The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-06 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A Correspondent complains strongly of the inconvenience
is experienced at the Passengers VI.. mting House on the
Pierhead, in consequence of the rooir, not being lighted with
gas.
We hare received a let'er from one of the paupers in the Work-
house. who has requested us to express his grateful ac-
knowledgments (along with those of his fellow paupers) to
blr. Woods for his kind attention to then; on all occasions.
We cannot fully satisfy oar correspondent Veritas, who requires
of u which o, the monthly magazines or periodicals is most
I suitable for a young man, whose taste inclines to " Science,
Literature. and general useful knowledge " There is no one
periodical that we know of which combines the three sub•
jects. Blackwood. Fraser. and the Dublin University, are the
best literary magazines—give much usetul knowledge besides.
and excellent political disquisitions. But science must be
sought in a purely scientific publication ; and at this moment
we cannot point out the best. With respect also to " useful
knowledge." we should know first what our correspondent
considers useful.

-71.ibtrpool &tantatt.

TUESDAY MORNING, FEB. 6, 1814.

We have no knowledge of what may be the policy
of government, or what its measures in the coming
session of Parliament, beyond what we gather from
the somewhat meagre Speech from the Throne.
But there is one subject, which we do not see
touched upon there, to which we must implore the
attention of Sir Robert Peel and the Conservative
body in Parliament. subject is the condition
of the working poor of the land. We must make
some great national effort to remove the abject po-
verty which surrounds us—which fills the cellars
and courts of our large towns with wretchedness
and vice—which is becoming daily and hourly more
intense. and threatens ultimately to dissolve the very
framework of society. Yes : we must remove this
foul blot upon the British character—the fact that,

with all our vast wealth, our vast resources, and the
industry of our people, we have amongst us, in the
very seats of our boasted greatness and riches,
=asses of suffering and degradation, which cannot
be parallelled in the poorest nation upon earth.
Look for a moment upon the picture presented to
us by the following extract from the metropolitan
police reports of last week :

ANOTHER RESULT OF " BUYING IN THE CHEAPEST
MARKET."—At the Marlborough-street Police-office last
week, Mary Connor, a pale skeleton-like young woman,
was called in. She was the wife of a tailor, and had three
young children. Her husband was out of work, lying sick.
The constable reported that the applicants bore the cha-
racter of very hard-working honest people, but that they
bad lately been reduced to great distress by the inability
of the husband to work. Mr. Hardwick asked the woman
if she had applied for relief to the parish ? Woman.—
Oh ! no, sir. We were certain to be refused out-door
relief ; and my husband and myself would rather submit
to anything than go into the workhouse with our children,
and be separated from one another. How do you usually
support your,eit ?—My husband is a tailor. We work at
making police trousers. What do you get for making a
pair ?—We get 10d. a pair, and find our own thread and
needles. How long does it take you to make a pair ?—lf
a person works hard at it a pair can be made in about nine
hours. My husband could do better work if he could get
it, but there is none to be bad. We have frequently
worked eighteen hours a day on the police trousers work,
in order to get enough to buy food for ourselves and
children. Can you get plenty of this sort of work ?
Oh ! no. There are hundreds employed in this work and
soldiers' trousers work. We are obliged to go three or
four times to the contractor, Mr. Dolan, to get the work,
and to beg and pray for it as a favour, on account of the
numbers of poor people who are fighting and struggling
with each other to get it. But soldiers' trousers work is
even worse, for we are only paid sd. a pair. All we now
want is a few shillings to keep us till my husband gets
round again, Mr. Hardwick directed the usher to give
bet 69.

Here, then,is where thesqualid wretchedness which
meets us at every turn originates. Here, too, is the
mode in which it progresses. A " hard-working
honest man" is screwed down by the beggarly par-
simony of some " liberal" town-council or other,
who adopt in their dealings the boasted contract
system, to the slavery which must be endured, be-
fore he can support himself, his wife, and three
children, upon the poor remuneration offered for
making a policeman's trousers—tenpence a pair !
And yet even this, although to earn sufficient to live
by it requires the labour of eighteen hours a-day, is
better than the price paid by the government itself,
in its army contracts. Fivepence a pair is the price
paid for making soldiers' trousers ; and for this five-
pence there are " numbers of poor people fighting
and struggling with each other," as if it were wealth
itself! And then mark the sequel. Sickness comes.
The slave has overtoiled himself, and can toil no
more. Has the law, in its wisdom, provided for the
emergency in which those dependant upon him are
placed. Does the public, to save whose pockets this
drudge has been consigned to the tender mercies of
the slopseller and the contractor, contribute now to
relieve his crying necessities. No, the law has taken
away that reliance upon the property of their country
which is the birthright of Englishmen. It has said
to the worn-out and helpless victim of the world's
avarice, you must toil on, or starve in your wretched
hovel, or in the streets, unless you are willing to be
imprisoned for life, separated from all that you love,
or by whom you are beloved, in the gloomy walls of
a union workhouse. Thus we torture first, and then
hold out to the victim's eye the prospect of a new
torture, to bind him to an endurance of his fate.
We furnish to the hard task-master a whip where-
with to lash his slaves to submission, and to fresh
sacrifices.

This must not be permitted to continue. A
Christian legislature and a Christian people must
not longer tolerate a law which so far outrages hu-
manity. Our suffering poor must not be left de-
pendant upon casual charity, or the poor's box of a
police office. The entire system of Somerset House
must he put down, and promptly, unless we wish to
drive the masses who now groan under the inflic-
tion of its heartless provisions to desperation. We
invite the earnest attention of Conservatives to this
matter, which must be handled resolutely and vigo-
rously, whatever the cold-blooded philosophers of
the day may say to the contrary.

The world has been cruelly deprived of light
during the past week ; but, more than all, the
Council of Liverpool have been most despitefully
used. That body had an adjourned debate on
Tuesday, upon a most important subject, which
lasted from eleven o'olock in the forenoon until four
o'clock in the afternoon—at which several leading
members delivered their opinions at great length,
and one or two most ably,—and yet the whole pro-
ceedings have been cut down by the reporters to a
meagre outline, occupying little more space than
half a column of a newspaper. We grieve for this
on general grounds ; and we must protest that it is
to us perfectly unaccountable. We grieve for the
fact, which it indicates, that the public has lost a
great portion of its wonted interest in the proceed-
ings of the Council, when the press neglects to re-
port more than a mere sketch of those proceedings.
Upon some of the speeches delivered, however,
we cannot afford to throw away the opportunity of
remarking; and, first, we turn to the speech of Mr.
Bushell, who contended, in opposition to the opi-
nions of all practical men, that increased dock
room was not much wanted, and that it was perilous
to attempt any large measure of extension. By the
lengthening of the Custom-house hours, the existing
docks might be made to do a third more work, and
to accommodate any increase of the trade of the
port which we have any right to anticipate for some
years to come. Mr. Bushell would have the land-
ing-waiters to work twelve hours a day instead of
eight. "Time," he urged, "is money." Be care-
ful of time, and you may do a large trade in a small
space; and this remarkable information he clenched
with a history of a fortune made in " Joey's chop-
touse." _ _

Now, we dare say it i$ quite true that "Joey"