The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-03 00:00:00

bully a brother magistrate with threats of personal
chastisement—whether the threat of what he would
have done, as a private individual towards a private
individual 'in another place, ought in decency to
come from a man judicially entrusted with the pre-
servatit n of the public peace ? We ask him, fur-
ther, what is the meaning of his passionate inter-
jection addressed to Mr. Hodgson—" The less you
sit with Mr. Rushton the better, if you please,"
as given by a contemporary of Friday ; or, as our
reprter and that 01 a Saturday's contemporary
have it—" The less you say about Mr. Rushton the
batter, if you please" ? In either version it is
scandalously improper, unbecoming the place where
uttered, or the party by whom uttered.
Of the subsequent proceedings of the meeting,
and particularly of the indecent manner in which
the attack of Mr. Rushton was seconded by the
small fry of the Radical faction—the Earles, the
Rathbones, and Boltons, who, although put forth
by the indignant voice of their fellow-townsmen
from all interference in their local concerns, are
still unhappily permitted to perform their antics
upon the magisterial bench—we shall not trust our-
selves to remark. Their convicted imbecility is
their safeguard.
We turn with pleasure from this sad display to
the more calm and dignified proceedings of the
Watch Committee on Saturday; and, first, we shall
briefly glarce at the preliminary conversation which
took place with respect to Mr. Parker's case, for the
purpose of correcting an imputation which we re-
cently brought against Mr. Dowling, of over-offi-
ciousness, and something like truckling to the
magistrates, in that matter. We assumed on that
occasion, as of course we had a right to assume,
that the charge against Mr. Parker of "interference"
with the officers, at the Rose-hill station and at
Allen's house, had come before the magistrates in
the ordinary way, by information from the proper
authority. We were also warranted in this assump-
tion by the expressions used by Mr. Rushton before
the magistrates—" Here is a man " (pointing to
Mr. Commissioner Dowling) " in whom I have
unbounded confidence, who has taken every step
without consulting me " ; and again—" If I read
my functions aright, or understand the law of
England, every man aught to applaud Mr. Dowling."
Certainly a plain-enough intimation this that the
commissioner had taken some leading part in caus-
ing the whole subject to be brought before the sti-
pendiary !
Now what are the real circumstances of the case,
as they have transpired before the Watch Commit-
tee ? In the first place, it is a remarkable circum-
, stance that there is not a report in the hooks of the
Rose-hill station-house of any interference of Mr.
Parker with the officers there, or of any other
charge against that gentleman, although those
books record such trifling and minute matters as
the finding a gate open or a gas-light out."
There was no information of such interference laid
of their own accord by the officers, or by Mr. Dow-
ling, before the magistrates. Finally, as we are
informed by Mr. Hugh Hornhy, " a magistrate,
having read the circumstance in a letter inserted in
one of the public prints, asked if anything was
known with regard to it. The stipendiary magis-
trate stated that the information had come to his
knowledge incidentally, and that he had not heard it
from the chief commissioner." And further, " the
magistrates directed the head constable to report."
Plainly, then, Mr. Dowling owes our wrong con-
ception of his conduct in the matter to the fulsome
adulation heaped upon him by Mr. Rushton, by
which the entire onus was strangely—and, we may
add, unfairly, as calculated to injure the commis-
sioner with the Watch Committee—removed from
the shoulders of the former to those of the latter.
If Mr. Hugh Hornhy has correctly stated the facts
of the case now, so far as Mr. Dowling's share in it
is concerned, Mr. Rushton mis-stated them before,
The two statements are quite irreconcilable with
each other; and we leave Mr. Rushton to the task
of explanation. A gentleman so forward in impu-
ting incorrect statements to others, should keep his
own free from th possibility of being doubted.
We pass from this portion of the proceedings,
referring our readers to the manly letter of Mr.
Parker, and the very proper course taken upon it
by the Watch Committee; and now proceed very
briefly to notice the evidence, upon which Mr.
Rushton's charge of falsehood against Mr. David
Hodgson has been rebutted. It is clear from the
whole of this evidence, (saving that of Mr. Hugh
Hornby and Mr. Thornhill, the latter of whom was
not present during the whole period of the meetings
of the 20th and 23nd), that Mr. Dowling consi-
dered, and left the impression upon the minds of
those with whom he spoke upon the subject, that
Mr. Rushton's intimation to him of the course to be
pursued in case of his refusing to obey the orders of
the magistrates, was virtually a threat of dismissal.
It is true that, before the board he guarded himself
by saying that " he drew his own inferences," an
expression significant enough; but to Mr. Thomp-
son he distinctly stated, that he regarded the object
of the threatened meeting of the magistrates to be,
" that he might be dismissed." Under these cir-
cumstances we cannot but regret, that before the
assembled bench, the replies of Mr. Dowling were
not more straightforward, and that he should have
appeared more inclined to permit Mr. Rushton to
enjoy a temporary, and after all a pitiful triumph,
than boldly to acknowledge what he considered the
real meaning of the threat held over him.

We have rtrespassed already so largely upon the
very limited space to-day at our disposal, that we
must waive for the present the consideration of some
matters arising out of these proceedings, of far more
importance to the public, than the proceedings
themselves. We shall return to them.

The report of the proceedings at the last repeal
meeting in the Conciliation-hall supplies us with
materials well worthy of the attention of the magis-
trates of this town, as evidencing the wide spread
of treasonable feeling amongst the Irish portion of
our population. The sum of £lO 15s. was pre-
sented by Mr. M. O'Connell as the weekly contri-
bution of the repeaters of Liverpool to the parent
association, when that gentleman took occasion to
state, as an incentive to the people of Dublin, that
whilst that city, the centre of the agitation, contri-
buted only £lO per week, the average amount from
Liverpool was £2O per week. Surely such a fact
should be a lesson to the authorities of our town,
and impress upon them the necessity, whilst so
much anti-English sentiment is silently smoulder-
ing beneath their very feet, to strengthen themselves
by placing around them, as the guardians of their
property and their lives, men of assured loyalty and
tried fidelity to the institutions of their country !
Surely this is not a time for them to turn the cold
shoulder to such men—to make their very loyalty a
disqualification for every office of trust, whilst no
notice is taken of the presence of would-be traitors
in the very force to whose watchfulness and fidelity
are confided the peace of the town and the safe
keeping of the vast masses of property which it
contains. How many of these repeaters are mem-
bers of our police force ? How much of this twenty
pounds per week is either drawn from the funds of
the borough, or from the pockets of those Conser-
vative merchants, who fill their warehouses with
plausible and designing Irish Papists, whilst Pro-
testant Englishmen, natives of their own town,
because not so fawning in manner and specious in
tongue, may walk our dock quays or our streets,
willing to toil, and yet penniless ? This must be
reformed. The practice is not kindly to our own,
and, moreover, it is not safe !

THE FUNDS : SATURDAY NIGHT. The absence of
business to-day caused a slight depression in the value of
the English securities, and quotations for Consols left off
rather lower than those quoted yesterday, the money
trice being 1001 buyers, and for the account 1001 to 101
sellers ; Bank Stock was steady at 287 to 209 ; India
stock, 287 to 289 ; Exchequer-bills, 57s to 595. premium ;
Three per Cents. Reduced, 99i to 100 ; Three-and-a-
Quarter per Cents., 1021 to ; and Long Annuities,
12 1-16. In 'he foreign house the dealings have been of
the roost limited description, hut quotations, generally
speaking, exhibit much steadiness. Spanish Five per
Cents. left off 211 to ; and Three per Cents , 351 to ;
Russian, 1181 to 1194 ; Peruvian, 244 to 251 ; Portuguese,
55 to 56 ; Mexican, 361 to ; the Deterrr d, 161 t I;
Dutch Two-and-a-Half per Cents., 621 to 631 ; the Five
per Cents., the Five per Cents., 99 to ; Danish. 89 to
90; Colombiun, 131 to lli; Chilian, 100 to 101 ; Buenos
Ayres, 36 to 37; and Belgian, 101 c to 1021.
CAUTION TO SEAMEN.—Yesterday, at the Police-
court, an American seaman n'med M'Cappin, of the
ship Solons, wa' charged with smugglir,g 10lb. weight of
tobacco. Mr. Brook, of the Customs, conducted the
case, and proved, by several officers, that the article was
found in the prisoner's chest nailed to the side with tacks,
and that the prisoner gave a key which ht'ed the chest.
The prisoner said he was ignorant of the laws of the
country, and thought he would not be guilty of smuggling,
unless he brought the tobacco en shore, which be had no
intention to do. Mr. Rushton said he was clearly liable,
and adjudged him to pay a fiae of £lOO, or be imprisoned,
intimating, however, that the prisoner might raemi-
rialiae the Lords Commissioners for a Mitigation,