The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-10-24 00:00:00

ebt Etberpool &tanZiarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, OCT. 24, 1848.

IT is the fashion of elderly housewives, who
Fide themselves particularly upon being " manag-
ing women," to have a periodical ransack of every
department, very much to the discomfort and an-
noyance of cook, housemaid, and John, whose
little family at home luxuriates upon the broken
meat of the establishment. There is a general

turning up of carpets, to show what a shameful

time it is since they were taken up before; a rooting
out of cupboards and drawers, in which shocking
discoveries are made of petty larcenies committed
upon the parlour loaf sugar, and the green tea;
and the finale of the day's entertainment is not
- unfrequently a notice to quit for one or other of
the offending menials. Our contemporary, the
Mercury, reminds us just now of such an old lady
as we have described, in one of her fits of extra-
ordinary management. Inspired by the eclat which
Las rewarded the researches of the Liverpool Finan-
cial Association into the sad doings of maids of
honour, ladies of the bed-chamber, and other ap-
pendages of royalty,—the appetite for prying and
scandal whetted by past rummaging in the kitchen
drawers and warder of Windsor Castle and Buck-
ingham Palace—our contemporary is extending his
economical labours to establishments nearer home,
and commences with " the Cornwallis-street esta-
blishment," promising next to set the Town-hall
itself to rights.
We cannot congratulate him upon having made
any very striking discovery thus far, or displayed
any great originality in the mode which he proposes
. for effecting a saving. It may be true that Mr.
Ashlin, as the head official of the treasurer's office,
and the tried servant of the public for twenty
years, receives £6OO per annum for his services,- and '
that his former salary, in a subordinate situation,
was only £l5O per annum. But how those two
facts justify a reduction to £312 per annum is not
very clear. Mr. Ashlin receives only what is con-
sidered the fair reward for his services, in a very
onerous and important situation ; and his abilities
_ would command such a reward, or more, if em-
ployed in any other suitable direction.
Mr. Newlands, our contemporary tells us, receives
- £7OO a year, with an allowance for a horse and gig,
groom, &c., and cab-hire. Our contemporary
would cut down the salary' to £520 a year ; lay
aside the horse and gig, and reduce the engineer
to a more frequent use of his own legs, forgetting
entirely the loss of very valuable time which must
be the result. But he omits giving us any hint as
to the grounds of such reduction. An engineer,
like a physician we presume, or any other profes-
sional man, is valued according to his acquirements
and his professional standing. If we can get as
good a man as Mr. Newlands for half the salary,
let us have him by all means. But it is by no
means clear that we can.
With all due deference to our contemporary, and
the Financial Association, whose echo he aspires to
be, we contend that the very worst sort of economy
is that which begins with an indiscriminate cutting
down of the salaries of officers, whether public or
private. The most efficient servants are fairly
paid ones. If
.we want talent, honesty, and active
exertion we must give its price. A hedge school
master would probably be able to hammer as much
Latin and Greek into the heads of any given num-
ber of children as the most learned Oxford or Cam-
bridge professor. An ordinary paviour at 30s. a
week might superintend well enough the paving of
any of our streets. We do not, nevertheless, elect
.a hedge school master to the principalship of the
Collegiate or the Mechanics' Institution ; and
should object .against placing a working paviour or
stonemason in charge of the important works re-
quired for the improvement and adornment of this
great town.
The concluding remarks of our contemporary, or
rather of his correspondent, we must give in ex-
ten so :
" These two departments require a most searching in-
quiry, for extravagance and a want of a vigilant -superin-
tendence pervade the whole business. Formerly, our re-
presentatives divided the town into divisions, and directed
and inspected what was going forward; but now, the
whole is left to officials, as, for instance, the engineer re-
ports that such a street requires so and so to be done, and
- without any inspection, he is ordered to do it, however
costly, and- I know, a few months since, a whole street
would have been expensively re-paved, had it not been for
- the remonstrance of a party stating that he knew for a
• fact the street was in excellent condition ; hence the
monstrous extravagance so manifest; and it must be ob-
vious that more clerks are also employed than required, if
we may judge by the careless ease of their manners."
It may appear rather gothic in us, but we must
confess to the fact, that we prefer to entrust busi-
ness, requiring scientific as well as practical know-
ledge, to " officials"—men educated for such busi-
ness—rather than to the caprices of town councillors,
. or amateurs of any description. A man may be a
very good grocer, or draper, or editor of a news-
- paper, and yet know only as much about the con-
. struction of a sewer or the paving of a street, as the
stones of which they are made. The reference to
past practice is unfortunate. It reminds us of the
source of that accumulation of evils which are cost-
ing us so much to remove. With respect to the
fact that " too many clerks are employed," we want
some better proof than " the careless ease of their
manners." A man may have all the careless ease
of a Chesterfield or a D'Orsay, and be pretty well
-worked nevertheless.

EXHIBITION OF THE LIVERPOOL ACADEMY.

FOURTH NOTICE.

199. Portrait of the Rev. Jonathan Brooks, M.A.,
delivering the prizes in the Lecture-hall of the Liverpool
Collegiate Institution. W. J. Bishop. The admirers of
our estimable senior rector will regard this work of our
talented townsman, Mr. Bishop, with satisfaction, that a
record so faithful of one, who may before long be called
away from amongst us, will be left to recal the memory of
his form and features. The benevolent and dignified ex-
pression of the original, as he appeared on the occasion
selected, is well preserved.
247. Portrait of Braithwaite Poole, Esq. Thomas
Midge. This is another excellent portrait of a gentleman
well known to a large circle of friends ; and its interesting
character is increased by the fact of its having been pre-
sented to Mr. Poole by the clerks of the London and
North Western, the Lancaster and Carlisle and the Cale-
donian Railway Companies, as a tribute of respect for the
mode in which he has conducted himself towards them
during a large business connexion.
244. A Welsh Stream—H. J. Boddington—is a pleas-
ing specimen of this excellent landscape painter. There is
a freshness about it which is very delightful.
257. Lilias Redgauntlet's visit to Allan Fairford. C.
Compton. We can scarely conceive the idea of the clever
young Edinburgh lawyer being fairly represented by the
clumpish-looking youth before us. It is not, however,
for the sake of taking this exception to it that we notice
this picture at all, but to express our surprise a the ELl-
gularly uninteresting subjects which some of our artists
select for their pictures. A landscape we can understand,
or a gipsy encampment, a tine interior. a horse, a cow, or
a basket of fruit. Where an incident, however, has to be
depicted, or a character drawn, it must be an incident of a
character that we care something about. A bashful booby
and a moderately pretty woman, with the aid even of an
old-fashioned parlour, do not furnish a subject for a
picture.
171. Jeptha's Daughter the last day of Mourning—
H. O'Neil—is a pleasing production, displaying a poetical
spirit. . .

LANDSEER'S CELEBRATED PAINTING "THE
DRIVE SHOOTING BEER ON THE PASS."

We have bad the pleasure of viewing this splendid work •
of art, now being exhibited at Mr. Grundy's Repository ;
and certainly never experienced a higher treat of the kind.
In producing this, Landseer has far surpassed, in our esti-
mation, any of his previous works; and it is rendered
more interesting from the fact of its being destined henee-
forth to grace the walls of the palace of our Sovereign
herself, having been purchased by her consort, Prince
Albert.
The subject of the picture—" The Drive "—is one
which may not be very intelligible to every English reader.
It exhibits the mode in which the herds are started from
their almost inaccessible lairs, and driven to the passes in
which the sportsmen lie in wait to select and bring down
their game. The scenery is wild and mountainous ; the
time early morning, whilst the mists are slowly rising
from the peaks and revealing the seats in which they have
lain. The effect is given by the painter with a master's
band; one portion of the picture, where the sun's earliest
ray breaks through the shifting masses and displays the
sloping side of a distant mountain, with a tiny stream,
like a line of silver, leaping down, is especially beautiful.
The rocks in the foreground, behind which two keepers
are sheltering and making ready for their quarry, are
magnificently painted ; and the sportsmen themselves,
with their brace of dogs, are studies, in which Landseer
is equalled by none. The distance is also fine, and
throughout it is impossible to find a fault. The grandeur
of conception is equal to the artistic skill with which
every detail is worked out. We observe it is about to be
engraved, by permission of Prince Albert, and sold under
the superintendence of the Printsellers' Association, the
early subscribers having an advantage in price.