The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-10 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, DEC. 10, 1844.

We find the following amongst last week's pro-
ceedings of the Repeal Association :

" A. sum of £8 from Liverpool was acknowledged, and
the announcement of this factled the ' Liberator' to state,
en passant, that he was sorry to hear that some most un-
seemly squabbling had lately taken place among the Li-
verpool repealers ; but the committee of the association
bad sent over Captain Broderick on a special mission to
try and effect a peace among them, and he had no doubt
that so able a diplomatist would be successful in his
undertaking."

A somewhat less amount than usual, this, from
the repealers of Liverpool ; and yet far, far too much
to be so tyrannously extorted, and so fruitlessly and
wickedly wasted. From how many a wretched
and half-starving family has a meal been snatched
to make up this small sum of eight pounds ! How
many of those whose pennies or shillings have been
forced from them by the " goad ecclesiastic," to
swell this subsidy to a beggar and an impostor, are
at this inclement season without a blanket to cover
themselves or their little ones ! And yet, mark the
griping eagerness with which the slightest weekly
increase or diminution in his basely-earned dole is
watched by its recipient. Eight pounds for the ex-
tortions of a week in Liverpool is a falling off. But
a fortnight ago it was boasted that, on an average,
Liverpool contributed to his capacious and bottom-
less wallet twenty pounds a week; and Capt. Bro-
derick, an " able diplomatist" (!) is forthwith sent
over on " a special mission" to heal the dissensions
amongst the repealers of our town, from which it
is surmised the falling off has occurred. And no
doubt by this time the diplomatic captain has suc-
ceeded in his object. No doubt the peace, so de-
sirable, has been made, and the unfortunate gulls of
the arch-demagogue have been taught that they may
quarrel and break each other's heads, in private, ad
libitum, but, as a body of repealers, they must be
harmonious for the future, because dissensions
amongst them tend to diminish the Rent !
But a word or two about the dissensions in ques-
tion. Of course we have not the entree of the con-
clave in which they have taken place. We under-
stand, however, that some meddling person or other
has had the unreasonableness to ask for, that most
awkward document to treasurers and secretaries of
Irish associations, a " debtor and creditor statement"
of monies received and expended ; and required to
know, moreover, upon what weighty errand sundry
members have been, from time to time, in the habit
of visiting Dublin, or their friends elsewhere, at the
expense of the Association. There has been, in
consequence, we are informed, but we can scarcely
believe that Daniel himself would allow the prece-
dent to be established, some disgorging of money,
suspected of being thus misappropriated. We pre-
tend to no intimate acquaintance with details; but
the main facts which have caused the dissensions
deplored by him are those which we have stated.
The providers of the great Irish cormorant have
been doing a little business on their own account—
pecking a little for themselves—and have .allen out,
as a certain description of people will fall out, in di-
viding spoil.
To one piece of information, however, which has
come to our ears, connected with this affair, we
must direct the attention of our readers. It is ge-
nerally imagined, we believe, that, when the various
sums of money, recorded weekly, as having been con-
tributed to the Repeal Fund are paid over to the
treasurer in Dublin, the aggregate amount is applied
to the general purposes of the association, or, more
properly, to the various wants of Daniel and his
fellow-conspirators. No such thing ! A considera-
ble portion of each contribution is, almost invariably,
remitted back again to the place from which it was
originally forwarded, to be expended according to
the pleasure of its industrious collectors ! Thus
the thousands, so glibly talked of, as having been
lodged in Dublin, are, after all, only like shop-
keepers' dummies, made up for shew, and speedily
melt into hundreds. The most important conside-
ration, however, which arises from this singular
kind of management, is the nature of the relation-
ship which it establishes, between the parent asso-
ciation in Dublin, and the district associations
throughout the kingdom. The wardens and other
conductors of the latter not only feed the rapacity
of the great agitator, but are his paid slaves ! They
grind their duped fellow-countrymen—force from
them their last penny or their last potato—and re-
ceive an actual fixed per tentage upon the amount of
their extortions, (!) to be expended in supplying
their news-rooms with the seditious trash, which
emanates from the repeal press, or for any other
purpose which the arch traitor who employs them
may point out, as most calculated to forward his
daring projects. Surely this is a machinery of mis-
chief and rebellion which ought not to be permitted
in a well regulated country. The very existence,
in every great manufacturing and commercial town
in the empire, of associations, such as these, whose
leading members are the hired and paid servants of
a man, the boasted object of whose incendiary pro-
ceedings is the dismemberment of the empire, ought
to be an inducement to all persons, having at heart
the interests of their country, or their own interests,
to be careful to surround their property and their
persons with loyal men ; and to shake from their
confidence every favourer or member of such asso-
ciations. Truly the arch incendiary spoke not with-
out reason, when he threatened the shipping in the
docks of Liverpool, and the factories of the manufac-
turing districts with " a blaze." He knew in what
hands were placed the direction of the excitable
passions, the wild revenge, of the masses of their
Irish population of those towns, to any outrage
which might be pointed out to them.

We promised in our last, to return to the subject
of the recent collision between the Magistrates and
the Watch Committee. Our object was to notice
the injurious operation which a concession of the
authority, contended for by a portion of the Magis-
tracy, must have upon the officers and members of
the police force ; and we now proceed to an exami-
nation of the question. But first let us define what
we have always understood, and what, we believe,
the law has always understood to be the respective
functions of the Watch Committee and the Magis-
trates.
In the hands of that body has been placed by
the municipal act the formation and regulation of
the police force of the borough, with an over-riding
power, however, in the Magistrates to suspend on
certain specified grounds. With the Watch Com-
mittee it rests to diminish or augment the strength
of the force, to determine the hours and the place of
their duty, and the number and powers of their
officers. When thus appointed, regulated and offi-
cered, the entire body, become subject to the direc-
tion of the Magistrates sitting in the discharge of
their ordinary functions, as constables under the
statute law of the land are subject to such direction ;
and may be suspended for offences recognised un-
der that law, viz. : neglect of duty, disobedience of
orders or unfitness for service. No further powers,
on the part of the Bench, have ever been contended
for here, or in other communities where similar po-
lice bodies have been provided by the municipal or
by special acts. -.We have never heard of Magis-
trates in the metropolis, or elsewhere, attempting to
plainly recognised
e itend their control beyond the