The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-04-16 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

"JUSTICE TO PUBLICANS."—We are asked if it can he justice
that, where an information is laid against the keeper of a beer
shop of having had in his house at a quarter to one o'clock in
the morning about•forty people some of them in a state of
intoxication and the remainder drinking, the pun'shment
shonld be a mere admonition to the offender, when a re-
spectable publican, for having sold a small quantity of spirit
after hours to a sick person, is fined five pounds. We should
say certainly not; but of course we speak without any fur-
ther knowledge of the circumstances of the two cases than,
those given above, which, we are assured, however, are sub-
stantially correct.
We have received from John Crowther, Esq., of Birkenhead,
-set for the family of the late Rev. Mr. Bush.
We are compelled reluctantly to postpone until nest week the
caustic letter of " An Observer."

Rtinrpoot &tan Darb.

TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 16, 1844.

The anti-Church faction of Liverpool have made
their long-threatened effort to obtrude themselves
into the management of our parish affairs; and they
have been defeated ignominously, as we anticipated,
and as they well merited. Despite of the energetic
earnestness with which they have worked,—despite
the long series of misrepresentations and slanderous
scurrilities with which, through the medium of their
press,they have sought to injure in the estimation
of their fellow townsmen the Conservative members
of the select vestry,—the result has proved that the
rate-payers of this parish appreciate thoroughly the
value of their pretensions to honesty, patriotism,
and superior wisdom, and have no longing for their
interference in our local affairs. The overwhelm-
ing majority, both of property and numbers, upon
the two days' poll, is quite sufficient proof of the
lamentably fallen condition of this once arrogant
and powerful faction. Alas, for Radicalism in Li-
verpool ! Its day has gone by. It is " USED UP !"
A condensed report of the proceedings at the
Vestry on Tuesday last, and of the subsequent pol-
ling, will be found in another column. If the
reader wishes for a more "full and particular" ver-
sion of the blackguardism by which the sacred edi-
fice, in which the law ordains that such meetings
shall be held,_was desecrated, we must refer him to
the oracle by whom they were reported : we shall
not sully our pages by their repetition. We must,
however, offer a few words of comment upon some
circumstances connected with those proceedings,
which it is important should be brought prominently
before our readers and the public of Liverpool.
It may be said,—and no doubt will be said, that
the respectable portion of the Radicals present, in-
cluding such men as Mr. Hugh Hornby, are not to
be held responsible for the vulgarity with which
Messrs. Bigham, Urquhart, and others otthe Radi-
cal and Infidel faction comported themselves towards
the respected rectors of our parish ; and to some
extent we are quite ready to admit the force of the
plea. Mr. Hugh Hornby, a gentleman by station
and in habiti, could not perhaps be fairly deemed
guilty of sympathizing with the coarse tastes of the
Radical pawnbroker. To the former we may accord
the possession of some little respect for the sacred
character of a clergyman and the unimpeached
honour of a gentleman, or of reverence for the place
lb which the meeting was held, whilst from the
latter we look for none of this. In his utilitarian
eye, accustomed to value objects according to the
security they afford, the mantle of the prophet
or the veil of the temple would apparently be of
no more account than a flannel petticoat or a cotton
shawl ; whilst the sacred edifice of the church is only
regarded as a preferable place for the holding of a
parish meeting, because it affords an opportunity for
rabid dissent to trample upon its seats, and the
more deeply to hurt the feelings of churchmen-and
of their clergy. Mr. Hornby, however, by his
proceedings on the occasion, —his moving of
one of the amendments, afforded quite sufficient
sanction to the coarsenesses of the Bigham and Ur-
quhart party to render him morally responsible for
their offensiveness and indecency. He might not
prompt the insolence used ; he did league with the
authors of that insolence.
So much, then, for the manner and tone of this
assault of Dissent, infidelity, and vulgarity upon the
rectors and the Church of which they are the repre-
sentatives; and now a few words with respect to
the alleged necessity of infusing Radical leaven into
the present vestry. We are informed by Mr. John
Smith that the members of that body are behind the
present age in intelligence; and that some of them
are " utterly incompetent to the discharge of their
important duties ;" and that gentleman insists that
they should be removed, on the grounds of " their
neglect of the education of the poor, their neglect of
the means of depanperizing the poor, and their neg-
lect of the workhouse, which was a scandal to the
town." Now we really do not know in what respect
the majority of the gentlemen now on the select ves-
try are so far behind Mr. Smith himself in intelli-
gence ; and we utterly deny the assertion that they
have shewn any want of attention to the proper edu-
cation of the poor children under their care. They
may not, however, possess so many new lights upon
the subject of education as some of our modern phi-
losophers. They may never have discerned the ad-
vantages to be derived from converting pauper chil-
dren into parrots of the penny knowledge school.
They have never attempted to cram such children
with political economy, mathematics, or classics;
but have confined themselves to the plain and com-
mon-sense duty of teaching them to read and write
their mother tongue, and to perform their duty' to
God and to their neighbour. Such an education is
surely all'that is required, if it is not also the best
that can be given.
But, the vestry neglect the means of "depau-
perizing the poor;" and, with every respect for Mr.
Smith's sagacity, and confident that he is not likely
to he guilty of the folly of using claptrap phrases,
which have no meaning, may we ask, what are those
means by which the poor are to be made to " cease
in the land ?" By what magic would he convert
paupers,—decrepit old men and women and helpless
children, into self-supporting English men and wo-
men ? Would he screw tighter the heartless severity
of the new poor law system ? Would he depopulate
our workhouse by driving its wretched and tortured
inmates to the highways and the ditches, and even to
death itself, as preferable to life in a Whig-adminis-
tered pauper's prison ? Or what else would he do ?
for to plain men, like ourselves, it appears a matter
very difficult of accomplishment by any body of se-
lect vestrymen, or any board of guardians, who, of
course, cannot legislate beyond their very confined
sphere of action, to depauperize their poor by any
other method than that now pursued, of giving to
the young a useful, a practical, and a Christian edu-
cation, unless they resort to the very hopeful project
of compelling those poor to starve out of doors or
become felons !

We might, were the subject more worthy of no-
tice, bestow a few words upon the long tirade of
senseless and rabid abuse directed by Mr. Urquhart
against the present management of the affairs of the
parish, and especially against the rev. chairman of
the meeting,—the senior rector. The character of
Air. Brooks, however, requires no vindication of
ours against such an assailant. A long life of virtue
and of usefulness devoted to the service of the peo-
ple of Liverpool, ought surely to protect that reve-
rend gentleman from the aspersions of an individual,
of whose mind it can scarcely be determined whether
ignorance or spiteful impudence is the prevailing
characteristic ; and it only appears therefore surpris-
ing that his insulting remarks could be uttered with-
out rebuke in the presence of any respectable portion
of the parishioners of Liverpool, whatever their poli-
tics or their sectarian leanings.

They have, however, been so uttered. The re-
volting scene of Tuesday was enacted in the presence
of respectable members of the Whig-radical party,
and the very calumnies and coarsenesses of the
speakers cheered by them ' • and we are scarcely
sorry that the exhibition has been made. It is good
that the world should see Whiggery in its true co-
lours,—how it can bring itself to consort with any
instrument, however contaminating, for the gratifi-
cation of its malignant hostility to the noblest insti-
tutions and the best interests of the country ; and
as the result of Tuesday's proceedings, we do confi-
dently hope that it will be long,—very long,--before
an Urquhart, or any other prating utilitarian of his
class, will be permitted by the parishioners of Liver-
pool to foist himself upon the public service.

The " Great Free Trade Banquet," of which we
have had such puffiing anticipations for the last few
weeks, took place on Friday last; and has fallen as
flatly upon the public as any effort of Whiggery we
ever remember in this town. Where were the
great men who were to have graced the boards upon
:his occasion ? They were absent; and with the
exception of the Right Hon. Fox Nlaule,—if by any
stretch of courtesy he can be calleda"greatman,"—
zhe speakers were the old and stale performers,—the
Vt.abdeni and the Brights, the men of calico and