The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-07-30 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We are desired to caution the public against the following trick,
which has lately been pract sed in Liverpool by several fel.
lows in the guise of travellers. One of these, well dressed,
smooth tongued, and apparently respectable, called on Fri-
ay last at a well-conducted dining and eating-house, and
aving inquired if la could have a bcd, and the price, took
' is departure. At night he returned, and figreed to pay
er day to be accommodated '• in a plain way," which was
greed tO. He had lodging and board the next day, after
hich he took his top coat, walked out, and was never seen
gain, leaving behind him only an old sack, made up in a
arcel, and thus seeking hi--; day's keep and bed.
ur correspondent who complains of the practice in Liverpool,
amongst butchers, of weighing-in the foot with a shoulder or
a leg of lamb, has not so much to complain of as he might
have. The practice is common in London. though why it
should be so any where we kn- w not, except that Lamb's
feet cannot be sold as Sheep's trotters, and are therefore
unprofitable to amputate. Perhaps, on reconsideration, he
would find that if his meat (foot attached) cost him, say 7d. a
pound, it would be charged a higher price if the foot was cut
off and wasted.
On behalf of a lady, resident near Windsor, who by implication
is accused of having addressed an anonymous letter, we must
express our confidence, based upon a long previous know-
ledge of her high character, that she is perfectly incapable of
such a proceeding, which, if he reflects, perhaps the party ac-
cusing will acknowledge.
We are sorry for the deficiency of Church accommodation com-
plained of, and shall make some inquiry into the circum-
stances of the case.

Ely Ltbcrpoot &tan Darb.

TUESDAY MORAING, JULY 30, 1844.

As we anticipated, the intimation given by Sir
Robert Peel, of the nature of his intentions towards
what is left of Protestantism in Ireland, has fallen
with chilling weight upon the minds of the Protes-
tant Conservatives of that land, and of the empire,
whilst it has excited the wildest hope and exultation
amongst the " liberal" and popish party. A new
and a heavier blow, than has ever yet been dealt by
their worst enemies, is about to be directed against
the Protestant institutions and the Church of our
common country, by bands to which they have
been taught to look for protection. A Conserva-
tive ministry is about to effect that, from which the
combined forces of Whig-Radicalism and Popery, a
few years ago, shrunk back, palsied in the effort by
the loudly-expressed indignation of the British
people.

We are certainly not very greatly surprised by
this movement of Sir Robert Peel. It may have
come upon us a little sooner than we anticipated;
but long ago we saw and foretold that it must come.
It is only another turn of the lever—although an
important one—which is ultimately to prostrate the
whole fabric of our Protestant Establishment in Ire-
land, and hand over that unhappy country to the
dark and degrading sway of Rome. It is the car-
rying out of the fatal principle of the bill of 1829 ;
and who so fitted to superintend and aid its pro-
gress as the statesmen who gave it the first impulse
towards the ruin which it is destined to work ? We
are not then surprised. On the contrary, we can
look forward with confidence to further similar ef-
forts, to be made by the same hands with, as the
avowed object, in view the weakening of what has
ever been held as the bulwark of British liberties
and the fertile source of Britain's greatness—her
attitude of firm protest against the growth in power
of the most blinding and besotting system of super-
stition and tyranny which ever held any portion of
the world in its thrall.

This is no hasty conclusion. It is not the dic-
tating of mere pique or unfounded suspicion ; but,
on the contrary, is as clearly susceptible of proof as
any such charge, involving men's motives, can be.
For what is the position of Sir Robert Peel's govern-
ment, at the moment of announcing these measures
of innovation ? Can it be said of such a govern-
ment, so situated, having just succeeded in vindi-
cating the supremacy of the law over disaffection
and meditated outrage, that it is, at all, in a positionto
be coerced into concessions so injurious ? It cannot
be. No government ever occupied a position from
which it might more safely, and with more dignity
and effect, devote itself to measures remedial of the
real grievances of Ireland—and they are many. No
government, for centuries past, has been in a posi-
tion, more safely and effectively, to

unthread the rude eye of rebellion,
And welcome back again discarded faith ;"

to approach with a healing hand the social evils
and exasperations of that unhappy land ; to descend
into the cabins of its suffering poor, and, by well-
directed and large measures of amelioration, endea-
vour to raise them from the low station which they
occupy, in the scale of worldly comfort and civilisa-
tion, to one which, under Providence, they are ca-
pable of occupying, and ought to occupy. Such a
policy towards Ireland was within the reach of Sir
Robert Peel's government. The harsh working of
an oppressive, and, for all good purposes, an inope-
tive Poor-law, might have been corrected. The
existing state of the law of landlord and tenant, the
fertile source of agrarian outrage, might have been
dealt with ; the exactions of agitation might have
been put down, and the people been taught to look
to the constituted tribunals of the country for pro-
tection against the tyranny of the demagogue and
the outrages of the secret tribunal. This would
have been an intelligible policy, operating directly
upon the leading sources of hsh misery and dis-
content. But such is not the policy of which Sir
Robert Peel is enamoured. It is not for such ob-
jects that Sir Robert is willing to direct the power
at his command; and yet no other feasible objects
have been loudly suggested by the public—no mea-
sures such as those announced ; nothing, in fact,
more specific and practicable than the submission to
the wild cry for Repeal. He is left to choose his
own policy. He is a volunteer in his concessions;
and yet when he has before him an opportunity of
embarking, in earnest and with fewer restricting in-
fluences than were ever placed in the way of any
minister, in an effort to stem the tide of ghastly and
hideous poverty which overruns this fairest portion
of the British empire, he deliberately turns back his
hand, from that effort, to throw a sop to Popery
When Ireland's famishing millions ask him for
bread, he tenders to their acceptance—a popish uni-
versity t When a nation, sunk in the dregs of fa-
naticism, ignorance, and deprivation, cry out for
an amelioration of their social condition, and for
permission to live upon the sweat of their brows, in
the security of their own homes, the minister of a
Protestant Sovereign and People answers those
prayers with a shower of popish fellowships, and an
increased grant to Maynooth ! Surely, it would be
very Midsummer madness to deny that a statesman
pursuing, under such circumstances, the course
which Sir Robert tells us is about to be his, is the
deliberate enemy of those principles and institutions
which he voluntarily outrages and perils.
But the grave question suggests itself—will Sir
Robert Peel be permitted, by the Conservatives of
Great Britain, to carry into execution the measures
which he has announced, with too much clearness
to allow us to be thrown off our guard by his apolo-
gists of the ministerial press ? Is the Protestant
strength of England so totally and fatally gone that
we must crouch abjectly at the feet of Sir Robert
Peel, or any other minister,

" to find ourselves dishonourable graves?"
Are we so craven and so lamb-like in our disposi_

tions that we consent to

" lick the hand just raised to shed our blood ?"

Is there no Conservative statesman bold and
honest enough to stand forth in this battle, and,
with the Protestant spirit of the empire at his baek,
to tell Sir Robert Peel, and the factions to which he
truckling, that the Protestant institutions and

liberties of this land shall not be played away, like
worthless counters in a game of political hazard ?
Surely a statesman of this caste may be found; and
we would warn the selfish portion of the Conserva-
tive majority in Parliament that in such a struggle
it will not be safe for them to hang back. No
threats of resignation, no tempting and plausible
" arrangements" can be permitted to influence the
result of this question; for we are firmly convinced
of the fact, and we would have the landowners of
England convinced, that the destruction of the Pro-
testant Church in Ireland, (which is the certain issue,
if it is not also the aim of Sir Robert Peel's pro-
posed policy of next session,) once conceded, it will
be too late to resist the tide of innovation which
they will have let in, and which must inevitably in-
volve every British institution in one common ruin.
Grant to the minister the privilege of dealing with
the property of the Church in Ireland, and we tell
the country gentlemen of England that the secu-
rity of their rent rolls will not be worth a rush.
The same pliancy of principle which has yielded up
the former, will have little difficulty in dealing with
the latter.

But, in such a crisis as that, with which we are
now threatened, we feel that mere appeal to the pa-
triotism, or the fears, of the Conservative majority in
Parliament is not sufficient. We must see the Pro-
testant spirit of the entire nation arouhed. We
must see the leaders of public opinion at their
posts ; their coldness and inactivity exchanged for
the same zeal and watchfulness which prostrated an
anti-national ministry, and enabled the present Con-
servative (?) government to abuse our confidence
and betray their trust. If the impending tide of
destruction is to be stayed, we must have no more
coquetting with the destroyer; but, on the contrary,
a resolved and firm stand, by a united Conserva-
tive and Protestant people, on behalf of those noble
institutions which are now sought to be trea-
cherously abandoned, by false friends, to the tender
mercies of exulting enemies. Half-and-half loyalty
will not do for this struggle. The men who engage
in it must be those who are not afraid to wear their
colours upon their breasts, and to hold by their
principles, to the death.

A singular divenity of motive for the adoption of

the same line of policy is displayed in the remarks
of the Morning Herald (ministerial organ) and of
the Times (anti-ministerial, and something else) last
night, on the subject of the Irish " Party Proces-
sions Act." The former remarks—
" Every person not of that numerous class who have
every thing to gain and nothing to lose by public calamity,
must coincide in the eulogium passed by the Duke of
Wellington on the Irish Protestants in the debate on the
renewal of the Party Processions Act. The patriotism
which endures silently and unostentatiously for the good
of the commonwealth, is as far above the enthusiasm
which only lives in brawling excitement, as any two hu-
man qualities can differ. The Protestants of Ireland are
naturally and by education a strong-minded people. It
is on this account that we are encouraged to dissent from
the apprehension expressed in the debate by the Earl of
Roden. if the Irish Protestants were like the materiel
of repeal meetings, an unreasoning mob, whose causeless
enthusiasm, in the words of Lord Brougham, it is absurd
to call public attention, we might, then, speak of their
considering a necessary enactment a gratuitous insult.
As it is, we must hope that they will see that the Party
Processions Act is continued, in pursuance of the wise
and successful policy of ministers, to enforce with firm-
ness and impartiality (without which all exercise of power
is in vain) such laws as they found in existence in enter-
ing upon office."

Complimentary enough, but scarcely just enough
in its reasonings. The Protestants of Ireland would
not, neither would Lord Roden, " consider a neces-
sary enactment a gratuitous insult." They would
not consider the " Party Processions Act" a gra-
tuitous insult, did the restrictions in that act bear
equally upon all parties. It does not do so how-
ever. Its very wording, that the processions to be
put down must assume a religious character, directs
it exclusively against the processions of Protestants;
whilst the supplementary requirement, that such
processions must be accompanied by " FIREARMS,
banners and hands of music," plainly takes away
from it any legitimate bearing upon the processions
of Protestants, or Orangemen of the present day.
Its re-enactment therefore, in its present form, in
this peaceable phase of Irish protestantism, is a de-
liberate levelling of penalties against men, mingling
in processions which can by any sketch of imagina-
tion be termed "religious," whilst mingling
.in others
(for instance, tee-total processions)because non-reli-
gious, (?) though containing the worst features ex-
cepted against,—the presence of "firearms, banners
and bands of music"—are left unvisited with legis-
lative censure.

But what follows is even more complimentary
still, and so just that it is strange and deplorable
that a Government, whose organ can speak in such
terms of any body of men, can yet pander so far to
the vile prejudices and passions of their enemies as
to visit them with the cold shoulder and the averted
face. Hear the Morning Herald—
" It ir, indeed, very difficult in this country to appre-
ciate the value of that forbearance on the part of the Irish
Protestants of which the Duke of Wellington spoke. The
worse than Yankee bathos in which the English name
was denounced at repeal meetings, afforded, doubtless, a
great deal of entertainment to most of our readers. The
intrepid de lances of the executive by Mr. O'Connell
were, we dare say, infinitely amusing to those who re-
member the meekness with which that gentleman pleaded
Guilty to Attorney-General Blackburne's indictment.
But the Irish Protestants who stood in the midst of these
self-declared enemies as the representatives of the de-
nounced race and the abhorred faith—almost the young-
est of them able to remember, each in his own neighbour-
hood, some active token of the hatred he was bearing ex-
pressed—could not afford to laugh.
" In the contingency of that appeal to arms which Mr.
O'Connell last autumn simulated to contemplate. and
which, we are convinced, every peasant who heard him
expected and desired, the Irish Protestants would have
been the first, as they were the nearest, enemy ; and had
that melancholy alternative been forced upon them, they
would have proved once more that the quarrel of Britain
was never led by a nobler " hope, miscalled forlorn." To
have remained quiet and watchful under such an appre-
hension, heightened by a daily torrent of the most men-
dacious abuse of their race and religion, was evidence of
an integrity of principle which is not to be shaken by any
absurd notion that by renewing the Processions Act, Go-
vernment can mean any insult, or that, indeed, their
rulers can have any feeling towards them but that of
gratitude."

The Protestants of Ireland might indeed be proud
of such flattering testimony to their loyalty and
good conduct, if it could, by any stretch of good-
nature, be supposed to mean anything. But, alas !
what can they feel, when they see this same minis-
terial apologist arguing that, because of that very
loyalty , new laws may be made, without insult, to
keep them loyal, whilst the professed and practised
law-breqker is to be left free to outrage order up to
the point when the existing uncertain law steps in,
at a vast cost to the country, to vindicate its powers?
The Times is more honest than this, but at the
same time more bitter, in the sneers in which he in-
dulges against the Protestantism of Ireland. The
Times argues that Protestants now have no ground
for complaint, whatever they may have had in pre-
vious periods :
" When Government was tamely looking on—was al-
lowing the great agitator to organize his troops, his po-
lice, his magistracy, his tax-gatherers—when the Repeal
machinery was daily increasing in extent and completeness,
and, without an apparent struggle of resistance, surround-
ing the Protestants of Ireland by a hostile and overwhelm-
ing power, ever ready, and every day more able, to spring
into activity and crush the paralyzed minority—then, in-
deed, that minority might with justice denounce laws
urgentpinttlhaawt
which allowed nothing to them, while they appeared to
othfesyelw/
permit everything in their adversaries—then, indeed, the
-epreservationfmroiraghtthexierllhseur;dgietsatrya
prac-
tices,com-
perhaps bad in "
times and under ordinary circumstances,
in ordinary
the tranquility
of the. country—but tr threatening to
aspect of affairs, their only though in the then stormy
de-
fence against the unbridled poNvermpertect means of
and virulence of their

enemies

" .But this is not the present state of things. The Go-
vernment at last did move—tardily indeed, and after mutth
hesitation—much annarent effort at escane—mumh 11. A.

Bering and tormenting from those who saw the absolute
necessity and probable efficacy of strong measures. The
advance vinis hesitating, but it was made. The Repeal
processions were proclaimed to be unlawful, were prohi-
bited, and were stopped. The measure dealt to Orange-
man and Repealer was no longer unequal."
But surely a body of men, who, for years past, have
voluntarily obeyed " laws, which allowed nothing to
them, whilst they appeared to permit everything in
their adversaries," might, without much fear of
danger to the public peace, have been left unvisited
by the blister upon their temper, which a continued
sense of unjust treatment is sure to inflict, with the
certainty, on the part of Government, of their being
effectually restrained by the same laws which, it is
boasted, are sufficient to restrain and to convict
the rebel !