The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-08-08 00:00:00

which all

xcep
-occupied by the tents of

s are displaced

iimself to be veritable d

to be no more of t

not until after the arrival of the Greek kalends. It
is whispered that the leading actor has been so ter-
ribly in earnest, that he has gone lunatic through
Ind that his mind will have to he

s exertions

bayonets of the enemy are real, before he can he
induced to return and play out his part. He had
set it down that he was "never to be taken alive;"

and he has no fancy for the previous operation re-
quired for his being taken in any other state.
We suspect, in serious earnestness, that the poor
King is a little affected in his brain ; that his brags
of physical force and of dying for his country have
been only_ the thick-covering fancies of a madman's

There is, at the least, symptoms of this in
a singular manifesto addressed by him to the Mining
Companyof Ballingarry, dated "Callan, 29th July,"
a copy of which has just been enclosed to the Lord
Lieutenant, by C —""`---'^^.l‘l Af'

eneral Macdonatu. .i,er request-
ing the Directors not to persecute their men for
having aided in protecting him—or, in reality, for
joining in the insurrection, he goes on to make the
following modest recommendations, viz.:—

" That for the present the whole of the proceeds arising

weekly from the sale of coal and culrn be applied in pay:
anent of men constantly employed in raising coal and

culin."

Or, in other words, that the entire property of the
Company should be confiscated for the use of the
labourers! The letter proceeds very pleasantly, as
follows :

" He (Mr. S. O'Brien) recommends that a brisk de-
mand be encouraged by lowering the price of coal and
culm to the public. In case he should find that the
Mining Company endeavour to distress the people by
withholding wages, and by other means, Mr. O'Brien
will instruct the colliers to occupy the mines on their
own account (!); and in case the Irish Revolution should
succeed, the property of the Mining Company will be
confiscated as national property.
On the contrary, if the Mining Company observe a
strict and honourable neutrality"—submit to be robbed—
" doing their utmost to support the people of this district
during this present time of difficulty and trial, their pro-
perty will be protected to the utmost of Mr. O'Brien's
power."

Admirable ! Most candid madman ! Here we
have foreshadowed the very end and aim of re-
bellion. Repeal of the Union ? Republican in-
stitutions ? Fudge ! There is not one in ten of
O'Brien's late followers who know the meaning of
the shibboleth. The movement is obviously a com-
munist movement. The war is to be levied, not so
much against the Saxon as for the appropriation
of the Saxon's property. It is not to seat an im-
becile and a craven, like O'Brien, on the imaginary
throne of imaginary Kings of Munster that Tippe-
rary longs to be led to the field. It is no "wild
revenge" which spurs them on, but a deep longing
for a settled property in the acres, which they have
made the scene of their squalid turbulence. Thanks
to Mr. Smith O'Brien ! If his ill-acted farce of
rebellion had no value in our eyes, as tending to
prove to disaffected amongst the Irish people their
unpreparedness to cope with the power of a united
empire, and the feebleness and incapacity of their
blustering leaders, it has, at all events, drawn from
himself this confession, that its object is not the
regeneration of Ireland, and the motives of those
engaged in it pure patriotism ; but that, from first
to last, it is a scheme of plunder. There may be a
little of "wild revenge" as an accessory; but
plunder and confiscation are at the root of the
rebellion.

After we had written thus far, we received intel-
ligence of the arrest of the chief actor in this farce,
and of several of his leading subordinates, the par-
ticulars of which we detail elsewhere.

THE advocates of the Rivington Pike scheme
have got hold of another stalking horse. The cho-
lera is coming. Already it has reached the shores of
the Baltic. It is raging in St. Petersburg ; and
any day we may expect to hear of its having reached
our own shores. Ergo, exclaim the water doctors,
—" Press forward at once the Rivington scheme ;
procure water from the Yarrow, the Roddlesworth
and the Douglas, to flush your sewers and cleanse
your streets; you have not a moment to lose!"

We are not at all disposed to treat lightly the
threatened advent of that dreadful scourge, or to
deny the advantages which would result to the
public health from the possession of an ample
supply of water. We rather pride ourselves upon
the fact, indeed, that the necessity of taking prompt
measures for procuring such a supply had our
humble advocacy long before it excited much notice
from some of the gentlemen, who are now so zealous
in the cause; when Mr. Earle and Mr. Rathbone
were thinking
_more about beautifying the town
than improving its sanatory state, and had centred
their affections more in St. George's Hall than in
the sewers of Vauxhall-road or Marybone. But we
must object to the near approach of the cholera, or
even its actual presence, being any argument in
favor of rushing headlong. into the Rivington, or
any other scheme, without full consideration. Push
on our engineer as we will; expedite the required
works as we will ; be lavish of expenditure as we
will; a supply of water from Rivington is only in
futuro, whilst the cholera is almost a present fact.
We cannot drive it away by merely exhibiting plans
and specifications, chymical analyses or Mr. Spen-
cer's sealed bottles of the delightful fluid itself. A
more common-sense policy would be to set about
enquiring whether it is not possible to make more
than we do of the protective means, which we have
in our ;possession. We are assured by practical
men that, if not an abundant, or at least such an
abundant supply as some people contemplate, an
increased supply can easily be had. Let the Health
Committee take steps to procure us this. It may
be made available in, comparatively speaking a
very short period, probably before one half of the
working survey of Rivington is completed, and for
less money than the engineer will have to spend
before his working drawings are ready to be laid
before the Council.

We are not about to enter at all into a discussion
upon this long mooted plan of water supply.
Like the public, we are weary of it. But we can-
not omit once more to reprobate the uncalled-for
imputations which are levelled by the advocates
of the Rivington scheme, in the Council and else-
where, against every gentleman who presumes to
differ from them. They are "a set of selfish rate-
payers" forsooth, who are to have "a lesson read
to them on their selfishness and short-s;

alitedn

they regard "pocket interests" to the neglect of
all thought of " the lives and habits and morals of
the town." We are not disposed to retaliate such
unworthy imputations, or we might perhaps ask
Mr. Rathbone, Mr. Earle, and some of their friends,

whether this great scheme is altogether to he under-
taken on sanatory grounds. The pocket is perhaps
quite as sensitive on one side as the other.

ROCK FERRY COMPANY.—The annual meeting of this
company was held yesterday at the Clarendon-rooms, but

3.—The speedy and cleanly ignition of fires
able, and we believe that the patent fire
ivertised in another column, po-s-

i is always de

Eights fOr that purr

esired and tent