with a flourish :—" Let
them itnprove the people without, and they would soon make
an impression which Lord Stanley and his followers could
not resist within."

Mr. DUFFEY came forward amidst great uproar. He
first alluded to the ministerial abortion, and then to the
measure of the " noble lord who rejoiced in the name of
scorpion Stanley," and the rev. gentleman who took a pro-
minent part in political affairs. Here followed a sophistical
defence of the conduct of the Catholic clergy, and a wretched
attempt to vilify the character of the rev. incumbent of St.
Jude's. " Did he (Mr. M'Neile) think the honest working
men of Liverpool would bow before the influence of the
base, bloody, and brutal party which he represented ?"
[The great Agitator would not have relished this quotation
from his former abuse of the whigs.] He calculated that
there were 12,000 present on that occasion. (This last as-
sertion created some laughter, in the midst of which three
cheers were given for Lord Stanley and Sir Robert Peel.)
Mr. Holme .now came in for his share of abuse. He con-
cluded by saying that unless they obtained what they wished
for—" with nine millions they would beat down the scorpion
bill and Lord Stanley" [Fudge !] ; and by repeating O'Con-
nell's worn-out quotation—

" treat, glorious, and free,
First gem of the earth, and first isle of the sea."
The resolution having been carried amidst great tumult,
Mr. EARLE, in his usual sarcastic strain, told the meet-
ing that Mr. APIs/elle was quite as great an agitator as Mr.
O'Connell, whom he abused! that the late meeting at the
Amphitheatre was a hole and corner meeting, and that Mr.
APlsleile's conduct was alla humbug. (Rapturous applause.)
He said he never saw so large a meeting as the present, and
concluded by moving the second resolution—to the effect that
the electoral qualification in Ireland was too high.
Mr. FAWcwrr seconded tbe motion. Carried tumultuously.

Mr. AIKIN drew their attention to the two bills. The bane
and antidote were befpre them, which would they choose ;
one would ensure than peace and content; the other discord
and bad feeling. [Well said, Mr. Aikin.] He should not
compare the intelligent countenances in that meeting—con-
sisting of some thousands—with those of the few hundreds
who met in the Amphitheatre. [lt was politic not to do so.]
Orangeism was the curse and bane of Ireland. Mr. M`Neile
was not only the propagator but the fabricator of mLrepre-
sentation ! He moved the next resolution—to the purport
that the people of Ireland have not a sufficiently extensive
right of voting at elections, and that it would be dangerous to
withold from the Irish people anything they wanted. [Very
pleasant.]

- Mr. Alderman EVANS, who was nearly inaudible, seconded
the motion.

The resolution was carried

Mr. WILLIAM RATHDONE came forward and was received
with terrific uproar. (A Voice—Put on your hat.) He said
he was in a fever—[no doubt : he generally is]—and that he
would keep his hat off. He made a classical allusion to Mrs.
Glass's cookery-book, " first catch a hare, and then cook it ;"
and enlightened the populace by telling them that cream rose
to the top. He was not going to fight with a shadow ; but he
moved the next resolution, in effect that they had seen with
great pleasure the bill which Lord Morpeth had introduced
to Parliament.
Mr. MoLvivEux seconded the motion.
Mr. WENTRER took a ramble by France to Russia, thence
to our East India possessions, and eventually landed in
America; told them of the strength and powers of the right
arms of millions ; abused the aristocracy ; and concluded by
" tipping the blarney" to his frien Is on the platform.
The resolution was then put and carried.
Mr. ATKINSON followed up the strain of invective against
Mr. M`Neile. It was possible Lord Morpeth's measure
would not pass the Lords. [Very possible.] He moved
the adoption of the petition.
Mr. CHARLES HOLLAND seconded the motion. He re-
joiced a great many times that Lord Stanley again met them
upon Irish ground—the theatre of persecution and crime.
[Too often, indeed, is crime committed by the reckless and
cowardly assassin:] They had gained a bloodless triumph
in the emancipation bill, and were they going to fail then?
(Cries of " No, no.") That was but the beginning, for
England as well as Ireland : it was only the ibrerutiner (if
further enfranchisement. (Great shouting.)
This motion having been carried, a vote of thanis was
passed to the chairman, and the mob dispersed.

The provineial annual meeting, for 1842, of the Roya
Agricultural Society will be held at Bristol.
The London correspondent of the Dublin Monitor states
that the Gth of Ayril next is the day appointed for the ac-
celeration of the London and Liverpool trains. On that day
also the mails will be conveyed from Crewe, via the Chester
and Birkenhead lines, by which a further saving of twenty-
five minutes, as compared with the present route of the Grand
Junction Railway will be effected.
NEWSPAPER STAMPS.—In the House of Commons, on
Thursday night, Mr. O'Connell gave notice that on Thurs-
day, the 4th of March, be would move for a committee to
inquire into the frauds practised in the number of stamps
purported to be issued to newspapers in England and Wales.
SUICIDE.—On Tuesday morning, a person named Agnew,
residing in Cowgate, Edinburgh, cut his throat with a rasor,
and afterwards threw himself over a window two stories high.
Agnew was an itinerent musician, and had been in low spirits
for some time.

ANOTHER " LADY" THIEF.---Several contemptiblatle acts
of imposition and theft have been committed of by a
person having the appearance of a respectable female, in
something after the following polite mode of proceeding :
She calls at a milliner's, well dressed, and with a reticule
over her arm, gives an order for mourniugs, with pressing
injunctions to have them finished at a certain time ; and as
the mistress of the establishment is noting her instructions
and measurements, the pretended customer applies herself
to the filling of her reticule with such "unconsidered trifles"
as may be most inconveniently secreted without the ob-
servance of the other party. But this lady, it would further
appear, has more than one system to practice upon, as the
following account of a transaction which took place on
Saturday morning will show :—About half-past five o'clock,
a medical gentleman was roused by a loud and impatient
knocking at his door. On opening the door, there stood a
respectable dressed female in great apparent agitation ; she
asked if the doctor would visitimmediately her sister, who
was said to be dying—that she had been delivered of a baby
the night before, about nine o'clock, but she was fast sinking,
and the midwife declared that she could do nothing, and that
it would be necessary to obtain the assistance of a doctor.
On hearing this statement the doctor answered that he would
attend immediately, taking a particular note of the address.
So soon as he could dress, which did not occupy ten minutes,
he proceeded to the address, not three minutes walk from his
house. When he arrived there, and knocked up two dif-
ferent families in the land, be discovered that some unfeeling
wretch had played off a pitiful hoax upon him, as there was
no person of the name in the land, although a person of the
name had lived there a few months ago. In this instance
there was no theft committed, as far as we could learn ; but
on the Tuesday morning preceding, a similar trick was played/
upon another medical gentleman, and in that case the doc-
tor's greatcoat was slipped off the pin in the lobby. The
description of the female corresponds with that of the per-
son who is known to have duped the milliners in the manner
described, and there is little doubt that there is some bold
and ingenious person at work, and acting upon measures
preconcerted, with a view to plunder and defraud. We oh-
serve that similar dealings have been detected in Edinburgh
of late.-a Glasgow Courier.

THE FIRST-OF SEPTEMBER IN FRANCE.—The first of
September is not looked forward to in France with such in-
tense anxiety and anticipatory glee as with us. Why. this is
I know not, for a finer bird country, in every sense of the
word, is not to be seen. The abolition of the law of primo-
geniture in France is, I suspect, the primary cause. A French-
man, unless he happen providentially to be the fils unique of
rich parents, can take no pride hi his inheritance, and feeling
no interest whatever in his strip of acres, looks upon shoot-
ing partridges more as a matter of every-day oemirrenee than
as an amusement of an all-engrossing and enthusiastic nature.
The Sportsman in France.
A masonic emblem has been found in a stone wall at Ghia-
nee. It is merely the five points, with an inscription in Per-
sian round it. The translation of which inscription is, " God
grant me what I want." During our campaign through Af-
ghanistan, a strong resemblance to the customs, dress, and
manners of the ancient Jews, was very prevalent among the
Affghans. Indeed, at Candahar, they acknowledge their di-
rect descent, and called themselves " the children of the
Jews." No doubt many more masonic emblems might be
traced, and if due examination were made, we should pro-
bably elicit those scintillations; embers of the masonic light
itself, which might be enkindled into pristine power and
beauty.—Freemasons' Quarterly.
It contains
breadth three, and its circumference twenty-six. LONDON.—London in length is nearly eight
. miles, its
65 different squares. It has 246
43 chapelsc
for foreigners, and
above 8,000 streets, lanes, alleys, anhdurccohurayst-assnixad.nadhampoarles,th2r7
meeting-houses for Dissenters,
places es
sittingo fpunbfl public
arlia worship.ine n t
6 synagogues for Jews—making
this vast city there are up-
is estimated at 1,250,0p0
122asyltins70fo4re thehar i
for education, 10 institutions for
The number of inhabitamntaskidugrisnog2 Pt
wards of 4
gent, 17 for the
e
promoting rhe artss
departments of the 1
d with the various. law. There are
institutions, 58 courts of justice, 4,040 professional men con-
waggons going and returning to the n 1 ecte
3 vessels trading to the river Thames in the course of m
seminaries
e k lni dd
lam sciences,
e, 3 dispensaries,
metro-
polis in the same period, including their repeated voyages.
The amounts of exports and imports to and from the Thames.
is estimated at £66,811,922 sterling annually, and the pro-
year, and 40,000
perty floating in this vast city every year is £170,000.000
sterling. These circumstances may be sufficient to convince
us of the amazing extent and importance of the.eapital of the
British empire.