The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-12-04 00:00:00

EVASIONS OF THE REFORM ACT.

It may he hoped that as the inefficieecY of the provisions of
the reform act becomes apparent, care will be taken to collate
the instances of failure, and to devise the necessary correction.
We may mention, as one instance, that any person may try to
qualify a host of unqualified neighbours to vote, and with some
chance of success. He may send claims to be registered to the
overseers, in the names, but without the privity of his friends,
alleging that they have qualifications which they do not possess;
and if no busy body should happen to oppose those claims,
which may often happen, the power of giving a colourable vote
is acquired by the party, without his being aware of the fact.
When the election comes he is told he is on the register, and
that he may vote, without the fear of being sworn to his qualifi-
cation. When he goes to the poll, he is asked, "Are you the
Person described in this register as residing at —?" yes,"
says the voter. "Do you hold the same qualification now that
you did then?" "Yes," says the voter, who thinks it a 'fair
quibble that, as he held no qualification before, he is as well
qualified now as he was then. The trouble and expense of
purging the poll-book before a committee of the House of Coin-
mous ought, if possible, to be prevented. Again, a person may
send his shilling and his claim to be registered to the overseer,
without having shadow of a qualification ; and though his
claim be ultimately struck off, he remains qualified to object to
and harass the bona fide voters of the place.
The following names appeared 00 the church doors at Beck-
enham, in July :
*Ruseell, James, Croydon, freehold, Beckenham.
suussell„fonies, New pent-road, freehold, ditto:
I;Russell, Robert, Sanderstead, 1-7th freehold, ditto.
Russell, Robert, Coulsden, 1-7th ditto, ditto.
'Russell, Edward, Croydon, 1-7th ditto, ditto.
Russell, Thomas, Croydon, 1-7th ditto, ditto. .
[Russell, John, Hampton Wick, 1-7th ditto, ditto.
Russell, Wilson, Croydon, 1-7th ditto, ditto.
tßussoll, John, Couliden, I.7th ditto, ditto.
Russell, Robert, Croydon, 1-7th ditto, ditto,
• Russell, James, Croydon, freehold, ditto.
Miller, James, Surrey-square, 1-7th ditto, ditto.
The revision came, and the three Jaintses. marked thus,*
being the seine person, two were masked out. The two marked
thus 4i-, being the same person, one was struck out. The,two
marked thus t being the same person, the first only was al-
lowed to stand. The four marked with italics were, therefore,
struck off. The property divided into 1-7ths, consists of two
pauper-houses, let out in separate rooms to washerwomen, who
pay their rents weekly, "1 hey were left to James Russell, of
Croydon, and to prove to the barrister that the parties let in
were entitled to vote, be produced a conveyance from .himself
to seven of his relations of these two tenements for £l9. The
repairs are done by James Russell, and the houses pay neither
rates nor taxes. We leave it to others to judge whether these
seven 40s. freeholders possess such a esualification as the legis-
lature intended.--Morning Herald.

FRIDAY MORN&G, DECEMBER 4, 1835.

The letter of DANIEL ,O'bONNELL about, but not in
answer to, Sir FRANCIS BURDETT will be found elsewhere.
It is just such a letter 'eA'a convict would write to a fa-
mily-party of his companions, in which a vast deal would
be said about the infamous character of the prosecutor,
but not a -word or-hint about the deed itself—about the
• crime for which
.he Was convicted by a jury, and trans-
ported for -life.
DANIEL, we confess, is not yet transported ; 'but that
he has been convicted-of *Mil, deliberate, and malicious
falsehood, not once, but repeatedly, is as notorious as the
sun in the heavens. In fact, we venture to assert, there
.'neyer was a Man in public life; who, by his own reckless-
, ness, his-open disregard of
struth, his solemn appeals in
support-of-that. which he ;knew to be false, and by his
treachery,:dnplidity, 'and unblushing venality, has had to
sustain such a load. of infamy.. He threatens to write
another letter on the -subject, which he proposes to address
to the constituents of Sir FRANCIS, viz., the electors of
Westminster,.which, we hope,.will be more to the point
-and worthier of notice- than the one before us..

The Master of the Rolls, on' Tuesday last, dissolved,

as we were confident lie would do, the injunction ob-
tained,-upon ex parte statements, against the corporation
of Liverpool, by Mr. TamaAs BOLTON and a person
-named -JE.YOs. The Common Council are cAsequently
left unfettered in their original intentions, and will now,

we presume, lose no time in carrying them into full
effect.

la this factious proceeding Mr. Taomxs -BovroN.cuts.
a very-pitiable figure. He has piped, and his neighbour
JEVONS has 'danced; but the lawyers have leeringly!
pocketed his money, while the people, his dear fellow-
burgesses, either laugh lustily or wink at each other
as he bowls along the streets, .holding down his head,
and, like most of his class, ashanted to look a gentleman
or an honest man in the face.

Mr. THOMAS BOLTON has spent at least three hundred;
and fifty if not four hundred pounds in thwarting the cor-:
poration for the spice of some fifteen days, without gain-1
ing any credit to himself, and, we fear, without becoming
a wiser or P better man. We d' not stop to inqpire,
whether the wasteful expenditure of such a sum upon.
London lawyers is a matter of any pecuniary considera-
tion to Mr. TnomAs BOLTON j bOt we beg to ask Wile;
they the distribution of the money amongst the poor peo-
ple in the ward which he aspires to represent would not
have been .a more charitable and more judicious appro-
priatimi of it ? We ask the question in the full convic-
tion that Mr. THOMAS BOLTON knew, when he applied

for the injunction, that it could not be sustained. If he
(lid not know this, then is he a very unfit person to be
intrusted with the management of any public business.'
If his lawyer told him that his grounds of objeCtion were
well-founded, then we have only to say that we have a
yarticithir respect for the legal knowledge and the un-
'sunned integrity of the said lawyer. But if, on the other
hand, we give credit to Mr. TAWAS BOLTON for any.
share of ordinary sagacity, and his lawyer-for any un-
usual portion of acuteness and legal acumen, we should
'still be driven to ascr;belo virulence and an acescent and
troableso,pe d;sposition what it would be deemed un-
cburteoaS•to attribute to ignorance. He has fluttered in
the Rolls- Court for a few days, as a Liverpool bird of

bold beak and showy plumage just such a bird as a

. _
Chancery-lane hawk lovesto pluck; hut he comes hone
-=at length, to his counting-house far do.vn west, relieved
_ of his own overflowing cash, or the shillings collec;ed_for
him by
_cunning satraps from egregious simpletons, only
to be saluted on the Exchange of Liverpool and else-
where by some of those indesclibable smiles which are a
satire upon self-esteem and make a man look excessi%ely
ridiculous._
We have no wish to carry these coMpliments much

farther. It is not our habit to break flies upon the wheel.
We believe we have more respect for, M. THOMAS BOL-
TON than he has for himself; and•we are confident we

speak the se.ainteuts of his best friends when we say
that he would have stood incomparably better in the es-
't:itnittion of the inhabitants or Liverpool if he had ex-

pended in charity and for the benefit of the poor the
money he has recklessly- and foolishly wasted upon uni-
, tarian lawyers. We therefore take onr leave of
.this.fiv,
as STERNE did, of his when he saved it from a death-

struggle amid sweatmeats—" Go thy way, poor devil ;
. there is enough of room in the world for thee and me !"
But to the _real question. We ate not of those who

. -
think that the corporation of Liverpool are without blame
for leaving the endowment of their churches to this the
last hour, when long neglected duty forces upon them
the performance of an act of justice. It is nut much to
their credit that the clergy of this-wealthy and important
community should have been for so many years so truly
dependent upon the beneficence of the corporation. We
take up the very converse of the proposition so tenaci-
ously insisted upon by BOLTON' and the unitarians. We
contend that the clergy of Liverpool have been treated
sparingly, narrowly, and illiberally, by the corporation.
• Economy has been pressed upon them so incessantly that
they have followed it without due reflection. They ha% e
unfortunately, lending too ready an ear to the sectarian
cry, treated the ministers of the gospel—men of rare ta
lents—of acknowledged virtue, learning, and piety—
men of -exemplary lives, of mild and unostentatious man-
. ners, and of indefatigable industry in the discharge of their
christian duties—men upon whom a large sum, almost
amounting to an embryo fortune, had been expended in
their education, and who had devoted years of tedious
and anxious labour in completing that education—they,
the corpocation, ne say, have treated these ministers, in
a pecuniary point of view, not more generously or libe-
rally than they do their clerks in their counting-houses.
These remarks may, perchance, give offence. Be it
-so; we wean none. We strictly adhere to oar proposi-
tion, and, with all submission, we contend, and we mis-
trike•much if •we do not make the majority of out readers
converts to our opinions, that the corporation of Liver-
pool are chargeable With remissness and dereliction of
dpty, almost amounting to a slavish dependence upon the
too much-coveted approbation of popular prejudice, in al-
lowing those who serve at the altars of our national
church in Liverpool to be so long, so unnecessarily, and
vexatiously-7-we had almost said cruelly—dependent

upon their eleeinosynary bounty.
What are the facts ? It will be admitted that Liver-
pool is one of the most wealthy towns in Great Britain.
Its inhabitants have long been distinguished for, and—

setting aside moments of political distraction, fomented
by the enemies of all order and religion—they are still
the most loyal and devoted community of protestants in
these realms. Why then should the liberality of its
Corporation be incommensurate with this loyalty and
christian zeal ? We have answered the question by
asserting that sectarian feelings, or sectarian resent-
ments, or unitarian, threats, have induced or misled the
majority, men of an easy nature, into the victimization
of their principles. They have done homage to a noisy
opposition without inquiring into their motives. They
never took the pains to ascertain the character of the.an-
tagonist religionists with whom they had to contend.
Liverpool did not know that its professed patriots and
reformers were of that corrupt and dishonest sect, the
robbers of chapels, the usurpers of churches, the fraud-
ulent trustees of socinianism who traded upon violated
wills, and outraged holy injunctions, - turning into
schools of infidelity the almshouses of the faithful and
orthodox, until we stripped the veil from the faces of the
unholy allies; and showed that fashionable deism was
the creed of the great mass of Lancashire reformers.
We claim, in all humility, some praise for doing this;
and we have reason to know that even the orthodox dis-
senters whom we assisted on that occasion do riot now
thank us, simply because what we embraced has proved
most unprofitable to their political and party specula-
tions.

The corporation of Liverpool never concerned itself
with any of these highly important matters. Their pp-.