The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-03-14 00:00:00

" New ..

outrage

bate on

f biograp y
ham, who, v

roust be

TIIROV

throwing

rigorous, inquiry into our general system of taxa-
tion, and into the national expenditure. An influ-
ential portion of the community approached the
question in this serious and busines-like
But not so some of the small spouters and jour-

nalists referred to. They viewed it only as ;11 peg
upon which to hang as large a quantity of. trashy
declamation as it could be made to sustain. lii was,
discovered that a portion of the additional expen-
diture to be provided for arose out of rs, s mall in-
crease of the naval and military estimates,--that
Government were about to du a little towards,pro-
viding for the better defence of the country; and
forthwith the opportunity was seized upon to af-
fright the public with a notion of impending, war.
In our own and other towns we had huge anti-war
placards every where staring us in the face, in which
the aristocracy and the legislature were accused of
a design to enslave and to rob the people. Wr. had
anti-war public meetings, at which some of, our
weak-headed, yet amiable, townsmen, dribbled
forth as usual quakerlike sentimentalism 4rom
the same platform, upon which chartism reassumed
its long dormant vitality, and railed in goOd set
phrase against every institution and order, inhich
stood in the way of the establishment of thet` five
points." We had twaddling mercurial denunciations
of war budgets and other imaginary monstrOities.,
And when the steam was just getting iiii, and
demagoguism was flying off into a crusade against ,
some windmill somewhere, but nobody knew where,,
the news of the French revolution and the triumph ,
of mob power burst upon us like a thunder-'lap.
The natural result has followed. The id)re and
discontented frequenters of the resorts of frothy. '
declamations, whom our spouting and .leactser7in- ,
diting Solons, had stirred into activity, g lire up.
forthwith all thought of war budgets and ofotter in-,
ventions, and set to work to find for thems lye's a
few grievances a la Francais. Visions of barri-
cades, street fighting, the pillage of gun ' iths'
shops, and the accompanying pocket-pickingfloated
before the eyes of lazy prentices, prigs, and idlers
of all sorts ; and the realization is to bedo nd in
the gutted shops, the smashed lamps and w • dows
of Glasgow and other towns, accompanied nfor-
tunately by a loss of several lives and innumerable
broken heads, whose owners, after the slight shake
which a policeman's truncheon is apt to give to a
I man's brain, have quite as clear an idea bow of
what they were brawling about as ever they had.
In the meantime quiet and timid neople are becom-
ing alarmed for the safety of their limbs and their
property; and magistrates, military, and! police
throughout the country are harassed by double
duty and constant anxiety, whilst the vicious and
turbulent people to be found in every,community
are on the look out for an opportunity to Commit

`Ve do not know how far the gentlemen, rtcently
so fluent in their denunciations against war bndgets,
aristocracy, class-legislation, and other :similar
topics, by which the vulgar ear is tickled, view
themselves as responsible for the new direction in
which their disciples have chosen to move. We
trust, however, that, as some slight measure of
atonement for their admitted indiscretion in Moving
the first straw, and commencing the warming up of
the popular feeling, which has at length caused it
to boil over, we shall see their names amongst the
list of special constables sworn in before his worship
the Mayor. It would be very hard, we admit, for
the eloquent Mr. - or the meek and pacific Mr.
to have to break the head of Tom Nokes or
Paddy Doolan, who so lately cheered their platform
displays. But, alas ! inevitable necessity may com 7
pel them ; and at the same tune it may convey a
very salutary lesson as to what is a proper selection
of company for men to make, and the danger of
rubbing shoulders to-day with persons whose heads
you may to-morrow be called upon to break in the
Queen's name.

Friday nigi

e Commons on t'

Government financial project, presents one or two points
worthy of special notice. We cannot help asking,.. with
NV Sir W. Molesworth, how is it that the estimates of the
present Government for the army, navy, and ordnance for
the coming year, (exclusive of the item for the Caffr.e war,)
exceed the average yearly expenditure of the five years of
Sir Robt. Peel's administration by no less than £3;268,000;
or, how is it that the actual expenditure for these services,
in the year ended January,' 1848, exceeded that of the
year ended January, 1846, by £2,800,000;
••

cases of this kind the offendt
plowed their hands, but yest
who had used slings. Thesc