The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-12-10 00:00:00

- and meanness lurks in every line and wrinkle. A hatred
of law, a contempt of authority,, and a morbid and
satanic distrust of religious and mo%archical institutions,
maintain a struggle with an irritable love of distinction
and an excessive love of money. Such is the man, too
Much overrated, too long distinguished, too long tole-
rated, (and few of our town readers can mistake him,)
who wrote the article sent under a particular cover to the
Tmes newspaper.
He had not the courage to enter the court of inquiry
itself. He hung upon its outskirts gathering offal from
the mere scandal-monger, and his reading has obviously
been confined to those journals who, not having the
means of reporting the whole, reported only the crimina-
tory and unanswered portion of the evidence. He dared
not appear personally before the commissioners, for if he
had, some rather pertinent, if not personal, questions
would have been submitted to him. He kept aloof for
reasons which nearly concern himself, and he was con-
tent to feast his sickly imagination with the inventions
and falsehoods of others, who, perhaps, knew as little of
the facts, or disregarded them as much-as himself.
He begins by stating :
" Though in this case the Tory corporators did not think it
for their interest to resist the investigation of their accounts and
Inanagement,—though they even affected pleasure at the .insti-
tution of the inquiry, and professed their willingness to meet it
with every demanded disclosure,—thoUgh in no part of their
conduct did they pretend to an immunity from public inspec-
tion or popular control,:—and though the Town-clerk, who bad
stood in the Town-hall the brunt of more than three weeks'
combat with the enemies of corporate abuses, seemed to with-
draw at last from the field amid a haze of dubious self-congra-
tulation or unconscious defeat,—we have no heiitation in saying,
that in none of the most notoriously corrupt boroughs in the king-
40m have we found Stronger proofs or more striking illustrations of
the evil of the close or 14-elective system of municipal govern-
ment."

This is reckless assertion without even the shadow o f
Proof. The municipal system here, he states, is as
vicious and reprehensible as in the "most notoriously
'etirupt boroughs in the kingdom." Which boroughs
are the " most notoriously corrupt" we cannot tell,
although we have heard of Derby, Calne, Tavistock,
Bedford, Malton, and some of the other strong-holds
favoured by the Whigs ; but if it be asserted that, in
Liverpool, the Corporation funds are applied to corrupt
purposes, or election purposes, or in any way to favour
one Party to the injury of another—or that these funds
are devoted to any other than legitimate objects, or to
any other than the improvement of the town, then, we
Say, that such averment is a delibei ate falsehood. We
flare this man to produce his evidence; we challenge
him to call his witnesses and lay his proofs before the
public; and if he can show that the revenues of the
town are misappropriated, or corruptly expended, or pro-
fusely wasted, we will not hesitate a moment in directing
against the authors of such corruption as severe and un-
'paring censures as the most violent of their enemies.
The Writer in the Times professes to found his allega-
tions upon the evidence adduced before the commis-
I'l°bers. But in what portion of it has he found them ?
We have gone through that ponderous and voluminous
mass of evidence without discovering even a loop to
hang a doubt on. Every attempt to establish profligacy;
or corruption, or even improvidence, in the expenditure
of money, or in the management of the corporate reve-
nues, has compleWy failed. An individual merchant,
in conducting his own private affairs, will sometimes, by
-oversight or over zeal, compromise his own interests.
The officers of every company and corporation will some-
times fall into error. The officers of the Liverpool Cor-
poration are fallible like other men; but giving them
credit for what they have done, and making some allow-
ance for the magnitude of their transactions, and the
conflicting interests they have had to reconcile, they
have conducted themselves for a long series of years with
fidelity that is above reproach, and with an unvarying
honesty of purpose, and an unity of circumspection and
ability which are beyond all praise, and which none but
taen accustomed to strict mercantile habits could have
exercised.

But the writer becomes more inflated with misrepre-
tentation as he proceeds. He asserts that the municipal
government of Liverpool " has stood still while civiliz-
ation, trade, and wealth have been rapidly advancing
around it." If mendacity be a proof of civilization, and
the favoured . scribe of the Times be a specimen of the
one as he is of the other, then we admit that civilization
has advanced in- spite of the Corporation. In no other
Way will the charge apply. It requires hardly half an
eye to. see that the Corporation of this immense town
have, not only been the promoters of all its improvements
and commercial facilities, but they are to a great extent
the authors of its wealth, its grandeur, its greatness,
and its prosperity-. In what respect are they behind
the trade, or the civilization, or the wealth of the people
'who surround them ? Look at the public buildings, the
new streets, the numerous churches, the splendid line
of docks, unsurpassed if not unequalled in any part of
tne world, all of which owe their origin to the Corpora-
tion of Liverpool, and then say whether that body,
whose revenues are of their own creation, whether they
are behind the spirit of the age ? Behind! we assert
that they are before it I Their projects of improvement
are for posterity. Their docks and harbours, yet but in
embryo, are planned for an increased trade and a larger
Population. Where is there a town in England
Where so much has been done, or.a twentieth part so
fluch has been done, by any company or corporate body
for the benefit of the whole community ? Take Man-
chester, Birmingham, and Sheffield, happy towns, unop-
pressed by fiscal exactions, or a farthing per ton on
alien shipping,—where there are no freemen, no exclu-
'Bl7e privileges, no mayors, no common councils,—take
these towns and do we find in them any approach to the
Prosperity, splendour, or if you please the civilization
of Liverpool? In Manchester every improvement has
been done at the expense of the inhabitants generally.
In Liverpool our improvements, and they are on a con-
siderably larger scale, have been done at the cost of the
Corporation. Birmingham and Sheffield are in a state
of primitive filth compared with Liverpool, and yet these
are towns where the doctrines of modern liberalism, a
sure symptom of ignorance, prevail to a greater ex-
tent than any where else, and where the principles of
infidelity and revolution have the most formidable vo-
taries.

All this, however, is overlooked by that band of con-
spirators against the institutions of the country, of which
we take the writer in the Times upon the present occa-
sion to be one. All is obnoxious and pernicious which
stands between these people and their love of plunder and
aggrandisement. All is foul which is not reflected in
their mirror. Every artist is a dunce who has not been
reared in their school; and every independent man is
either a slave or a venal hypocrite who does not drink
with them at the same fountain, hoist the same colours, or
apostatize from his principles in order to join in their un-
hallowed orgies.

The liberal hack, in summing up the evidence given
before the commissioners, proceeds thus :
"It exhibits a shameful waste of the public money in sala-
tis, allowances, and jobs,—that the revenues of the borough,
,"Dhich would be sufficient for a considerable state or princi-
PalitY, have often been prodigally or ignorantly squandered,—
that its extensive patronage has been injudiciously, if not cor-
ruptly exercised.—that there has been reason to complain of a
general favouritism in the disposal of its corporate offices,—
that family connexions and hereditary influences have been
11°tued in the council or among the magistrates, to the exclu-
,.Bl°ll of the persons best fitted for municipal employments,—that
Z"ottlity has prevailed among the lower ranks of its officers as
ITliption among the higher,—That the bribery of the dock-
to'Wn is r 3
in not only charged but avowed,—that the police of the
" efficient or partial,—that the administration of justice
p,:rgs:°r" or corrupt, that an illiberal spirit is evinced towards
from those
who entertain opinions, political or religious, different
of the ruling clique,—and that nearly the whole body
z.aliffs are 1.),f the burgesses who engross the election of the Mayor and
accessible to direct bribes."
And he winds up as follows:-
0_ In short, that peculation, incompetency,
pro.piatrotiage, selfishness, abuse
favouritism, partiality to kindred, 6r motives of
I i al partisanship, jobbing, and collusion, pervade and vi-
atiate the wholes ystem, pollute the sources
the
justice, and lead to
scandalous and absurd expenditure of the borough funds."
We Nepect many old prejudices, but we are sufficiently
liberal to give the wall to a mad dog. If the scribe who
vnites the above be not rabid, he is, the most insufferable