The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-08-20 00:00:00

CONTEMPOR<4RF PRESS.

The imprisonments that hare taken place, during the
Whig reign of liberality under the laws for the suppres,
sion of cheap publications, again- became a subjee,t`"
conversation in the House of Commons last night.
Solicitor-General denied the other evening that the nun.l"
ber amounted to three hundred. Whig denials are
S ge.;
nerally received as affirmations of the fact denied. 01,
is in this instance. It appears that the number, in-
s
of being under three hundred, is above four hundred.
Lord Althorp acts much after the fashion of a marl
who sees his house in flames, and instead of endeavour-
ing to extinguish the fire, sits quietly down to calculate
concerning the point of its breaking out.
But we do his Lordship an injustice. We do acknow:
ledge that he went last night one step beyond this point
f
of philosophical inactivity. He really went to the polo'
of explaining how the flames might be put out. With a
simplicity altogther unexampled in the history of Par
liamentary man, his Lordship, after having, in his Pe,;
culiar way, traced the evil to its source, and lamented
its operation, declared his convictions as follows:

" The only way he saw of putting a stop to such prosecutions,
was by repealing the stamp duty on newspapers."
The only way he saw of extinguishing the flames Wa,.
5
by pouring water upon them. It is not to be denieo,.
Truth and Whiggism are for once miraculously unite°
Well, but did Lord Althorp promise a supply of this es-
sential water? Did he follow up the marvellous adva!Y,
tage of his discovery, by engaging to set the Ministerial
engine to play upon the "devouring element?" (l•
no; ; not a whisper of any thing of the kind escaped to..
lips of the lordly legislator. It is his business as f:
statesman simply to find out the only way in which an
evil, avowedly monstrous and many-headed, can
rooted out and destroyed. This " only way," he assure"
us, is by repealing the Stamp-duties on Newsparrt
Having ascertained that, there's an end; his Lordship"
duty is done. His functions, as a friend to the difrusiT
of knowledge, and a suppressOr of the imprisonmea.
system, rest from their labours at that point. His 1391,
ness is to deliver an opinion, that water will extinguish
the fire—not to demonstrate the fact by practical exPr
riment. He is to advise water—and to withhold it. 'l°
prescribe a particular medicine for our disease, and t°
deny to us what lie prescribes—though he alone is the
keeper of it for the time being.
,Itt is so—in the soberest
of all sadness, even so. His Lordship assures us, there,
is but one remedy that will really touch our Case—ea°,
that one remedy wel shall not have. He delivers it a'
his conviction that there is a way, an " only" way, b•cd
which we may escape the evil, complained of by us al)",
lamented by him ; and yet this " only" way he keel)'
effectually barricaded, and stoutly resists every atteruf'
that may be made to throw it open.—True Sun.

It will be remembered by our readers that we have Or
indulged in any sanguine anticipations of the result 0'
the late contest for the city, although we take leave t°
say that our support of Mr. Kemble has been as zealous
if not so efficacious as that of our worthy fellow-labourers
in the same vineyard. That the constituency have failed
in their duty has not been owing to the want of good ad-
vice or of a proper direction, but is rather chargeable O
that unfortunate state of lethargy or exhaustion which
`ci
commonly succeeds periods of strong and long continued
excitement. Against the proceedings of ministers and
the demeanour of the Commons' House during the whore,
of the session one Continued outbreak of indignation, ono
feeling of disgust and contempt have been manifested by
all moderate and thinking men ; whilst on the part of the •
exalted and designing people, known as the R' adical 01.
Destructive party,- disappointment and rage because they
had been choused out of their promised share of the boot!
by their Whig allies, combined with a thorough knot
ledge of their ignorance and imbecility to excite an an;
ceasing agitation against them during the same space 0'
time. Against a Ministry supported by a Parliament
constituted like the present, national discontent and de'
rision warred in vain, and the existing state of lassitude
may be fairly ascribed to this long-continued irritation.
In the meantime, however, intrigue has been actively
at work, and the Government busily occupied in
the attempt to disarm the enmity of its ancient allies.
Every change that has been operated has opened a wide
field of place and patronage, and the Radicals have been
tempted back to some show of amity by a share of the
plunder. Of the members composing the various emu;
missions that have lately been appointed for commercial
purposes in France, for poor laws, for factories, for or;
porations, the greater part are men lately distinguished
by the violence of their radicalism and 'Unitarianism i
and it has even been thought worth while by a misera-
ble ministry to bid for and purchase the services of the
subalterns of (among others) that acute republican 1).2"
per, the Examiner. What all or any of these commis'
sions or boards have beneficially operated in return for
their salaries remains yet to be known.
These facts will ferve in some sort to account for the
renewed alliance between Whiggery and Radicalism,
and are a clue to the conjoint activity of both at'the late
election. At the same time the moderate and constitu-
tional party in their accustomed manner.fled from 'the
strife or maintained a criminal neutrality. There wag
strength enough in the City, property directed, to have
returned Mr. Kemble twice over. With all this tri-
umph, however, of which we give them the full bene-
fit, we do not think that Whiggery will come into much
better odour, or the Whigs be less ashamed of their
designation, than heretofore.—Guardian and Public
Ledger.

The Lord Chancellor, somewhat elevated by libations
poured in his snuggery in the house of Lords, thought
proper, on Wednesday evening, to reel out of his way 10
order to be pert and impertinent to the brother of his
Monarch and Master. In the coarsest and most vulgar
manner did his Lordship assail the Duke of Cumberland,
who had taken no part in the debate, and whose name
was not, in the remotest degree, connected with the sub-
ject under discussion. It is most true, that wine is to
the mind what varnish is to the picture—it brings out all
the darker parts, and exhibits the faults as well as thq
beauties of the artist. The Duke of Cumberland, by a
fearless and uncompromising adherence to the principlees
of his revered Father, and of the constitution of his
country, has excited, in the hearts of all the Political
Unionists, Penny Magazine writers, Liberals (as they'
call themselves), Radicals, and Revolutionists, a bitter
and implacable hatred. In the case of Lord Brougham,
this feeling is sharpened by the ineffable contempt which
the Duke must feel for all his Lordship's proceedings ;
and lie sits and broods over his .antipathy, unluckily for
himself, with a bottle of Berkeley-square port wine before
him : the varnish is applied with no sparing hand, and
when the wine is iii the wit is out—nature prevails—the
venom rankles in his heart, and he spits it.
The peculiarmode which his Lordship selected for as-
sailing his Royal Highness on Wednesday of itself de-.
termines the question of sobriety. His Lordship Is
reported to have said, speaking of the West India

" If his Majesty chose to confer upon a native of the Colo-
nies, though the colour of his face might be black, the privilege
of sitting in that house, he had as good a right to do so as hi°
noble and learned friend opposite (or either of the two inn'
trious dukes—(Dukes of Cumberland and WellingtOn)--the one
illustrious by his acts, the other illustrious by the courtesies of tiL
House.
" The Duke of Cumberland rose to order. He could not
conceive upon what ground the noble and learned lord was
attacking him, for he had not said a word upon the subject, or
expressed any opinion whatever on the question in debate.
" The Lord Chancellor proceeded with the most rehernen,
tone and gesticulation to say that it was the noble duke hiuisel'
who was disorderly in interrupting him—and he was now re-
peating his irregularity.
" The Duke of Cumberland again rose to order. He would
not submit to these attacks from the noble and leared lord, or
an other noble lord, when he knew that they were made with-
out reason. He rose to know whether it was in order that he
should be selected as the subject of the noble and learned lord's
observations when he had not spoken in the debate, and when
he declared he had never said a word upon the subject to anY
man living.
" The Lord Chancellor said the illustrious duke was wrong
in supposing that he alluded to him with any disrespectful in-
tention. All that he stated was, that any natural-born subject
of the King, though a negro, if the King should confer urri
him the rank which entitled him to a seat in that house, had as
strict a legal right to sit there as his noble and learned' friend'
or as the noble duke, or the illistrious duke who sat near hire'
This reference he had a right to make to the illustrious dalot
whether he bad spoken in the debate or not; and it was a re'
which he was determined to exercise, whether the illustrious duke
thought it fit and orderly to interrupt him or not. It WO 3
right which he had exercised for twenty years in the other
house of Parliament; and,. as the privileges of both houses
were the same, it was a privilege which he should not forego"
The noble and learned lord made some further observations !I'
support of the proposition that the slave who had once been iri
England ought to be free."
It is clear that Lord Brougham did not recollect what
p
he had said, nor exactly, as we are told, comprehen,A—a.d
what he did ; for that' he of all men alive should sneer b
the courtesies of an assembly in which, by courtesy, hes
himself is spoken of as a noble and learned Lord, seen"
most conclusive of his state. We are told that the ex;
citement his Lordship experienced in the early part
the evening led him to lie down on a sofa for two OUP
subsequently. ThiS'may be calumny ; but we can as-
sure his Lordship that he gains nothing by the frequell,lr
of these exhibitions. Kean, who was a more popto
actor than his Lordship, lost himself in public estiroa;
tion by similar indiscretions; and, however well-suite,,,'
such antics may be to the cap and bells of the Beef-stet;
Club, they very ill become the crinitory wisdom of t"
Chancellor's wig.—John Bull.

The Times has been at the pains of bestowing a 03,,II;
pie of articles on an advertisement of Mr. Simson, t`tt
master of the ceremonies at Vauxhall, with which ),
makes itself prodigiously witty. Nothing is more be
plorable than the siaht of a blockhead attempting We",
imitating jackass, imitatin the movements trn
spaniel is but a poor type of the jesting of the Tiin,e'ti
That Mr. Simson writes what may be emphatically Cabeig
the adjective style, in which no substantive, contr,7,',/t
to the usual laws of grammar, can stand alone, and
he is partial to the superlative, scattering his "inns