The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-09-28 00:00:00

the matter :

" A useful lesson may be drawn from this display of Lord
Clifford. The affair affords another goof of the determina-
tion of the Papish priesthood of Ireland to spread their mis-
chievous politico-religious creed throughout every depend-
ency of the British crown—no matter at what cost. Like a
noxious vapour the Romish faith is covering the entire colo-
nial empire of Britain ; in Canada its fatal effects have long
been felt ; in New South Wales it is creating discord and
strife (as an extract from a Sydney journal in another column
will testify) ; and now we have it advancing into the most
hazardous yet most glorious of all our dependencies."

We have nothing to add to the moral so concisely
yet so well summed up by our talented contemporary.
It was an incident of the evening that the. Rev. Sir
Harcourt Lees, of Dublin, presented a petition by the
hands of Lord Brougham, complaining of the exist-
ence of the order of Jesuits in Ireland, and praying
for their expulsion; that Lord Clifford denied they
existed there, and took some trouble to show, from evi-
dence given by Mr. O'Connell and other Roman Ca-
tholics before a committee of the House of Lords in
1825, that " there was no such thing as a body of Je-
suits there as an ecclesiastical body," which was about
as true as many other things they there and then swore;
and that Lord Ellenborough undertook to lay on the
table of the house several papers of high authority,
which would show, amongst other things, " that the
priests to whom allusion had been made were, notwith-
standing what the noble lord had said, distinctly de-
scribed as Jesuits."

We would leave these several matters to be duly
weighed by our readers; but, apropos des bottes, as we
are on the subject of Roman Catholic priests, we can-
not take our leave without expressing our regret that
the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth has again
obtained its usual annual grant ; and, we will add, our
surprise, as well as regret, to find a London contem-
porary and namesake, on whose staunch advocacy of
Protestantism under all circumstances we have firmly
relied, declining from that high ground which we had
always understood him to have taken on this question.
Sir R. Peel, it is true, supports the grant. He has
voted for it, he says, for the last thirty years, without
feeling any violation of religious scruples, and would
do so on this occasion; but does this circumstance
afford any sufficient reason why a Conservative journal
which had opposed it totis viribus should turn round,
and exhort us to petition modestly and meekly indeed
for inquiry, but by no means to attempt anything so
ultra, or so rash, as the withdrawal of parliamentary
support altogether from the institution ? Now this .is
what we call a very false move, and one not at all
likely to serve the Right Hon. Premier. If it was
wrong to support such a seminary of error before Sir
Robert Peel came into power, it must be wrong to do
so after; if.it was wrong in principle, no change of
times or circumstances can render it expedient; but if
it would be more expedient at any one season than
another, that at which it would seem to us to be most
so, is, when a Conservative party is in power. Our
London contemporary looks as if he had a mind to
" Jim Crow" it ; he begins to think the Devil is not
so black as he is painted ; that Popery has the " grand
elements of truth, though a little shrouded by vain
traditions ;" and that there was no vital and original
error in endowing a Popish seminary. Well, we have
heard all this a thousand times; but we had no idea
before that it was doctrine in which our esteemed
namesake by any means coincided, and we have been
pretty long and rather constant readers of his various
able commentaries on men and things. For our part,
we have simply to say that we entirely protest against
any such philosophy called Liberalism, Puseyism, or
what you will.

When a Committee of the House of Commons cam•
to the resolution of recommending Dartmouth as the
most eligible station for the West India packets, it
struck us, as no doubt it struck others of far superior
discernment, that that committee had not made suffi-
ciently diligent inquiry into the important matter sub-
mitted to their consideration. The House ultimately
declared itself dissatisfied with their recommendation,
and referred the question to another committee. At this
time little had been said about Liverpool, or less at all
events than one, having any acquaintance with the
numerous recommendations and vast advantages pos-
sessed by this port, might fairly have expected. We
were favoured opportunely with some able letters, in
which attention was forcibly drawn to these particulars,
and being strongly impressed with the truth and value
of the observations which they contained; we took
leave to urge it upon the Town-council as a duty
which it would be unpardonable of them any longer
to neglect, and which we regretted to say they had
neglected too much and too long—to put forward the
claims of Liverpool in a strenuous and efficient way,
before the Commons' Committee. The Council, we
do them the justice to say,.took our advice, or at least
made a demonstration, as if they thought it not alto-
gether unworthy of their attention ; we are not pre-
pared to say that they have followed the matter up with
all the energy and diligence they might have done ;
nor on the other hand do we mean absolutely to
arraign them for remissness and insufficiency on this
score : we are not in possession of all the information
that we could wish for in order to form a correct
judgment. This, however, we will say, that had the
Council taken up the matter at an earlier period, had
they then collected all the evidence which they might
have done, and had that evidence been duly laid before
parliament, the " contest of the ports" would, pro-
bably at this time be at an end—the " birth-place of
honour" would be determined, and Liverpool, as we
humbly think, would be in quiet possession of the
prize. _

The evidence given by Mr. Aikin, and Mr. Lord,
goes a great way to establish our case—and the more
the facts to which they bear witness, are considered,
the more complete and irresistible will it be found to
be. As a Post-office station—as a central point for the
general dispersion of correspondence, it cannot be con-
tended for a moment that any other port has such ad-
vantages. Falmouth and Dartmouth are surely not to
be named in the comparison. Liverpool may claim a
superiority even to Lqndon on this account, if on every
other they were equal—claim it as the great out-port
of the manufacturing districts—the entrepOt of the
the northern commerce of the kingdom—and as a com-
mon centre of communication w the capital cities of
Scotland and Ireland. As the place of embarcation
or debarcation for passengers, its advantages are coin-
cident. In this respect, Falmouth and Dartmouth are
positively most inconvenient, and need nut be spoken
of, except for the purpose of condemnation. In every
other particular, Liverpool offers the most unquestion-
able and manifest superiority. In the erecting of steam
marine machinery, she has an established reputation ;
her docks are celebrated all over the world. She offers
a cheap market for coal, and unrivalled markets for the
supply of marine stores of every description ; but we
should have to- report details familiar to our readers,

did we dwell on th eubject, The fact ia, that f

Post.oflice or a Packet Station, Liverpool possegsee
every conceivable advantage—so much so that the only
question really remaining is, whether the computed
distance from Falmouth to a port in the West Indies,
being somewhat less than front Liverpool, this solitary
circumstance ought to, or should outweigh all others ?
We submit that the bare possibility of a vessel arriving

at an inconvenient port (inconvenient in all other re-
spects) a few hours sooner than at a most convenient
and central one, ought not to produce this result. If
the interest of the many and the most interested, be
fairly taken into account, we conceive that Liverpool is
every way entitled to a preference as the station of the
intended packets. We claim it not as a favour merely
to the port, but as a measure of equal justice to the
commerce and interests of the entire kingdom. It is
true we regard it as an adjudication which would be
creditable and advantageous to the town—but we rest
our claims simply and soberly upon our deserts. If it
be given to us, we think we have fairly earned it. The
immense capital which Liverpool has invested in docks,
canals, and rail-ways—in river-navigation, and harbour
improvements; the enterprize of her merchants, the
skill of her engineers, her ship-builders, and her
artisans—the industry of her population in every variety
of useful form; these are the circumstances which
make us feel that we have fully paid the price of the
reward, and which will prevent us feeling elated by it
to any excess, although we shall certainly rejoice at the
event.

We have no wish to prolong the controversy—which
we did not commence—with our local contemporary
the Journal, especially as be distinctly admits nearly
all that we had ever ventured to maintain. He grants,
that the observations which we quoted regarding the
police and morals of the town, in certain respects, were
no over-statements, but rather the reverse : he allows
that there is a lamentable extent of coarse profligacy,
and unredeemed vice of the lowest kind palpably to
be seen and notorious to the authorities : he has aban-
doned his own allegation that things were worse under
the " old regime ;" and he leaves his unfortunate
clients of the "new" to sink or swim, as best they
may, under the general observation that in some coun-
tries the governments find it convenient to " connive"
at licentiousness. The gentlemen of the new regime,
we suspect, will not thank him much for the sort of
aegis he has thrown over them, and will be apt to say,
"save us from our friends." Our contemporary talks
of our misrepresenting him, and proceeds, in his last
number, very exactly to show that we did not in the
least misrepresent him. The spirit of his reasoning
is, that it is judicious on the part of the magistrate
sometimes to be a little blind, and he leaves it to be
inferred, that what we complain of as supineness or
neglect, is only a proof of singular wisdom and pru-
dence he argues, in a word, in favour of a modified
connivance ; and it is of course by such a process of
argumentation that'we conclude he means to justify
the Cato's of the Watch Committee or our local
government at large. Now, we regard such a deferiCe
as, in itself, indefensible. We condemn all 64con-
nivance," and hold all bargains, of whatever kind,
made with iniquity, to be in themselves iniquitous.
This is the French system ; it is practised in Paris on
a large scale at the present moment. There the
magistrate abundantly " connives ;" for houses of
infamous resort are publicly licensed. Our contempo-
rary will not say that there is any " officious inter-
. ference with private morals" in that city. Well, is
public morality improved by that indulgent and con-
niving system ? Let the following sketch, made by a
few strokes of the pencil, but done by a master hand,
answer the question :-
6.6 In Paris, eight hundred thousand human beings
know religion only by name, or as a picturesque rem-
nant of the olden time, singularly effective in stage
effect. The theatres every night teem with licentious-
ness and obscenity. The illegitimate births are rapidly
approaching to the legitimate,* and two or three dead
bodies are every morning fished out of the Seine, the
victims of disordered passion and unrestrained licen-

tiousness

Such is Paris—where the magistrate connives ; and
if such be the fruits of the system, all we say is,
defend our good town from it I

Our contemporary refers us to the times of the
Puritans; the laws against licentiousness, he says, were
then rigidly enforced, but "it is very questionable
that they made the people more virtuous; they pro-
duced hypocrisy—made the name of religion odious—
and, in short, only worked out the demonstration that
interference with private morals is injudicious."
Now, if our Watch Committee or the Council act
upon the principles thus set forth by their advocate in
the Liverpool Journal, we do not wonder that he has
run away from his position that " things were worse
under the old regime;" it would be strange indeed if
they were. Suppress vice by connivance ! Why, the
thing is monstrous. We really cannot understand
such Machiavelism—such Jesuit morals. We did not
imagine that any thing so paradoxical had obtained
within the Council : 1 int if such really be the case,
and from the line of defence taken by their advocate,
we are justified in concluding that such is the case—
then we appeal to all the respectable inhabitants of the
town, and especially to the municipal electors, that it is
high time to turn out all such Machiavelian Councillors.
Out with them, we say; there will be neither luck nor
grace about us till we get them out.

But the Journal asks .what reason we have for ex-
pecting results more favourable from a conservative
council—being, himself, quite at a loss to conjecture.
We answer, because in the first place we shall have
men in who repudiate this connivance system as utterly
as we do. What could we do with a party holding
such a doctrine ? How should we appeal to them ?
Did we point out some atrocious case, or grevious
nuisance, they would turn round upon us perhaps, and
say they must not interfere with " private morals,"
that such " meddling" was injudicious, and that we
were mere " Prynnes and Puritans" to whom no liberal
man would pay the, smallest attention. Having to deal
with such parties, we; must despair of all improvement;
we must inevitably go on from bad to worse; there is
no common standard of principle between us to which
we can appeal.
With a Conservative Council, the case will be
different; the subject will be anxiously considered;
religious instruction, the want of which lies at the
root of the evil, will be cared for; the great evil of multi-
tudinous beer and gin shops will be at least mitigated—
and from men avowing, and we trust sincerely main-
taining church principles, we shall look for all such
conduct as may serve to improve this great town in
this and every other respect, in which improvement is
wanting. Of a liberal council, we can make nothing ;
it is neither fish, nor flesh ; their very best advocates
can say nothing for: them—but what, in our humble
opinion, should doubly damn them. We wish to see
Liverpool great in all respects—as distinguished for
the excellence of its police and public as well as private
decorum, as it is for its docks, its industry, its vast
wealth, and commerce; and for this purpose we repeat
that a Conservative local government, acting with some
boldness in Conservative principles, is essentially
necessary.

They are now as 12 to 19 in Paris. In London, as 1

LOCAL NEWS

next, when, as will be seen from an advertisement, a
arrangements are otherwise as stated in our last.

Great George-street Chapel, (Dr. Rafflea's,) will be opened
for divine service on Thursday, 21st October next, by the
Rev. ME. Parsons, of York, and the Rev. Dr. Fletcher, of

London

STEALING Toots.—William Hughes was, on• Saturday,
committed for trial for having stolen a basket of tools from
the work-yard of Mr. Cowley, joiner and builder, Great
Charlottee-street. The prisoner was apprehended in the
yard by Mr. Cowley.
SMALLWOOD'S MAGAZINE, for September. Smallwood,
London.—This magazine stands its grotind. It contains
many clever articles. It has, however, come so late in the
month that we think an ample notice of it hardly worth
receiving.

THEATRE-ROY4L, MANCHESTER.—Sheridan Knowles
play of " The Bridals of Messina" was performed for the first
time here on Saturday. The house was overflowing. The
play was received with vehement applause throughout. Miss
Tree, who played Isoline, Mr. Anderson Fernando, Mr.
Stuart John of Procida, were each called for at the fall of
the curtain, and were enthusiastically cheered by the audience,

ASSAULT BY A PARISH-OFFICER.—Edward Felton, one
of the parish officers, Was accused, before Mr. Rushton, on
Friday last, of having pushed a poor sickly-looking female
with so much violence from the parish office that she fell and
sustained much injury. The case was proved, and the de-
fendant,
.but for his excellent character, would have been
severely punished. He was reprimanded.
FATAL ACCIDENT AT ST. HELEN'S.—On Tuesday last a
young lad, named Enoch Bromilow, in the employ of the
Pocket Nook Plate Glass Company, was killed by the ma-
chinery in the polishing room, where he was accustomed to
work. He was engakid in cleaning the axles of some cog-
wheels, when his hand became entangled in thein, and by
their active revolution his body was drawn in amongst the
machinery, and such injuries inflicted that he died shortly
after he was extracted from his calamitous situation. An
inquest was held the next day, at the Elephant and Castle,
Sutton, before J.,Heyes, Esq., coroner, when a verdict of
" accidental death".,7as returned, with a deodand of ss. on
the machinery. .1
TAE ALPACA.—C4)tain Bottomley, of the Highlander,
arrived last week from Valparaiso, is the first to claim the
premium for bringing these live animals from Peru : he has
nine of them now on board his vessel, in the Prince's Dock,
in excellent health. Through his care and scientiffic skill he
he has'only lost one. Be sliows the lucurn, or coarse grass,
that he has fed .them on during the voyage, a specimen of
Which has been deposited at the Shipmasters' Association.
Numbers have died by other ships, and we believe it is by his
great care, and evert :washing the mouths of the animals be-
fore eating and drinking, that Captain Bottomley has suc-
ceeded in bringing so many at one time. No doubt many
parties interested in natural history will inspect them before
removal to their destination.
THE TORY JOLRNALS.—We have for some time been
looking with rather a curious eye to see which of the tory
journals of Liverpool it is that is in the confidence of the
heads of its party. A change in the distribution of political
power we knew would bring a change in the distribution of
ministerial patronage, particularly in the very obvious and
significant one of advertisements. The board of stamps and
taxes,‘and the ordnance board, are patrons of the newspa-
pers, and the way the annual advertisement of the game list
is disposed of shows pretty unequivocally which way the
wind blows. The custom for many years of tory rule was to
give Ihe game list to one paper in each county, which was,
de facto, considered the party organ ; but some few years
ago the whigs, embarrassed by the novitaa regni, and the
multitude of conflicting claims, extended it so as to favour
two or three papers in each considerable county, but, out of
London, not more than one in each town. We have now
the satisfaction? to announce that the Standard is the official
organ of the tory party in Liverpool, and we congratulate our
contemporary on the signal honour of the position. On
Tuesday it was favoured with this distinctive and valuable
advertisement.—Journal.

CHARGE OF THEFT FROM THE MILITARY HOSPITAL.—
At the Police-court, on Friday, a female, with a child in her
arms, was placed'at the bar on suspicion of having stolen
from the Military Bbspital, a number of blankets and sheets,
the property of the government. Several pawnbrokers pro-
duced blankets, &c., which they stated had been pledged by
a female, but none of them could swear that the prisoner was
the •person. The articles were nearly all marked with a
crown and the letters G. 11., and Mr. Rushton remarked
that it was exceedisly careless in them to receive them with-
out examining them, for had they done so they would have
seen the marks. It appeared, that a soldier of the Rifle corps
now in town, and who had ascertained that the articles were
missing, had gone round amongst the pawnbrokers, and had
identified the blankets, &c., he had also told one of then),
Mr. Smith, Richmond-terrace, that he would get him into
trouble for receiving them, and Mr. S. being alarmed gave
him up the articles, and paid him a sovereign in addition, to
avert any future consequences, which he received. Mr.
Bond, pawnbrqker, had been called upon by a sergeant and
some other part'
es from the hospital, and who identified the
blankets he produced as stolen from that establishment ; and
after this the prisoner, in whose name they were pledged,
called upon him, and said her pocket had been picked of the
tickets, and she wanted to stop them.—The soldier, who had
received the sovereign from the pewubroker, was ordered to
be taken into custody, and the examinations to be taken, to
be transmitted to the War Office, who will decide upon what
steps are to be taken against the prisoners.
PRESCOT UNION.—The guardians for this union, com-
prising the townshiN for several miles round, have, at a
recent meeting, declared to adopt the recommendation of an
assistant poor-law commissioner, for the erection of a new
central workhouse, upon the scale laid down by government,
and sites of land are now being advertised for to suit that
purpose, Considerable dissatisfaction is felt in many dis-
tricts of the union at this untoward promptitude upon the
part of the guardians to increase the burdens of the rate-
payers, while there is sufficient accommodation for the pau-
pers of the union in the present poor-houses. The liabilities
of the rate-payers even now, all through the union, are felt
to be oppressive enough in these days of adversity, but par-
ticularly at Preseot, where the overseers are eogalphed in
debt, and have the prospect of additional incumbrance from
the further impolitic expenditure which is now impending.
The feeling of the people of St. Helen's is very strong upon
the subject, and as there is yet another meeting of the guar-
dians antecedent to a final decision upon this subject, some
steps will, we believe, be taken by the rate-payers, on the
St. Helen's side, to intercept a measure which will be so
precarious iu its consequences.
THE MERCURY AND THE REPEAL OF •THE PENNY
POSTAGE ACT.—The condition of our whig contemporaries is
sufficiently annoying. The ministry of Sir Robert Peel per-
sists in refusing to stultify itself by hasty legislation, and is
disinclined even to announce its future measures in such a
tangible form as will enable its opponents to gnaw them.
The prospect of an utter dearth of subjects upon which to
exhaust their ink bottles during the approaching winter,
overhangs the whole tribe of revolutionary scribblers ; and
imagination will, in consequence, have to be largely called in
aid to erect political windmills for whig Quixotry to tilt at.
Our ingenious friend of the Mercury has already commenced
practice upon these erections, and is about to eclipse alto-
gether the fame of his prototype—the veritable Don. .The
" airy nothings" to which he has just given " a local habita-
tion", and the form which fired the chivalrous soul of La
Mancha's knight, is a repeal of the penny postage—a "chi-
mera dire" enough to rouse the impatient valour of every
whig scribbler from the Land's End to John O'Groat's, and
the paternity of which he attributes to Sir Robert Peel's mi-
nistry. " Repeal the penny postage act ! Enormous, in-
tolerable, dreadful"—ejaculates our contemporary, and vaults
forthwith upon the back of his Rosinante, resolved to do
battle a l'outrance in the face of an admiring peopl4. " Re-
peal that admirable enactment in whose laudation I—the
Mercury—have twaddled through so many columns of weary
small print, and in whose very being I may fairly say that I
am intimately interwoven ! Shocking, infamous, blasphe-
mous ! Dare only to touch one feature of the precious
bantling, and I—the Mercury—and the women of Great
Britain will smother Sir Robert Peel and the whole brood of
the tories beneath the weight of our petitions !" Really and
seriously, we cannot allow our contemporary to put himself,
or herself, and " the women" of Great Britain into all this
bellicose and alarming pucker, which might produce indi-
gestion, hysterics, and a host of other eyils, which the female
" flesh is heir to," but which we have not space to enumerate.
Sir Robert Peel will not repeal the penny postage act ; and
the Mercury may therefore doff his armour and " go sleep,"
and his fellow agitators, the ladies, resume their household
tasks ; for neither mercurial correspondence nor " billets
dour" are in the slightest jeopardy. The latter, especially,
we are satisfied that no conservative would be so ungallant or
so void of taste as to discharge; and we should not wonder
if, on the contrary, the laudable ingenuity displayed by fair
correspondents in general, to confine the al:eight of their
• communications, by crossing and re-crossing the endearing
lines which they address to the male sex or to each other,
should be rewarded at the hands of a conservative ministry
by a halfpenny postage act, to embrace peculiarly three-
cornered notes, written with ruby pens upon tinted paper,
or by a regulation to enable any quantity of postcripts
which may occur to the minds of the fair writers within a
week after the dispatch of the original letter, to be forwarded
without additional charge.

WHIG DEMAND FOR POST-HASTE LEGISLATION.—Ano-
ther debate on the corn laws ! Another rechauffe of the
" Thousand and one Tales " of the Cobdens, Smiths, and
Aclands ! Verily, we should imagine that even whiggery
must shortly be tired of the " iteration " of this sole topic
upon which it has left itself the opportunity of being elo-
quent ; and that we, who are unfortunately condemned to
record its sayings and doings, may shortly be enabled to ex-
claim with the poet _ _

" To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new ".
After the years of agreeable holiday navigation from quarter
day to quarter day—ten years in which the vessel of state has
been steered pleasantly before the gale,—piping regularly to
meals, whether it blew high or low, whether in mid channel
or amongst breakers,—the portion of the crew have on a sud-
den become struck with an inordinate desire to work double
tides, to set a double watch, to wash and scrub decks, to
caulk and to paint. After ten years, during which the dis-
cussion of corn laws, tariffs, currency and all similarfatigu-
ing topics have been sedulously avoided—postponed from
session to session—taken up as the mere pretext for a perio-
dical demonstration and quietly shelved again—we are now
told that we must rush " in hot haste " to their settlement—
that we must take up at once and determine all that whig
indolence or incapacity, or worse, has kept hitherto in abey-
ance :—that a short parliament must not be prorogued, even
iu the month of September, until it has not only settled the
corn laws, but provided a legislative remedy for the distresses
and evils which have accumulated during the ten years of
whig misrule ! Such is the modest demand with which,
night after night, the Cobdens and other similar illuminati
are exercising their most " sweet voices" in the House of
Commons—" Provide us, before you prorogue parliament,
with a measure to relieve manufacturing distress "—is the
cry of the whig mocking birds, one and all. "Do 'n't tell
us of the cause of our distress, but give us the remedy "—is
the sensible requirement of these sensible legislators. " Sit
till October, November, or December, but do not prorogue
until you have devised some means of keeping us upon our
feet,—or upon our stilts, it may be,—until spring." Now,
in our poor judgments there are just two reasons why this
modest demand should not be acceded to. In the first place
we doubt strongly the propriety of prescribinga remedy with-
out first ascertaining the seat of the disease and its inducing
cause ; and these we take to be at present disputed points ;
and in the second we doubt, as strongly, the power of parlia-
ment to prescribe any legislative remedy at all ! We are not
by any means disposed--?n underrate the "collective wisdom"
of parliament, especially as reinforced of late by the introduc-
tion of such shining lights as the Cobdens, Bowrings, and
Roebucks ; but for all that, we think that these gentlemen
assume for it a power which we in common with the majority
of mankind have never given it credit for. Shew us by what
magic influence a discussion upon the corn laws or any other
laws can at once arrest the progress of distress,—can still
agitation, and promote in the minds of the suffering classes
a patient endurance until the remedy prescribed can operate,
and we shall be quite prepared to maintain, not only that it
ought not to be adjourned now, but that it ought never to be
adjourned at all—not only that it ought to sit and legislate
and debate the year round without intermission, but that
relays of legislators and debaters should be provided to en-
able it to work night and day ! We are afraid that parlia-
ment possesses no such magic power, and that working double
time isjust as prejudicial in legislation as it has been found
to be in cotton spinning. In ordinary life we do no find that
hastyjudgments are invariably wise ones ; and whig expe-
rience in law making, would lead to the conclusion that hasty
measures are not always wise and good measures.