The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-11-12 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

A MINIMUM OF WAGES.—We often observe, in this
country, an inclination manifested to regulate bylaw the
rate of wages, not with the view of instituting any such
naturally equitable partition, but of establishing a mini-
mum below which life cannot be comfortably supported.
These reasoners proceed, it will at once be admitted, not
on the rights of man, but on the claims of humanity. To
such a project there is but ore objection; it will assuredly
fail of its humane intention. It is presumed that the com-
petition amongst the workmen to obtain employment has
so far advanced, that these cease to obtain a sufficient re-
muneration for their labour. The thousand men whom
a great capitalist employs, are inadequately paid. The le-
gislature requires that they should be paid more liberally.
But the amount which the capitalist has to expend in wages
is limited. The same amount which sustained a thou-
sanJ men, can, under the new scale of remuneration, sus-
tain only nine hundred. The nine hundred are better fed,
but there is one hundred without any food whatever. Our
well-intentioned humanity looks round aghast at the con-
fusion she is making. Suppose, it may be said, that a law
of this description should be passed at so fortunate a con-
juncture, that it should not interfere with the existing re-
lations between the capitalist and the workman, but have
for its object to arrest the tendency which wages have to
fall; suppose that the legislature, satisfied with the exist-
ing state of things, should pronounce it a punishable of-
fence to offer or accept a lower rate of remuneration, would
not such a law be wise? The answer is obvious. If there
is a tendency at any time in wages to fall, it is because
there is a tendency in population to increase, or in capital
to diminish ; circumstances, both of them, which it is not
in the power of criminal jurisprudence to grapple with.
Blackwood's Magazine.
EASTERN WIVES.—The daughter of a king of Persia
having conceived an aversion towards her father's vizir,
said one day to her mother, " if I could destroy that vizir,
1 would do it with pleasure, for he is a man whose inaus-
picious presence disturbs me." "Be composed, my dear
child," said her mother, I will manage the matter."
Having said this, she wrote a letter, in the king's name,
to the wife of the vizir, to the following effect . " Kill
your husband, for I have an affection for you, and wish
that you should be mine ; but as you have an attachment
to your husband, who is my vizir, it would be rather a
disgraceful thing if I were to tear you from his arms, and
make you my wife whilst he is alive." When the vizir's
spouse read this letter, ambitious thoughts took posses-
sion of her heart, and she became intent upon finding
some stratagem to rid herself of the obstacle. One night
her husband being in a state of inebriation, she seized the
happy occasion, killed him without compunction, and
sent. his head to the king by the hands of a young damsel.
" Whose head is this !" inquired the king with great anx-
iety. "It is the head of your vizir," replied the damsel ;
" his wife has sent it; you know why." The king insti-
tuted inquiries into the matter, and discovering the truth,
took off the heads of the vizar's wife, his own wife, his
daughter, and the young damsel. He then summoned the
principal officers of his army, and said to them : " I want
you all to give me your wives ;" but they unanimously
refused. "We will surrender to you our property, nay,
sacrifice our lives for you," said they, but we cannot part
with our dear wives." After this, the king went secretly
to the wives of those officers, and said to each of them
apart, " I wish to make you my wife, if you can contrive
to get rid of your husband." That very night, each of
the ladies, by some stratagem, succeeded in cutting ofrthe
head of her husband, and in the morning, the king saw
his generals' heads in his possession, sent by their wives.
He was horror-struck at the spectacle. " What!" ex-
claimed he, " I asked these men to give me their wives,
and with one accord they refused ; yet when I propose to
their wives to commit a barbarous act of infidelity, they
all consent, and kill their husbands !" His majesty, after
this ejaculation, ordered all the expectant widows to be
put to death without mercy.—New Asiatic Journal.
LORD ELDON'S SUCCESSORS.—The Chancery Com-
mission recommended in 1826 a great variety of alterati-
ons in the practice of the court ; but early in 1827, before
there had been time to make the necessary measures for
effecting them, Lord Eldon quitted the Court of Chan-
cery. Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, in 1828, put forth a
series of orders, which accomplished some of the objects
recommended by the commission, and the great combina-
tion of faculties which he brought into the administration
of the great seal, induced an expectation that, if any hu-
man strength could accomplish it, Lord Lyndhurst would
be able to overcome the arrears, of his court. But those
arrears continuing to accumulate, he was constrained, in
1829, to propose a measure for the constitution of an ad-
ditional judge. It was renewed in 1830, but strenuously
combated by the Whigs, who still maintained the notion
that the work was not too much for those already ap-
pointed to perform it : and the demise of the Crown
having brought the sessions prematurely to a close, the
measure did not ripen into law during that Chancellorship.
Lord Brougham next grasped the seals. He had been
the most formidable of Lord Eldon's assailants. But,
observed Lord Langdale in the House of Lords, on the
13th of June, 1836, when he himself (Lord Brougham)
became possessed of the great seal, at first be was so far
from supposing that the appointment of a new judge was
necessary, that he seems to have thought the Court
stronger than enough, and he actually expressed his opi-
nion that by the changes he was to bring about he should
be able to dispense with the office of Vice-Chancellor.
This was in February, 1831. In July, 1833, further ex-
perience had so far altered his lordship's views, that he
laid on the table of the house a bill, entitled, &An Act
for appointing a Chief Judge in Chancery, and for esta-
blishing a Court of Appeal in Chancery.' Yet the busi-
ness had not become greater since the time of Lord El-
don ; on the contrary, the number of bills filed on the
three preceding years, 1830, 1831, 1832, had been only
6.510; whereas during three years 1819, 1820, 1821,
which for the reasons before-mentioned have been selected
as the tests of Lord Eldon's judicature, the number of
bills filed was 6,654 ; and in the years 1821, 1822, 1823,
the last of which was the period when the war upon Lord
Eldon was at its hottest, the number was 6,988. It was,
therefore, under a pressure rather diminished than in-
creased since Lord Eldon's time, that Lord Brougham,
the great impugner of Lord Eldon, found himself com-
pelled in 1833 to 1834 to call upon the Legislature for ad.
ditional aid. Now, however, the criticisms of lawyers
may differ upon the judicial merits of Lord Brougham,
merits which probably will be more highly estimated here-
after than political causes have suffered them to be in his
own generation—writ enim fulgore suo—none will deny
him to be unsurpassed in vigour and in speed. And yet,
with all that speed, and with all that vigour, he was una-
ble to accomplish that feat, which, in the time of Lord
Eldon, he had conceived to be so easy, and which he had
rated Lord Eldon so roundly for failing to achieve. The
sanction of Parliament having been withheld from Lord
Brougham's measure, Lord Cottenham, the succeeding
Chancellor, though justly held in high estimation as an
equity judge, found it as little practicable as any of his
predecessors, to keep down the business of his court
without additional assistance. And thus, year after year,
the evil continued and grew, until at length a bill for the
creation of two additional judges was introduced by that
party in politics who, during Lord Eldon's time and un-
der an equal or greater pressure of business in the court,
had ever protested against any such increase as being
useless and profligate. —Lord Eldon's Life.

POPISH PERSECUTIONS.—The claim of infallibility, the
grand principle of Romanism, has led the church profess-
ing its tenets to the belief that heretics (all, that is, who
differ from her unscrietural doctrines) ought to be cut off
from the church, delivered over, as they term it, to the
secular arm, and put to death. Ido not speak of indivi-
dual Romanists—some assert that they do not hold with
this persecuting spirit—but I affirm, that to this very day
the cutting out of heretics is authorised by the decrees of
the council of Trent, which contain the standard doc-
trines of popery. If the church of Rome had the power,
and if the present age of religious toleration did not pre-
vent open persecutions, we might yet hear of such deeds
of cruelty as stain the history of the middle ages. We
have the clearest proof that Romanism is the same as
ever, in that it is seen to show itself in acts of persecu-
tion and treachery, even now, as far as it may. It is very
observable that, whether popery has been in an oppressed
or dominant condition, the same spirit has actuated her.
If heretics are to be destroyed in the palmy days of po-
pery, the reign of Queen Mary. the flames of Smithfield
are to soar up to heaven in the open light of day. If he-
retics are to be destroyed in the days of the first James
then is there the secret plot instead of the open persecu-
•tion ; then, instead of the stake and the faggot, there is
the calm and stealthy deliberation of conspirators, and the
deed of darkness which, unless providentially frustrated,
would have sent suddenly into the presence of the judge
of quick and dead the king, the princes, and the nobles of
our land. Yes, the same persecuting spirit of popery
which in the thirteenth century (for I will not go further
back) spoke to the brave Albigenses by the lips of Simon
de Montfort, " Return to the Catholic faith, or ascend
that pile and die!" which, in the beginnine of the fifteenth
century, excited Henry IV. to "pass the law for the
burning of heretics, which (says Blackstone) was the dis-
grace of our statute-book for two and a half centuries ;"
which' in the sixteenth century, condemned Cranmer and
Ridley and Latimer to the flames ; and which (such are
its tender mercies) has consigned many to the stake after
they had recanted and returned to their apostate church—
it is the same persecuting spirit which, in our own day,
excites the Irish peasant (taught by his priest that by any
means he may advance the welfare of the church) to per-
petrate the deed of bloodshed; and which would, if it
might—which may God, of his infinite mercy, forbid!—
destroy the Protestant religion in that unhappy country.
Let us think with deep and fervent gratitude, and at the
same time with serious self-examination, of our present
privileges. And here it should be observed that on the
fifth of November we praise and bless God, not only for
the deliverance of the king and nobles from the deep laid
plot of the Romanis.ts, but also for the " arrival of King
William 111. as on this day, for the deliverance of our
church and nation."' We may well render thanksgivings
to our God for the happy results of the revolution in 1688.
For, however men may differ as to the question whether,
in any case, the succession to the throne should be altered,
and although some may be of opinion that James
might have been induced to have ceased from his favour-
ing the interests of the Romanists had less summary mea-
sures been adopted, still we must all praise and bless the
goodness and the wisdom of God, who, "from the seem-
ing," yea, perchance the real evil of these political con-
flicts " educed good," for, assuredly, our religion and our
liberties were preserved by the accession of a Protestant
king to the throne. Let us heartily, then, unite in the
prayer that we may have " a spirit of fer vent zeal for our
holy religion, which the Lord has so wonderfully rescued
and established, a blessing to us and our posterity." Let
us be truly grateful for our present religious privileges,
privileges not granted to our forefathers in those dark days
of which our subject has led me to speak ; permission to
read the bible, the services of our church conducted in
our own language, and the doctrine of salvation through a
Saviour's merits rescued from the " wood, hay, and stub-
ble" of Popery. Let us never suppose that the mere name
of Protestant, and a loud condemnation of the errors of
the Romanist, will be of any benefit to our souls, unless
we become true Cbristians.—Church of England Mag.

MENTAL EXERCISE.—The great means by which the
mental, moral, and physical powers are to be improved is
by exercise. This has been well set forth in a modern
work on education, with an extract from which, and an
earnest prayer for the divine blessing on your labours, I
shall close these reale, ks :—" The law of exercise is of
universal application. It is a fundamental law of nature,
that all the capacities of man are enlarged and strength-
ened by being used. From the energies of a muscle up to
the highest faculty, intellectual or moral, repeated exer-
cise of the function increases its intensity. Inseparable
from the very idea of exercising the faculties, and of course
from the practice of that exercise, is the requisition of ex-
ercising each faculty upon the objects which nature points
out as related to it. Muscular strength is to be gained
by femiliarizing the muscles with the resistance of exter-
nal forces, and by the habit of conquering mechanical
difficulties, varied to exercise all the muscles, which
amount to several hundreds in the human frame. The
senses are improved by long and particular training, ap-
plying each to its object—sight, by habitual looking at
distant or minute objects; hearing, by accurate practice
in the perception of sounds; taste, in the discriminating
use of the palate. In the same manner, the observing fa-
culties are rendered acute and diversified by the constant
practice of observation of details in existing objects, their
qualities, and of passing events. The same law extends
to the moral world. For the exercise of justice, the child
must be made aware of his own and his neighbour's right,
and be habituated practically to respect them in all con-
tingencies. For the exercise of benevolence, the habit of
repressing the selfish feelings, and of actually doing good,
kind, compassionate, and generous things, not by fits, hut
as a steady unvarying principle of action, will be found
indispensable."—Miss Mayo.
LORD ELDON'S DESPATCH OF BUSINESS.—Through
the only 10 years of Lord Hardwicke's Chancellorship
whereof we have any exact records, the annual average of
the matters despatched in the Court of Chancery was
4,220 ; while through the first ten years of the present
century, the annual average of the matters despatched was
6,081, being an excess of almost one-half. And this in-
crease of business and of despatch in Lord Eldon's time
was a progressive one. The last three of the 10 before-
mentioned years of Lord Hardwicke give an average of
4,230, or 14 beyond the average of the seven years by
which they were preceded; but the last three of the
before-mentioned years of Lord Eldon's give an average
of 6,948, being 1.238 beyond the average of the seven
years preceding them, and 2,718 beyond the average of
the last three of the 10 recorded years of Lord Hard-
wicke. Again, comparing the years 1752 3-4 with the
years 1819, 1820-1, we find the result of the tables as
between Lord Hardwicke and Lord Eldon to be, that—
Lord Hardwicke despatched business equal to 2,390 heavy
matters; and that Lord Eldon, in a like space, despatched
business equal to 2,598 like matters, being an excess of
209 in Lord Eldon's favour. And, further, Mr. Twiss
proceeds,—lt results, that Lord Eldon not only despatched
in the Court of Chancery, during his three years, an
amount of 2,598 heavy matters, being 208 more than were
despatched in the same length of time by Lord Hard-
wieke, but moreover that Lord Edon effected this in only
455 days—or, if 61 days be deducted as before for politi-
cal and other duties, only 394 days—while his predecessor,
in clearing the smaller amount of 2,390 like matters in
the Court of Chancery, consumed 508 days—or, 61 days
being equally deducted, as in Lord Eldon's time, 447 days
—and Lord Eldon's real superiority, therefore, when cal-
culated, as it ought to be, with reference to the number
of days actually available for the Court of Chancery in
the course of each respective period of three years, is not
merely to the amount of 208 heavy matters beyond Lord
Hardwicke, but at the rate of 348 such matters, which
would be a superiority in Lord Eldon's favour of about
14 per cent.—Lffe of Lord Eldon.
WRONGS OF THE LABOURING CLASSES.—An extra-
ordinary degree of public attention is at present drawn to
the state of the labouring classes. The whole press of
the country, in every phase of political opinion, joins in
proclaiming their wrongs and the necessity for some re-
medies. "It were needless," says the Morning Chroni-
cle, " to adduce examples of the pressing nature of these
evils. Bishops furnish them in their charges ; country
gentlemen quote them in their speeches ; city orators cite
them at their public meetings; newspapers give them at
full length from day to day. Such a state of things can-
not go on. Commerce is prosperous ; trade is thriving;
the revenue flourishes ; yet look at the condition of our
labouring people." What a throng of deeds of cruelty
and injustice has even the last ten drays produced ! In
the metropolis, and in our great towns, we see, almost
every day, coroners' inquests on men and women, either
dying of want, or committing suicide out of mere despe-
ration. At this instant, in the wealthy parish of Mary-
lebone, such an investigation is going on. Meanwhile,
our slopsellers persist in giving their five farthings for the
work of a shirt, and sixpence for embroidering a shawl
with eighty flowers ! And if we turn to the country, what
meets us there ? In one county, we find a poor fellow
who had brought up thirteen children, and inhabited one
cottage for twenty years, sent to gaol, under a sentence
which almost amounts to perpetualimprisonment, because
found with a hare, In the next county, we see another
man quietly sentenced to three months' hard labour, for
being found with a gun ; though whether he was intend-
ing to shoot crows or rabbits, no one could tell ! In a
third case, a poor man was sentenced to ten years' trans-
portation, having confessed, that, when almost starved,
he was tempted by a neighbour to assist in stealing a
sheep. Now we are not arguing for impunity in such
cases as these. No offence ought to pass without notice.
But what we press upon our readers' attention, is this,—
that here are three men, in the adjoining counties of
Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxrord,—all tempted
into crime by want and wretchedness, and all instantly
punished with rigour, though in each case it was a first
offence, and though in each case the cost of maintaining
them and their families, at the public cost, in prisons and
workhouses, would inevitably amount to a far larger sum
than would have rendered them all happy and comfortable
in honest industry. But, in truth, the manner in which
the game-laws are now carried out, looks like infatuation.
Sir Harry Verney declared, a few days back, at a meeting
of the magistrates of Buckinghamshire, his conviction,
that the game of that county consumed one-fourth of the
produce of the soil. And a correspondent of the Globe
declares, that " a few weeks back the principal occupier
in an adjoining parish declared to me that the game cost
the occupiers of the parish more than the poor did, and
they were numerous." In fact, if we were to take the
average consumption of the fruits of the earth by the game
at less than half what Sir Harry Verner estimates it at,
it would still be true, of the whole kingdom, that the
landed proprietors actually bestow more upon their hares
and partridges, than they do upon their poor !—Church.
man's Monthly Review.