The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-01-18 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

superior man to him in, these respects. His labour is a
source of wealth to the country ; not so that of the gin-
whipper. His is honest labour; not so that of the re-
tailer of deleterious compounds. The humble operative,
in most cases, is an exemplary father and husband,—a
hard-working drudge to, perhaps, a hard taskmaster,—
a good man contending with poverty, and struggling to
maintain his family, by the sweat of his brow. The
keeper of the gin-shop, on the contrary, is too often a
gambler, a blackleg, a patron of the prize-ring, a better
at a dog-fight or a horse-race,—a being depraved and
demoralized by the very nature of his occupation. And
vet this man and his " order" are the very persons whom
Lord Grey has elevated to the elective peerage, and made
the principal supporters of a constitutional monarchy,
cutting down to the ground, and erasing from the elec-
tive roll, the useful mechanic, the hard-working and more
moral operative, the industrious journeyman and la-
bourer, whom the Whigs, in former times, trusted to as
the right arm of the opposition, and held up as equally
entitled to representation as the highest aristocracy in
the country. In this we see the elements of the re-
formed electors. JuStly does Mr. Sadler observe, that
the bill was a party measure, having no other object than
the famous India hill had, of increasing the influence of
the whigs, and securing their possession of office and pay.
In accomplishing this object, they have thrown their old
allies overboard. They have deserted their humble
friends, they have disfranchised the lower classes—placed
them beyond the pale of the constitution—excluded them
from all participation in the elections, and denied them
those rights which they enjoyed before a self-condemned
Parliament proclaimed its rottenness and corruption in
the face of the world. This, we fear, will hardly be en-
dured long.—Guardian and Public Ledger.

commerce, arid their prosperity, is attested by the history
of those countries ; acid such as do not like the trouble of
referring to particular histories, may assure themselves
of the fact by recalling to memory the share that the Ne-
therlands had in bringing about the reformation. So far
we can without difficulty reconcile ourselves to the Morn-
ing Chronicle; for we spoke expressly of the uncon-
trolled influence of Popery, and the cases of modern
Austria, its dependencies, and the ancient Netherlands,
by which the Morning Chronicle answers us, are cases
in which the church of Rome has been fettered with the
strongest restraints that could be devised by jealousy—
cases as unlike to what would be the condition of Ireland
in an independent state, as the living is to the dead.
The Morning Chronicle, however, goes farther, and
asserts that some of the inhabitants of the popish cantons
of Switzerland are happier than the, inhabitants of the
Scottish Highlands; and testifies also to the happiness of
the modern Flemings. These are points upon which,
were we called as witnesses, we should give precisely
opposite testimony. We should feel bound to declare,
that the Roman Catholic Swiss are utterly miserable in
comparison with their Protestant neighbours—that no-
thing could be more striking than the contrast of Flemish
wretchedness with Dutch comfort—and that the Popish
peasantry of Switzerland and Belgium were probably the
most unhappy in Europe, always excepting. the Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, and Irish. We do not impute in-
sincerity to our respected contemporary as it does to us,
because we know from observation, perhaps consciously
feel, the effect of a previously-formed theory in colouring
even the testimony of our sense ; and there are few sub-
jects where this insidious principle has more opportunity
of seducing into fallacy than when we have to estimate
the result of any particular form or modification of society.

. Fortescue, as Our legal and antiquarian readers will
remember, having undertaken to excite his royal pupil
to the highest degree of admiration and love for the coun-
try he was to govern, gives a very warm and engaging
picture of the affluence and prosperity of the English
people at a time when it cannot be doubted the English
were among the most miserable people in the world.
The patriotic Chancellor had, indeed, one ugly fact to
get over, which will sufficiently indicate the relative
character of England in his day; and that is, that more
robberies were committed in England—more capital exe-
cutions rendered necessary, than in any three or four of
the neighbouring kingdoms. He did not, because, in-
deed, he could not, explain the difference, as it might be
explained now, by the difference in the laws of the several
kingdoms of Europe—because all laws were then equally
savage, and England had not, as she now has, the honour
of clinging the last to the worship of the gibbet. Sir
John's explanation is equally ingenious and complimen-
tary to his country; lie ascribes the numerous robberies
in t ngland to the "stout heartedness" of the people, not
to the relaxation of morals or the pressure of necessity,
to which a vulgar reasoner would have imputed them.
This respectable example will, we hope, serve as an apo-
logy if we decline to receive implicitly the Morning
Chronicle's testimony in favour of the happiness of the
Popish Swiss or the Popish Belgians—a happiness which,
however, might even exist in the small fragments of so-
ciety referred to, as the consequence of proximity to Pro-
testant institutions, or of other local or temporary causes,
and without in the least impugning the general conclu-
sion deducible from the experience of all great countries
where the experiment has been tried—namely, that un-
controlled Popery is incompatible with human happi-
ness.

Another question of evidence arises upon the assertion
of our contemporary, that the people of England are more
demoralised than those of the Continent. We almost
blush to be obliged to answer this assertion, but, who-
ever has imposed upon our contemporary, it is grossly
untrue. Things are bad enough in some of our manu-
facturing districts, where the population has crowded, to
engender that " jail fever of the mind," which a crowded
population always engenders, and where a race has sud-
denly outgrown the means of religious instruction pre-
viously sufficient. Neither will we say that the zeal of
liberalism, for the demoralising of the people, has been
altogether ineffectual. With the termination of literary
education, begins that discipline of the mind and passions
which confirms the moral character of a people ; and for
the mass of mankind, who must earn their daily bread by
daily labour, it is plain that the house and day conse-
crated to religion afford the only means of this manly and
womanly education. We will not undertake to say, that
Mechanics' Institutes and Penny Magazines, and other
like follies, have not withdrawn from the house of prayer,
and encroached upon the day which the Creator of all
things has reserved for his own honour and for our moral
improvement; and we are but too conscious that the
slander of the clergy—the cry against " harpies," " lo-
custs," " black slugs," " enemies of liberty," &c., with
advice to " put their houses in order," must have taught
the vulgar to despise that religion whose ministers they
see thus contemptuously treated ; but still the full
churches of the establishment, and the equally full chapels
of the several congregations of Christian dissenters, like
to which nothing can be seen any where on the Conti-
nent, except in Holland, demonstrate that Great Britain
is, in respect of morals, second to no nation of Europe,
whereas she ranks far above the great majority.
Standard.