The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-01-19 00:00:00

-I! T aOOl 11 Ila

SHORT TlME.—Several of the principal mills of Ashton
and Stalybridge continue to work four days a week, and
this, with the high price of provisions, causes loud com-
plaints among the working classes, who are being fast re-
duced to a very dis tressed state.

RECIPIENTS OF POOR RELIEF.—The Board of Guar-
dians finding that a portion of the relief funds which they
distribute is expended at gin palaces and spirit vaults, in
order if possible to put a stop to such mis-application
have issued a notice offering a reward of ss. to any
person who shall detect one in the receipt of relief from
the guardians spending their money in those places. This
notice was read to the paupers assembled on Thursday
morning at the Union Offices, and it was universally ap-
plauded.—Manchester paper.
COINCIDENCE IN BIRtHS.—It is a somewhat uncom-
mon circumstance to hear of children of the same family
being born at intervals of time on the same day of
the month; tut it must be a much more unfrequent
occurrence, where, in one family, the rarity has become
doubled, or repeated. A case of the latter description
has occurred in the family of Mr. Joseph Noblet, of Head
Nook farm, Mferscough, who has four sons, the eldest of
which was twelve years old on the 28th of April last ; the
second 'ten on the 28th of April last ; the third eight on
the- Ist of September last ; and the fourth six on the Ist
of September last. Further, the above four children were
all born between four and five o'clock in the afternoon.—
Preston Pilot.

DARING BURGLARY.—On Monday three men were
apprehended at Manchester, on a charge of having been
concerned in a daring burglary, committed at a farm
house called Ladybarn, near Burnages, four miles from
that town, on Saturday morning. On that morning, at
an early hour, a party of ten or twelve men, with faces
blackened, and armed with bludgeons, broke into the
house in question, occupied by Mr. John Wood, a farmer
of 70 years old, supposed in the neighbourhood to be a
hoarder of money. They went to the bedroom of the
old man's nephew, Mr. Charles Wood, and fastened him
and his wife down, and then proceeded very leisurely to
demand the old man's money from him. They remained
threatening him and searching the house, making his
servant girl carry a light, for about an hour and a half,
and at last bore off a booty of about £24 in money, a
watch, and some other valuables. It appears that though
they threatened to hang Mr. Wood, and to set fire to
the house, he resisted all attempts to get a disclosure
of his hoards from him, and they were indebted to the
fears of his servant for what they did obtain. There was
no conclusive evidence against the men taken in custody,
but after a long examination at the New Bailey Court-
house, before Mr. Trafford, they were remanded.

TliE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

speak, is like the old scholastic who would not enter the
water till he knew how to swim. And when, and where,
and how, is this practice to be obtained ? When the se-
rious business of life has been begun, it is too late. The
apprenticeship must precede the journey-work. Save in
such societies as these, I know not where the needful ex-
perience and self-possession can be gained. Here they
may be gained to a very great extent ; and be it observed,
it is not sought to produce finished orators, or special
pleaders, or powerful declainiers, but to give to every one
such a control over his own language and his own feelings
and thoughts, as to enable him, without trepidation, or
bashfulness, or hesitation, to utter forth what truth is in
him •, so that neither his own attention nor that of others,
shall be fixed on the vehicle and mode of utterance,
rather than on the substance of that which is uttered. I
know that theme are persons fluent and glib of speech,
without a correspondent depth of thought, persons who
dilute an infinitesimal portion of ideas with a copious de-
luge of watery truth ; and that such persons excite in the
minds of the discerning a distrust of all ready speech.
But the two things are surely not incompatible. Nor can
it be truly said that clear utterance has no reflex bearing
on clearness of thought. Our own ideas gain greatly in
precision and in force by the very attempt to impress others
with them. A thought seen.through the medium of ano-
ther's sympathy is no longer the cold abstraction which it
was in the solitude of our own mind. It has a new warmth,
vitality, and energy. By speaking then, and writing too,
but more especially by speaking (for then the communion
of mind with mind is more rapid and direct), do we greatly
aid our efforts to obtain order, precision, and accuracy,
and readiness of thought. Nor let me forget to allude to
the excellent school for temper, for taste, for presence of
mind, which is here presented. One here learns to bear
with patience and good humour, the dissection of his ar-
guments and the exposure of his mistakes ; to seize with
instinctive quickness the salient points of an opponent's
reasoning, or of a statement of facts, and a promptness of
reply, without which a man may, as it were, have much
money in the bank, but is really poor, for want of ready
cash to meet the exigencies of the moment. The French
speak of " les esprit des esealiers," the wit of the stair-
case, which remembers only in going down stairs the re-
tort or repartee which, in the dining room, at the proper
time, would have been most effective. Here we learn to
substitute a ready and timely wit for this lagging, tardy,
staircase wit. And further, I know no better, or so good
way of disciplining the various powers of mind to effec-
tive, because combined, action. These may be, and often
area trained apart, but memory, and imagination, and ob-
servation, and wit, and reflection, must all work together
to produce any great result ; the sun's rays must be drawn
into a focus, ere they kindle a flame; by such contrasts as
are here afforded, there is a new call for concentration of
all the faculties of the mind.

Mr. •HUGII GAWTHORP, of Birkenhead, then addressed
the meeting, and eloquently descanted on the many happy
days and numerous advantages he had enjoyed since his
first connection with the society. When he joined it, he
could not have uttered two words consecutively before
such an assemblage. He was so nervous that he would
have been laughed at ; and though now he might not have
altogether got over the objection, he was enabled to con-
vey to them his ideas of the benefits such an institution
had the power of disseminating. He argumentatively
combatted the assertion of some, that such societies, by
occupying the attention of youthful minds, disqualified
them for business, and asked where one had been thus
deteriorated by attending to mental improvement, how
many were there unable to follow, beneficially, their avo-
cations from not having attended such societies. He con-
cluded by hoping that the Mental Improvement Society
would go on prosperously progressing from year to year.
Mr. HAYLOCK was then called upon by the president,
and amidst frequent rounds of applause, spoke nearly as
follows :

When Julius Cesar, 1900 years ago, landed on this
island, he found it a wild, uncultivated country, and its
inhabitants for the most part little, if at all, superior to
that
,of the brutes by wh they were surrounded ; they
were, in fact, what Shakspere says men must be—" if the
chief good and market of their time be but to sleep and
feed—beasts; no more !" They had no fixed abode, no
-settled occupations ; they lodged in miserable huts, or na-
tural caves ; they painted their bodies as the American
Indians do at the present day, and, like them, were the
victims of a bloody superstition ; the undressed skins of
animals formed their only covering, and for food they
were dependent upon the precarious supplies of the chase
or the spontaneous fruits of the earth. Such was then the
condition of this island and its inhabitants; now it stands
at the head of all the nations of the earth, and its
people are the chief of men. Not alone is England
supreme on land and mistress of the sea ; not alone is
she
,preeminent in war, in commerce, and in manufac-
tures ; but she is first also in literature, in science, and in
art. Unequalled and unapproached in all the elements of
material greatness, she towers far above and beyond all
,others in moral dignity and grandeur. To use the lan-
guage of a distinguished foreigner, with whose eloquence
this very room has recently resounded—" This is Britain
the peerless, that centres within herself all that the most
favoured nations, ancient and modern, could boast of."
Various have been the means by which a change so vast,
improvements so wonderful, have been effected. The
speaker then briefly pointed out some of these, and conti-
nued,—Did time permit, I might cite numerous other
valuable aids to our progress as a nation ; it would be de-
lightful, for example, to expatiate upon the blessings of
commerce, but I must pass on to the most important—
the ONE before which all others " pale their ineffectual
fires,"—an instrument of capabilities at once so vast
and so minute as to be equally potent in preventing
individual vice and national injustice—an instrument
which has already subverted empires, changed dynasties,
exploded superstitions, emancipated slaves, given liberty
to conscience, and unfettered the industry of nations—
an instrument which is now striking terror to the hearts
of tyrants and oppressors, and cheering the drooping spi-
rits of the injured and oppressed, and which, we are well
assured, will eventually, by God's blessing, convert this
earth into a Paradise, realising the poet's prophecy—

Oh God the future yet shall see,
On this fair world of thine,
The myriads wise, and good, and free,
Fulfil thy blest design.
The dawn of Truth, long overcast,
Shall kindle into day at last,
Bright, boundless, and divine!
And man shall walk the fruitful sod,
A being worthy of his God!
I need scarcely add the instrument I allude to is the
Printing Press. With its introduction into this country
commenced, as it were, a new era. To it, unquestion-
ably, may be attributed that diffusion of knowledge and
general enlightenment whichbrought about firstthe Refor-
mation, then the Revolution, and subsequently those other
important political and social changes, which have made
us what we are—the dread and envy of the world.
Through its instrumentality, the deep-thinkers amongst
mankind, the chosen men of God, as I may with truth
reverently call them, have given forth to the world their
noble thoughts, their glorious imaginings ; and while un-
folding to men their rights and duties, have imparted to
them the spirit bravely to seek and guard the one, and
honestly to perform the other. This holds good of
literature in general, but it applies with peculiar force to
to that particular department of it which is designated,
par excellence, " The Press"—our newspapers, maga-
zines, and reviews. It may be true that these do not ge-
nerally, or even frequently, first promulgate great original
ideas, but if they are not the fountain head, most assur-
edly are they the channels through which the evergushing
streams of truth and wisdom flow around, fertilising, pu-
rifying, beautifying the earth. Worthily has The
Press" been named the fourth estate of the realm—
against it the other three are powerless—the public opi-
nion it generates, and fosters, and embodies, is omnipo-
tent ; and whether for good or ill—l believe for good—
sweeps all before it. Nor is its influence solely poli-
tical : it is equally at home whether occupied in hold-
.ing up to popular scorn some petty local job or im-
position, or in forcing upon the attention of the legisla-
ture some great social wrong. It is useful, aye essential,
alike to the merchant, the tradesman, and the mechanic ;
in fact, it is incalculably beneficial both to the community at
large, and to each individual member of it. Every one who
pays the least attention to the signs of the times, cannot
fail to note its important bearing upon the best interests
of society at the present day, by the discussion of such
questions as the health of towns and sanatory improve-
ments, poor-laws, and the hours of labour in factories,
the condition of Ireland, and national education, What
it is doing now, it has been doing to a greater or less de-
gree ever since it had an abiding place amongst us. If
further evidence is wanted of its power,—its beneficial
power,—we need only look to .other countries. It would
appear to form an esssential element in national freedom
and prosperity ; for whether we look on the old world,—
to France or Spain, or Germany, or Austria ; or on the
new, to the United States, or the South American re-
publics, we shall find that the freedom and prosperity of
these nations correspond with the freedom and ability of
their press. So much is this is the case indeed, that given
the one we can predicate the other. We are sometimes
reminded of the old proverb, "We never know the value
of a friend until we feel his loss." By way of application,
it is asserted that the journalists and 'literary men of this
country are not esteemed and honoured as they deserve.
True, we do not decorate them with crosses of the legion
of honour, or often make them prime ministers as in
France, and yet we have had a Canning at the head of
affairs ; and Macaulay, the most brilliant essayist of the
age, has a seat in the present cabinet. True, we don't,
like America, send our Everitts and Washington Irvings
on foreign embsissies, but neither do we even occasionally
hand them over to the tender mercies of Judge Lynch, or
familiarise them with the bowie knives and rifles of the
far west. If wejlo not honor our Dickenses and Jerrolds,
and Fonblanques, and Carkyles, our Times and other able
editors and writers, in the same ostentatious way as do
our continental and transatlantic brethren, it may be the
shrewd practical good sense of John Bull has discovered
that such men of genius are better employed in the closet
or at the desk, than in leading parties or in dancing attend-
ance upon foreign potentates. If they are not ministers,
they are minister makers and directors, which I take to
be the nobler office ; and I believe after all, they are paid
as liberally, and esteemed as highly, and venerated as
much as the literary men of any other land. Be this as
it may, however, let it not be said that we are wanting in
our allegiance, and while we honour the great men of our
common country, let us not forget our local journalists.
Liverpool can boast a press which, whether taken singly
or in the mass, will bear comparision with that of any
other provincial town in the kingdom, and a portion of it
has peculiar claims upon our gratitude. If we are im-
pressed (as I venture to take for granted we are) with the
importance of a free and independent and intelligent
press, we should be desirous to diffuse its blessings over
all the land,—we should wish it; to enter the cottage of the
peasant as freely as the mansion of the peer, and we ought,
therefore, to honour those who have recently so greatly
enlarged the circle of. its influence. It was fitting that
Liverpool, so celebrated for. the enterprise of her mer-
chants, should have journalists animated by the same
spirit. It was.fitting that she should be the first of pro-
vincial towns,to indulge the poor man in the. luxury, I: