The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-12-02 00:00:00

articles

In sine hundreds of the earlier impression of our last
week's paper, chiefly those which were sent by post into
the country, there was a transposition in one of the leaders,
NhiCh to parties unversed in newspaper mechanism, may
med unaccountable, whilst the meaning was ren•
The latter part of the
cle was placed first, and the first last, until the
as discovered by our printers, when it was speedily cur

dered obscure or unintelligible

rect ed

We should not, perhaps, have remarked upon
this not uncommon event in newspaper publication,
had it not struck us that the test, which was here
applied to the article in question, might, with ad-
vantage, have been tried upon the writings of some
others of our local contemporaries. We have
accordingly applied it to a long leader in the
Mercury of Friday, addressed to the Rev. Hugh
M`Neile, and elicited the following extraordinary

results.
We commenced, in the first place, at what the
writer would, no doubt, facetiously call the be-
ginning of his article; but found ourselves quite as
wise on arriving at the conclusion as when we
started. We began next at the end, an:l read
backwards, and certainly, the sense appeared to us
very much the same,—the only perceptible dif-
ference being that the effort required for reading
backwards took something from the soporific effect
produced by the ordinary mode of proceeding.
We then transposed the various paragraphs, but,
unlike the article of our first mentioned contem-
porary, we found nothing in the Mercury's two
columns to indicate which was the right end, or
where was the connexion of one with the other.
Finally, we cut out the " firstly," " secondly,"
" thirdly," &c. ; shuffled the paragraphs to which
they were attached, and then endeavoured to put
them together again in their original order. Here,
however, we were posed. It was almost pie to us ;
and, in despair, we borrowed a fresh copy, which
we keep by us, to be used when "tired nature's
sweet restorer, balmy sleep," won't come at our
summons. A dose of it, we expect, will he an
efficacious remedy for tooth-ache, or tic dolouroux.

It will not, we should imagine, he contended
now that the meeting of Friday evening was any-
thing beyond an anti-corn-law display, got up
cunningly to enable the advocates of ultra free trade
to avail themselves of the existing crisis in our
food markets. The actors, from the commence-
ment of the movement to the result which followed
it—the meeting itself—were the usual leaders of
the party ; there was nothing to take it out of the
ordinary category of similar gatherings—not a new
exhibition—not a fresh recruit worth parading—
not a stray Conservative to chuckle over. It was
Whig-Radical all over, and that not of the most
respectable character. The platform was only
tolerable, and the body of the meeting had evidently
been drafted from the docks, the cellars, and the
back streets.

We ask, then, of the gentlemen who got up the
exhibition, by what casuistry they can defend their
conduct in endeavouring to entrap his Worship the
Mayor into giving the sanction of his presence and
the character of a meeting of the inhabitants of
Liverpool of all classes of political opinion to what
was predetermined to be a meeting of party and
faction ? Where was the neutral ground upon
which Conservatives could consistently stand side
by side with their political opponents?- The meet-
ing which his Worship was requested to call was
to be for the purpose of " discussing" and " de-
vising" certain measures. The meeting held never
contemplated any discussion at all, for to create
discussion, there must be more than one party.
The course to he adopted was settled long before
a pla-Card was issued or
.a memorial drawn up ; and
when the deputation waited upon the Mayor, and
their organs were jesuitically parading their object
as one which men of all parties could consistently
unite in promoting, they could scarcely be ignorant
that the resolutions they were prepared to adopt
were such as must have been distasteful to a large
portion of any mixed meeting, and which the Mayor
himself could not be led to sanction without a for-
feiture of principle and consistency.
We are sure, on reflection, that the honourable
and high-minded gentlemen who waited upon the
Mayor with the memorial of the requisitionists, will
ra
feel that the entire proceeding, so far as his NVor-
ship is concerned, has been anything but stight-
forward and fair. There are some who will even
go further, and maintain that it was designed to
place that gentleman in a false position, and to