The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-11-17 00:00:00

protection of all
it

barely able to

We must

Fund in every d
-heth

Mingled with much a

n of sound s
Willi-

s in such a

committee, to devise
cil could be pros
from the

outskir

roughfares be opened for its proper ventilation,
and the convenience and comfort of its inhabitants.
We have long ago, in cor---- hle

rs of th

non v

some a

he belong

.8. and of

of our leading medical men, advocated such
irse, as one indispensable to the real improve-
of our sanatory condition; and, as much as
Carle and Mr. Samuel Holine, we deplore that

ahort-sighted and parsimonious policy of the Fi-
nance Committee which, by allowing the land upon

the site of (

out of the hands of

the Council, harTnatched from us for ever, or at

least for a period NV. amongst us can expect
to live through, the opportunity of effecting one of
the noblest improvements of which Liverpool is
capable. There is still, however, awi e field open
for the investigation and exertions of such a com-
mittee. If we cannot pass the ploughshare of im-

built over por-
st to take care that
le erection of pal-

rbs ; and that some
)lan should be laid

Id conipr
files frittirea

h property, in improve-

may from time to time

e is one characteristic in Mr. Earle, of which
afraid, and must caution the gentlemen
ing the committee against. The worthy
o much given to the indul-

gentleman is rather

gence of the magnificent in his notions. His
views of improvement, too, seem to travel in a par-
ticular circle, of which his pet Lobby, St. George's
Hall, is the centre. Everything must come down
which impedes a view of that erection. Every
new thoroughfare must lead to it. All the
world, he seems to imagine from the north,
me ast, and west—come to Liverpool for the
exnress urpose of seeing this fine specimen of the
e Mr. Elmes, and the splendid
-nrate body. Ask him to
-ich places as Freema-

south, e

architedtural taste of

travagance of the a

a walk %

1 von I

son's-row, or amongst the courts and cellars of Ma-
rybone, Scotland-road, or Vauxhall, to ascertain
what can be effected for their wretched population,
and he turns from you with disgust, exhibited in a
profane " God forbid." The widening of the road.
to Aigburth or Wavertree, or any other subu:ban
retreat of local aristocracy, may be thought of,—
nay, is to be effected at any cost ; but the improve-
ment_ of more vulgar places does not seem at all to
come beneath his contemplation. His colleagues,
we repeat, must take care of him here, or he will
infallibly swamp them with the magnificence and
wrong application of his views.
Upon one point, Mr. Earle is a little out in his
notions—the expectation that the people of Liver•
pool are very anxious to be taxed for this, or any
other purpose. The people of Manchester, he
says, submit to heavy improvement rates with
great- complacency—a fact of which we entertain
strong doubts. 'lhowever, are
be cases, not pre-
cisely parallel. Manchester has no Corporate es-
tate, to which its population have been in the habit
of looking for the improvement of their streets, and
the erection of their public buildings; whilst the

burgesses of Liverpool are quite aware of the ex-
istence of such an estate, and that it has a large
and increasing surplus income. If Mr. Earle,
therefore, or his committee, calculate very san-
guinely upon the approval of the town being given
to any " comprehensive scheme," to which is ap-
pended a heavy borough rate, as the means of car-
rying it into execution, we are afraid they are
reckoning without their host; for it is not pre-
cisely true, as stated by Mr. Earle, that the burthen
of such a rate is paid by all "according to their
means." Any shopkeepker in Lord-street, Castle-
street, or Bold-street, could convince him of this
important fact.

We do, however, hail the appointment of the
committee with satisfaction, and look for great good
as the result of their labours ; but they must not go
too fast, however hard Mr. Earle may spur them.
Should he grow importunate, they may point to St.
George's Hall, and ask him how many filthy places,
now breathing pestilence, and generating and hiding
vice, might have been swept away by the aid of the
vast sums which have been lavished in the mere
decoration of that expensive structure ?

We are happy to notice a renewal of the agitation
amongst the manufacturing operatives for a re-
striction of the hours of labour in factories, and to
see at the head of that agitation Mr. John Fielden,
Mr. Ferrand, and our old friend, Richard Oastler.
'l'he time has surely at length arrived when ten hours
of tedious toil and confinement will be acknowledged
to be sufficient for either man or woman to endure
as a day's labour. The manufacturing interest has
Had its pound of flesh already. it has raised itself
upon a hecatomb of human corpses, sacrificed to
glut its grasping avarice. It has dwarfed the limbs
of infancy, brutalised the mind of girlhood, and worn
down the strong man in his prime of years to pre-
mature imbecility and now, at length, the Legisla-
ture must do its duty, and relax the grasp which has
so long been thus debasing and destroying our po-
pulation. If we hope for any thing from the admi-
nistration of Lord John Russell, it is this act of
justice to our working poor. He stands pledged to
it by his vote of last session. Some of his most able
colleagues are equally pledged to a Ten Hours Bill.
They must not be permitted, when in office, to turn
their backs upon those, whose humble supplication
for protection from the selfishness of superiors they
declared, when in opposition, to be a just demand.
It is a little difficut to guess what can be now the
g-ound of an opposition to this measure, on the part
of any statesmen of any section of political opinion.
It is not at all difficult, however, to produce satisfac-
tory replies to every objection which has been offered
in past times. The selfish political economist may
still reiterate his cry,—" Leave labour free;" and
talk of " demand" and "supply," as the circum-
stances which are to regulate both the rate of wages
and the duration of labour. We hare lately recog-
nised, however, a new principle in legislation. We
have happily learnt and proclaimed the fact that it is
the duty/ of a Government to protect, not only pro-
perty and capital, but the lives of human beings,
expended in its production. We say to the builder,—
" You shall not erect dwellings prejudicial to the
health of their occupants." We say to those occu-
pants,—" You shall not continue practices preju-
Jicial
to the health of your neighbours." We say to
the carter or the cabman,--" You shall not over-
drive your beast;" and we are surely privileged to
say to the manufacturing capitalist,—" You shall
not aggrandize yourself by daily sacrifice of the
health, the morals, and the lives of human beings."
We have already offered up the agricultural in-
terest of the country as a propitiatory sacrifice to the
manufacturer. We have granted him the privilege
of taking, and applying to others, his own prescrip-
tion. He ought to be, in accordance with his con-
fidant prognostications, in the most robust health, if
not in a surfeit of prosperity. That he is not so is,
at least, no fault of ours, or of his labourer; and that
labourer must not be made to suffer the penalty of
his master's mistaken quackery. We are now in a
condition, so far as the privilege of importing food
goes, to compete with all the world, and we must no
longer be met with the assertion that, to do so suc-
cessfully, we must work up human life into the sub-
stance of our fabrics. It cannot be tolerated.
Manufacturing superiority is a good, no doubt ; it
constitutes much of the strength of this great empire.
But we were not sent into the world merely to amass
money. We have, both individually and as a nation,
a higher destiny to achieve; and we are not ad-
vancing towards that destiny whilst, to increase
individual or national wealth, we suffer any portion
of our population to sink in the social and moral

"Weak is the land, to fatal ills a prey,
When wealth accumulates and men decay."

It has become a clearly established fact that no
relaxation of the hours of factory toil is to be looked
for as the voluntary concession of the manufacturer
himself—a strange fact, when it is borne in mind
how frequently he is driven, in order to check pro-
duction, to work his factory for three or four days a
week instead of six. Working ten or even eleven
hours a day, he tells us, does not pay. He cannot
get the same amount of profit out of the bones and
sinews of the workers; and were he even disposed
to make a'sacrifice, his neighbour is not willing to
imitate his example. We have, therefore, no course
left open to us but one, yip., the interference of the
Legislature to fix a limit for all. To the men of
Yorkshire and of Lancashire, who are now agitating
this question, we say, therefore,—" Go on, firmly
and peaceably, and success will at length reward
your labours."

A paragraph in the Albion of yesterday announces
that, in consideration of the very onerous and in-
creasing duties of his office, it is in contemplation
to advance the salary of Mr. Rushton, the stipen-
diary magistrate—at present £1,300 a year—and to
place him more upon a par with the Town-Clerk,
who is in the receipt of £2,000 a year. We are
rather at a loss to account for this reference to the
emolument enjoyed by the latter gentleman, as af-
fording anything by which to guide us in fixing the
salary of a stipendiary magistrate. The duties and
responsibility of the Town-clerk, involving immense
labour of body and anxiety of mind, are, in our
opinion, infinitely greater than these which are
complained of as overburthening Mr. Rushton.
Upon this point, however, we shall not remark.
The salary of the stipendiary we shall presume was
fixed on his first appointment at what was then the
full value of his labours ; and if these have in-
creased materially, it is a legitimate subject of con-
sideration whether or not their reward should be
increased in proportion. Before deciding the
question, there is another which suggests itself,
viz : whether by some better arrangement than the
present, the labour, which falls to the share of Mr.
Rushton, may not be materially lessened, and, at
the same time, the administration of justice within

the borough be greatly promoted.
To any one who has been in the habit of occasi-
onally sitting a few hours in the Police-court, it
must have occurred that the business was too great
for one magistrate, or one bench, satisfactorily to ad-
judicate upon. Yesterday, the police sheet con-
tained seventy-six cases of drunken and disorderlies,
felonies, &c. Last Monday it contained about 140.
The average is perhaps between the two numbers
for the Monday's sittings ; and the number on
week days will be somewhere about two-thirds of
the average of Mondays. Besides these, there are
assaults, applications for warrants, summonses, &c.,
daily occurring and demanding magisterial atten-
tion—sometimes, too, requiring for` their proper de-
cision a degree of patient inquiry which, we fear,
they do not and, under the present system, cannot
obtain. It must be remembered, too, that the ma-
gisterial business of a seaport like Liverpool is more
than ordinarily complicated—occasionally requiring
in the party presiding some nautical knowledge, in
addition to the usual legal attainments. Under all
these circumstances, it cannot be wondered at that
an impression exists very generally that the mass
Of business coming before our Police-court is
disposed of rather more summarily than is
conducive to the ends of justice. Often, we are
told, parties decline prosecuting charges, in prefer-
ence to submitting to the detention, occasioned by the
inordinary demand upon the time of the court, and
probably many an offender thus escapes.

We have more than once suggested the advantage
of having two Police-courts, one of which might he
in the south end of the town, instead of the present
central court alone. The town might be divided
into separate divisions, according as convenience
might be found to dictate. It appears to us that,
before we resolve upon increasing the emoluments
of Mr. Rushton, the present is the time to take
into consideration the propriety of the course which
we have ,uggested. If Mr. Rushton can be re-
lieved of a portion of the hurthen, of which he, or
hie friends, complain as being too onerous, an ad-

dition to his salary may not be necessary; and no
doubt an efficient colleague could be procured for
the amount of increase, or a trifle over, which it is
said he is about to receive.

MORE RADICAL CALUMNIES AGAINST THE

EX-MAYOR

The following letter we introduce in this place, because
of itself it calls for some remarks from us ; but, princi.
pally because we, like the Reverend writer, have some-
thing to sap with respect to the paragraph which has
called forth his communication.