The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-07-02 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

It is rather curious that the reformed Parliament, from
which so much was anticipated, should have failed upon
every point to realize our expectations of it. It is odd
that it should not have favoured us with one single op-
portunity of congratulating the country on its election,
or of attributing to the house itself even a desire to ob-
tain public respect and to support the high character of a
legislative assembly. The present Parliament has passed
one of the most despotic measures that was ever pro-
posed by a Government ; it has supported the most fla-
grant abuses that ever outraged a country; it has evinced
the most abject subserviency to the will of a minister,
and the most insolent indifference to the prayers and ex-
pectations of a whole people. But it has not only done
this—it has not only proved the most tyrannical, but the
most negligent—not merely the most insolent, but the
most indolent of Parliaments. Some two nights a week
we have had " a house," assembled to promote despotism
or to refusritt, let it be sought in what shape it
might; on t e aining nights of each week we have
had " no house," and all the motions that stood upon the
list for discussion upon those evenings have fallen to the

ground.
But we have even more than this to complain of.—
Not only is the present Parliament the most arbitrarily
despotic and the most shamefully indolent, but it is also
the most unmannerly, the most vulgar, and the most in-
decent of all the Parliaments that have assembled for a
great length of time. There is, to be sure, a fitness and
consistency in this universal abandonment of every claim
to public confidence and respect. The manner has been
upon a par with the morality. The uproar and discord
have. been quite in keeping. The hooting, braying, and
crowing have harmonized with the moral tone of every
proceeding of the house, from the hour of its first meeting
until three o'clock this morning, when it separated.
We take an example of the spirit in which the debates
of the reformed house are carried on—of the " dignity of
the present Parliament—of the notions of decency which
prevail in this assembly of the " first gentlemen in Eu-
rope"—from the reports of their last night's proceed-

ings :
Mr. Scrope rose and made several ineffectual attempts to
address the house in opposition to the motion of the noble lord,
but the hon. member was on each occasion met by cries of
'Question,' Adjourn," Oh," Bah,' and a noise nut unlike the
crowing of cocks."
These are some of the first gentlemen in Europe—

these bah-shouters are among the great readers of Moral
lessons—the asserters of the dignity and lofty purposes of
a deliberative assembly—the denouncers of the clamour
and tumult of political meetings out of doors, and the
brawlings of "promiscuous assemblages at Covent-gar-
den."—True Sun.

The outcry against the arrears of business in the
Court of Chancery is becoming every day stronger and
louder. Want of inclination is not so much the Chan-
cellor's fault, as a total want of power sufficiently to
comprehend that which comes before him, to make any
decision upon it. The reversal of his long-laboured
judgment in the case of Drax v. Grosvenor, which, after
all the coddling in the Council-office, and the foisting of
a falsehood into the " Court Circular," has transpired,
haunts him as the " Head" haunts Lord GREY. The
fear of doing wrong leaves him only the option of doing
nothing. As a Whig lawyer said the other day, upon
seeing a notice in the papers that the " Lord Chanceilor
would sit in error"—" Why mention that—be always
sits in error, and decides in error too."

That Lord Brougham, like the monkey who shows his
tail most when he tries to jump highest, has exhibited
his legal inability since his wonderful exaltation from the
Northern Circuit to the Woolsack--malgre the outcry of

,e whole profession and the intentions of Lord Grey-
.is best friends cannot deny. What the House of Corn.
mons think of his measures, the decided rejection of his
Registry Bill in that House pretty clearly proclaims;
and what the Lords think of them, the unqualified re-
jection of his Local Courts Bill by the Lords next week
will equally well declare. Talk of a collision between
the Houses I—When it may happen, or about what, we
cannot pretend to guess; but as far as the Chancellor's
legislative amendments go, their unanimity is tnost• har-
monious.
As their friends say, their defeat in the Lords and

their retreat in the Commons have given them two gen-
tle hints of their real position. We must think that the
demolition of the Registry Bill in one House, and the
annihilation of the Local Courts Bill in the other,
will not 'decrease the agreeableness of their situation.

The Government has given notice to the Commis-
sioners of Stamps, that they may retire—on pensions;
a new constitution, as it is called, is about to be made,
which will include their own friends, while the country
is paying the efficient but pensioned commissioners. Mr.
Mitford, the Chairman, whose salary for active ser-
vice was £1,600 per annum, retires in the full vigour of
health upon a pension of one thousand four hundred a
year; the other Commissioners making their bows, and
being paid in equal proportions for retiring, all of them
not only being able but willing to retain their places, and
fulfil all the duties of them. In addition to this arrange-
ment, it ought to be understood that the new board,
which is forming, will contain an additional Commis-
sioner, and that when these new Commissioners are ap-
pointed, such as do not choose to pay the ordinary fees
usual upon such appointments, they are relieved from
the charge by a Treasury minute, so that they may step
into the warm shoes of their living predecessors without
the smallest drawback.
It should not be forgotten, that the Government has
already filled up every office connected with the new
West India measure, although the Bill has not passed;
and that such is the urgency with which they are endea-
vouring to secure as much as they can before they go,
that the letters, offering these situations, contain a re-
quest to the parties addressed, to send immediate an-
swers. And this activity for patronage is not confined
to the better sort of things—every Custom-house officer's
place, tide-waiter's place, clerk's place, messenger's place,
is being settled and filled up at all risks and sacrifices.
These are signs of the times, and proofs of Whig mu-
. deration—but, above all, they are symptoms of an, ap-
proaching retirement of the Government itself.—John

All eyes are now turned to her Royal Highness the
Duchess of Kent, under whose care the fair flower of
England's hope is fast approaching the period of royal
maturity. With the character of a most estimable woman,
the Duchess blends the reputation of being a shrewd ob-
server of passing events. Her position in this country
at this particular time is a very critical one. To the
court of George the Fourth she was almost a stranger;
in that of his present Majesty ,she sometimes appears up-
on state occasions ; but her visits to Windsor are few and
-far between. While the delicate health of the Princess
offered an excuse for seclusion, we, duly appreciating the
affectionate anxiety of the mother and the tender years of
time Princess, forbore to comment upon it ; but the revo-
lution of time hath happily removed all fears, and the fra-
gile bud bath blossomed forth a healthy and a beauteous
flower. The rose of England must ,not be hidden in the
shades of Kensington, or waste its sweet fragrance in the
Isle of Wight. The lamented daughter 01 George the
Fourth owed much of her popularity to her frequent ap-
pearance in public, to her unaffected delight of being
associated with her father's subjects, to her genuine ex-
hibition of truly English feelings, and, above all, her
characteristic display of dignified spirit and proverbial
kindness which endeared her to all ranks and gave pro-
mise ofthe great hereafter. Nt ithout stretching our ima-
gination beyond the natural course of mortal events,
it is likely that the Princess may be enthroned at a very
early age. It is true that the legislature hath foreseen
and provided for this; but, in the present state of society,
much more must depend upon the loyal and personal re-
spect of thepeople for their sovereign than upon the acts
of any administration, no matter how or of whom com-
posed. We have been induced to touch upon this very
delicate topic from circumstances known but to few. We
hope the necessity for a more explicit declaration may be
spared us. Ad interim, we advise that the royal maid be
taught to regard herself purely English, and dependent
upon English feeling for that loyal and affectionate at-
tachment which has always supported her predecessors in
times of the greatest political excitement.

We have had a couple of libel trials this week—one in
which the Duke of Cumberland prosecuted, and obtained
a must just verdict of guilty against the publishers of
some nauseous and abominable libels against him—libels