The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-12-30 00:00:00

THE NEW YEAR, 1852

BEFORE the issue of another number, we shall have
crossed the border, and have fairly entered upon leap-
year. It comes so insensibly, the transition is so imper-
ceptible as we float down the stream of time, that it is
like the gradual passage from a large river to the open
sea ; and thus year after year passes on, with landmarks
which the observant can see and note, while the unthink-
ing never recognise them. The rapidity of time has
passed into a proverb, but there are those to whom its
flight seems tedious. The idle, the anxious, the oppressed,
the aspiring, the afflicted,—all of whom are unhappy in
some form,—feel as if their hours were days and their
days years. But the universality of the contrary feeling,
in every part of the world, is a significant proof of the
great preponderance of happiness and enjoyment in the
materials of human existence. To the infant, a year is
the fourth or fifth of the sum of its existence ; to the man,
it is a thirtieth or fortieth part; to the grandsire, a seventy-
ninth or eightieth. There is, therefore, an arithmetical
reason why time should appear to fly faster as we grow
older; for each year bears to the preceding ones a dimi-
nishing ratio.
We have our individual eras, the year commencing with
each of us at the anniversary of our birth ; and our social
eras, marked by some event of importance or interest, as
a death or a marriage. We speak also of the ecclesiastical
year, commencing with the first Sunday in Advent, and
of the legal year, which is marked by the proclamation of
new king or queen. But the year which is on the eve of
change is the civil one, by which matters personal, social,
ecclesiastical, and legal are still regulated, which is the
standard of reference in history and biography, literature,
and science, and which is not partial but universal in its
application. In the coarse of any of these years, it is the
present which demands our attention ; that is, our real
possession to lose or to enjoy ; and the conscientious feel
called upon to fulfil the promises made, or to carry out the
resolutions formed, when that present existed in the
anticipated future. The sensualist lives to himself; the
benevolent lives for others ; the truly religious man lives
to his duty and his God. Our present, however, is now
diminished to a vanishing quantity ; we speak only of the
past and the future. In another article we have taken a
view somewhat retrospective, let our thoughts here be
prospective.
It is sufficiently known, that within the course of the

passing year the Standard has ceased to be the property
of the gentlemen whose names were so long associated
with it. Yet, the transition has been so gentle, that we
question whether some of our readers have noticed it,
except by the evidences of improved arrangements, which
have been silently but steadily showing themselves. It
is no necessary disparagement of our respected predeces-
sors, to say that we have already noted several points
which admit of, and indeed call for, a beneficial change ;
and we have no doubt, that even to ourselves improve-
ments will be suggested from time to time, either from
within or from without, which it will be at once a pleasure
and a duty to adopt. To secure a better thing supposes
that we are at present in the possession of that which is
good ; and this is precisely the idea which we intend to
convey. It will be at once our ambition and our pride to
exalt the high character which the Standard has hitherto
sustained, by a more judicious application of old elements,
and by the introduction of new and valuable ones.
On the subject of principles we have nothing to alter,
and therefore require to say little. We are still sound
Protestants, and true-hearted Churchmen ; the advocates
of the rights of all classes in the community ; and the pro-
moters, as far as in us lies, of religion in the state, the
family, and the individual, as the foundation of right go-
vernment and sound morals. The experience of every day is
a comment on their correctness. While political charlatans
are spouting treason, and frantically uttering dogmas of
which they neither comprehend the nature nor the con-
sequences, the liberties of nations are stricken down, and
the lives and the properties of individuals are the
sport of the strong man. While indecent railings assail
our Church and Constitution on every side, infidelity is
rampant, and Popery unusually aggressive ; yet England
still survives as the glorious model to which foreign pa-
triots desire to assimilate their respective constitutions.
It may suit the purposes of the fool or the desperado to

cry " overturn, overturn ;" but the man of experience
does not forget that the tree which may be cut down in
an hour, has required, perhaps, a century to bring to its
present condition. Nor is the fact without a moral, that
religious and political revolutions are usually called for
by the same advocates : they generally go together, and
the issue of both is similar. The only country of Europe
which formally renounced God, is that on which Reason
has conferred the smallest portion of her favours ; and,
after sixty years of empty boasting and empirical states-
manship, the nation is found bleeding and prostrate, hav-
ing scarcely reached the first round in the ladder of social
progress. It will be our constant endeavour, therefore,
to " hold fast that which is good," a practice which is not
at all inconsistent with " proving all things."

On one class of subjects which have not hitherto re-
ceived a marked degree of attention in this paper, we feel
a deep interest; and it will not be from want of good
wishes, or lack of cordial exertions on our part, if they are
not aided by the public as they ought to be. We allude
to the literary status of the town, its condition, capabili-
ties, and requirements, on the subject of education, and
our public institutions generally. In some of these de-
partments much has already been dcne, but much yet
remains to be done ; and our condition as compared with
other towns is certainly far from flattering. Of the staple
subjects of " ships, colonies, and commerce," we hear,
perhaps, enough ; of party politics and angry disputations
more than enough by far; it will surely be an agreeable
and healthful variety to turn from time to time to a class
of subjects, whose judicious treatment cannot be injurious,
and must be improving. Our public institutions,—social,
sanatory, benevolent, religious, literary, and mercantile,—
are less known than many of them deserve to be ; and we
hope that an occasional visit to some of the most interest-
ing, and an examination of thorn, will be attended with
pleasure and profit, both to our readers and to ourselves.

We claim indulgence for a few words on another sub-
ject. It is with no small gratification that we refer to the
quiet gentlemanly tone by which the articles in our paper
have always been characterised. Their spirit has been
creditable to our predecessors at the editorial helm, as
to our readers, who, we are happy to say, would appreci-
ate and tolerate nothing else. We know that it is a
received maxim, more lax than creditable, that a com-
mittee may perform acts which to an individual would be
degrading ; and similarly, that a newspaper may be guilty
of offences, with which none of its conductors would dare
to identify himself, This system of conventional morality
may be very convenient, but it must be repudiated at
once, and heartily, by ti oee who recognise the higher and

holier principles of abstract right and wrong. It is grow-
ing upon us in our own town, not stealthily and silently,
but openly, unblushingly. There is a sort of brigandage
of the press, which regards every man, woman, and child
as its lawful prey, unless the toll called " black mail" be
paid for immediately in the shape of advertisements, sub-
scriptions or printing. It would be disgraceful in a semi-
civilised state ; in an intelligent and Christian community
like this, it is intolerable. We appeal to the respectable
portion of the press in town, whose kind feelings and
good offices we have always had the happiness to possess,
and to reciprocate, to assist us in abating the evil. The
body of ancient chivalry is dead, but its spirit still sur-
vives,—the desire to protect the weak against the wicked.
On this subject, at least, our trumpet shall not utter an
uncertain sound. We have fired a warning salute to-
day, partly to show the offender the range of our guns ;
we hope for his own sake, and for the sake of public
decency, that he will exercise the better part of valour,
viz., " discretion," and not provoke either a broadside or
a cannonade.

The various minor improvements, some of which have
already received attention, it is, perhaps, unnecessary to
specify in detail. Our readers will not fail to note, in due
course, an enlarged sheet, a more systematic arrangement
of matter, an improved summary of church, clerical, and
university intelligence, and certain mechanical arrange-
ments of an improved character. These, however, are
but a few of the points in which we are desirous to study
their tastes and interests, and we hope that the fact of
their being unsolicited and unexpected on the part of our
readers, will in no degree diminish the gratification with
which they will be received.

Our exordium has been longer than we designed ; but
it was not quite needless in presenting " the compliments
of the season." The year which is almost upon us
threatens to be somewhat monotonous ; but that is no
reason that it should be deficient either in enjoyment or
improvement. The Exhibition is a thing of the past;
the Crystal Palace is become a somewhat unimportant
fact; the Cardinal, after all his boasting, has fouid his
level in England, like water in the pipes ; the Queen's
visit, which is really a thing of yesterday, has practically
acquired the dimness of remote tradition. It is thus
that, in a large community, one event effaces another
from public recollection before it has made any per-
manent impression, and the topics which promise to be of
absorbing and enduring interest, fade and melt into others,
like the pictures of dissolving views. Yet there is a
permanence amidst all this change. There are principles
which are enduring as the hills, truths which always find
a response in the human heart, duties which always call
for performance, errors that are always to be shunned,
motives and action that are always honoured and valued
by the good. We do not promise our readers that we
will regard every subject of passing interest as more im-
portant than any that has gone before, that we will always
shout with the mob and hiss when they hiss, or follow the
tossings of the froth on the surface of the stream. Yet
we have a strong hope that we shall gratify public taste
not less than if we did all this ; and that our seed will
yield no less a harvest. But whatever may be the issue,
it is now our duty to take leave. And we beg to assure
our readers, that it, is riot with the glib formality of the
world, but in the loved sincerity that means all it says,
that we wish them singly and unitedly the enjoyment of
a HAPPY NEW YEAR.