The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-06-16 00:00:00

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books for the most deserving—h Ave come forward in
aid of the objects of the Institution ; and we may also
refer to the very praiseworthy efforts made by the mas-
ters in the distribution of books to their most deserving
scholars. In addition, we are compelled to notice, as
amongst the most pleasing of the features attendant
upon these examinations, the most expressive and pa-
ternal manner in which their results were conveyed
to the different you ng gentlemen by our worthy senio
Rector. The advice, as to their future life and the
commendation bestowed upon the past, will, we trust,
be remembered as tenaciously as it was faithfully and
sincerely tendered.

We cannot conclude these few remarks without ex

pressing our sense of the able manner, and spirit: and
zeal, with which the affairs of the Collegiate Institution
are conducted. And at the same time we must appeal
to the leading conservative ladies and gentry of - our
town to co-operate with them more heartily than they
have done hitherto. In particular, we refer to the lec-
tures which have been given. These have been, thus
far, of a very superior character for talent and interest.
They have been presented with every aid to the com-
fort and convenience of the audiences. And yet, on
more than one occasion, we regret to have observed a
somewhat slender attendance of those classes whose
presence would most conduce to the welfare of the In-
stitution. 'We hope this will not continue to occur, as
by that means the sterling value of the lectures—their
talent—must for the future be very sensibly deteriorated.
We may remark that the attendance of the pupils and
members has on all occasions been excellent; and, for
their sakes, we hope that nothing will intervene to
lesson the value of a boon which is sought after with
such avidity.

We have this day the painful task of recording ano-
ther of those disastrous conflagrations, which have of
late conferred so injurious a notoriety upon our town,
Another extensive and valuable property, affording
employment to a considerable number of our indus-
trious population, has fallen a sacrifice ; and there is
too much reason to suspect that the calamity is attri-
butable, alone, to the act of an incendiary. A. refer-
ence to our report, elsewhere, will afford evidence,
little short of conclusive, that no mere carelessness—
no spontaneous combustion—no accident of predis-
posing causes—has occasioned the destruction of the
premises of the Messrs. Crofts. The buildings them-
selves were of the most perfect construction. Their
management was of the most careful description.
They were safe up to the last moment at which they
could be examined by the servants of their owners ;
and, most striking fact of all, the locality, in which
combustion appears to have commenced, was one en-
tirely removed from any reasonable probability of acci-
dental ignition.

Coupling these facts with the very strong suspicion
which has attached to the origin of the recent fires at
the Duke of Bridgewater's warehouses, and indeed of
other recent fires in Liverpool, it cannot but strike any
reflecting man that it is time, and full time, that a
searching examination should be entered upon, and

resolutely followed up, for the purpose of arriving, if
possible, at the sources of destruction of property so
deplorable—destruction, too, so injurious to the welfare
of the town itself. Incendiarism the most wicked and
deliberate can scarcely be denied to exist. It is almost
weekly occasioning the sacrifice of valuable property—
not that only which the devouring element consumes,
but of the very reputation of the- port, as one safe for
the warehousing within its limits of produce of any
description. We have been told of loose management.
Vie have been amused with accounts of the almost
maniacal. practices of warehouse owners and ware-
housemen, porters, and others, employed in this de-
partment of our trade. These, however, can have
nothing to do with the existence of incendiarism. The
case before us is not that of a warehouse at all ! And
we must, therefore, cast our eye much beyond such
mere paltering—and spiteful paltering it is—with the
question at issue, and endeavour to reach, what is the
only material subject for inquiry, the cause and the in-
struments of this demoniacal crime.

Wherever we have hitherto traced the career of the
incendiary, we have ever found hits some moody,
sullen maniac, or some brutalised and senseless being,
worked up to the commission of his deeds of destruc-
tion by private injury, or fancied injury, or by some
political delusion. The outrages of Ribbonism, or
Whiteboyism, in Ireland, are distinctly traceable
to a distinct cause. We can conceive readily the
inducing motives of a " Swing." We can as
readily conceive the motives which have induced
the turn-out workmen in our manufacturing districts
to burn the very factories in which they were earning
their bread. But where have we the same ground of
reasoning to go upon in the cases before us, and in
many recent cases which have occurred in Liverpool ?
How can we trace to any of these inducements or
ptilses the cases of the Duke's 'Warehouses or Messrs.
Crofts' Soapery ? We have no evidence, and none,
we believe, exist, that there is any misunderstanding be-
tween either of these parties and their workmen.
Passion, then, or misguided conviction with respect to
the character of the act, can have had no portion in
inducing the crime; and here appears to be the diffi-
culty of attaining even a guess at the persons or de-
gree of the perpetrators.
We must go, therefore, beyond this beaten track of
investigation ; and humiliating to human nature it is
to have to do so ! We must ask are there no classes
in this country, and in this town, sufficiently debased
to rush upon even the crime of incendiarism, for the
profit, for the additional employment, which the oc-
currence of calamity affords ? And, more than this,
are there not employed in some departments of our
multifarious industry, men so bitterly hostile to every
thing which bears the name, or upholds the strength,
of England—so fatally in the power of secret treason,
lurking in the very heart of our large towns—that they
would scarcely pause at the precipitation of a calamity
however certain to be widely spread, to ask themselves
any more than the question whether or not they could
do so with impunity !

We feel imperatively called upon to throw out these
few hints, for the consideration of our local magistracy,
who will no doubt be induced by this new instance of
the spread of incendiary crime amongst us, to use in-
creased activity and vigilance for the detection of the
perpetrators. We would not for a moment fasten a
stigma such as this upon any class of our fellow-towns-
men, or fellow-countrymen. But when we look at the
miserably ignorant, and degraded, and, we may add,
fuelled and inflamed men, who are to he found occu-
pying, in this great town, departments of labour which
bring them into the position to do the very mischief
which is going on around us, we may surely ask, is
that proper precaution used in that selection, which is
consistent with the magnitude of the power to injure
placed in their hands ?

At.tbe next council meeting Mr. Parker intends to
bring forward a motion for rescinding a resolution re-
cently adopted for the erection of the new gaol on the
site of Wavertree Hall. As a general principle we are
opposed to the re-opening of questions which have
been discussed, and upon which a vote has been taken ;
but there may be, and sometimes are, occasions when
it is advisable no; to adhere too closely to such a rule,
and as there is a strong feeling out of doors against
the appropriation of this land for the intended build-
ing, grounded upon several forcible reasons which we
need not enumerate, an opportunity will he afforded to
those who are desirous of carrying out the resolutio
of the council, of answering the various arguments
which will he brought forward against carrying it into
effect. Of course we are bound to defer to the strongly-
expressed opinions of the scientific men who have been
consulted, that the situation can be thorougly drained ;
but it is confidently affirmed that sufficient cannot be
accomplished in this way to secure the health of the
inmates.

We publish in another column a full report of the
speech of Sir Howard Douglas in the House of Com-
mons on the 15th May last, as we find it in Hansard's
Reports. We are induced to do this, as affording our
gallant representative an opportunity of explaining
fully his reasons for recording the vote against which
exception has been taken by the Anti-Monopoly Asso-
ciation of this town, and which that factious and med-
dling body has so modestly " denounced." Of course
we do not expect that the arguments of Sir Howard,
plain and unanswerable as they are, will carry convic-