The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-04-18 00:00:00

From the Bowden Iron Company..
„ Mr. Edward Davies, optician

Navies

A. corre

Is surprise at observing on Sunday the
ctively engaged in excavating the clay to form
cial pond in Prince's Park, and inquires if we
can inform him what very urgent necessity so imperatively
compelled the proprietors of that undertaking to violate
the holiness of the Sabbath. We are unable to ansvfer
our correspondent's question.

Ebe Eiberpool &tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 18, 1843

'On the 4th of May, Sir Robert Peel will move for
leave to bring in a bill " for the endowment of addi-
tional ministers of religion in certain populous dis-
tricts." We presume -that this is the measure of
Church Extension"- which we are to expect from the
present government. At all events, it is an indication
of the mode in which the aid of the state is proposed
to be extended, by government, to the effort for in-
creasing the existing church accommodation for the
people; and, as such, it is worth while asking how far
it is likely to meet the emergency, in which the cry for
Church Extension has been so loudly raised.
Any aid towards the building of churches, in any
district, it is plain, is not contemplated. The govern-
ment confines its efforts to the providing of " addi-
tional ministers of religion." The community suffer-
ing under destitution of the means of Church worship
must find its own church; the state is asked only to
provide clergymen. We certainly cannot deny that,
to some extent, this is a boon. It is something gained,
at all events. It tends to lessen the evil complained of
—spiritual destitution; but it goes no further. It goes
not to affirm the principle, for which churchmen con-
tend, that it is the bounden duty of the state to care
for the religion, as it cares for the health and good
order, of the community. It proceeds, in fact, upon a
pre-supposition that the voluntary principle is suffi-
ciently active for the providing of churches ; and that
all which it is necessary for the state to do is to provide
for members of the clergy to minister in them. In the
abstract it may be good that we should receive such
aid, for we do not except against the Church Pastoral
Aid, or any other society, which thus endeavours to
aVance the cause of the church to which we belong.
But we must confess our doubts whether such is the
direction in which a Conservative government should
meet the cry for Church Extension. The destitution
of which we complain is not such, and in such locali-
ties, as will tempt private parties to build churches.
What we want are churches and endowments in locali-
ties where individual efforts are not to be looked for.
What we want is that, wherever there are souls to be
saved, and destitute of the means to provide for public
worship, there the means of grace—churches and pas-
tors as well—should be provided. But this is not what
Sir Robert Peel's measure contemplates.
It is only intended to endow "additional ministers of
the Church of England in certain populous places."
If it were necessary, we believe that we could point out
what are these " certain populous places." I'hey are ,
undoubtedly such places as Ashton, Hyde, Stalybridge,
Dukinfield; &c.—places of vast population in the ma-
nufacturing districts, and, we may add, of vast wealth
also ; and though in such places we shall gladly re-
ceive the aid of the government, in providing pastors,

we should much prefer receiving its aid in what may

be legitimately called " Church Extension." We have
no doubt as to the good which !Hay be done, even by
the providing of endowments for churches to be built
by voluntary efforts ; but we should much prefer
rinciple established, which the advo-

seeing the broad

cates of Church Extension have in view, by the erec-
tion of churches by government, in which the poor
have an equal right to worship, and pewholders' sub-

scriptions are less the object in view

The people of Ireland have, of course, always a

zrievance ;

but we must confess we cannot see the

pertinence of the c

as well as Radical in the cause of repeal
Ile most recent offence against the Irish amor patria
is the preference given to a Scotch tradesman of the
name of Croal over every other competitor for the
supply of mail-coaches for Ireland, the inducement
being that the said :Nit. Croal had agreed to execute

which is just now uniting Co:

servatlve

tip rut ttla oxiatemo ut suet a Witco.' proval

by the concurrence of these gentlemen in a common

struggle for a purely Irish object, undertaken in com-
pliance with a general burst of feeling from Ireland ?"
Now what is the grievance ? A contract, for the
supply of mail coaches for the Irish post-office, thrown
open, (as for years it has been), to the public of Great
Britain and Ireland, has been given to a non-Irish con-
tractor. The same contract has for years past been
enjoyed by Mr. Purcell, of Dublin, who has been all

this time perfectly at liberty to enjoy any English con-
tract, and has tried for many ! But because an Eng-
lish, or rather a Scotch contractor is willing this year
to perform the requirements of government—a united
government of a united kingdom—for some ten thousand.
pounds less, we have Conservatives even, in Ireland, so
absurd as to protest against his being permitted to do
so, and apparently ready to swell the O'Connell cry of
" Repeal of the Union!" Surely this is very much
too bad!

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Eng-
lish people, in all ages, has been a love of justice,
combined with an utter detestation of inquisitorial
practices in the administration of the laws. In no
country are life, property, social order, and morality,
looked upon as more sacred than in this ; in no coun-
try is the criminal, who has violated their security,
looked upon with less of sympathy; and yet, much as

we may abhor the crime, and spurn at him who has
committed it, we are not ready to allow punishment to
be inflicted except upon conviction, by means of evi-
dence the most undoubted, and after the most strict
observance of every regulation which the law has pro-
vided. To the most atrocious offender we accord, or
wish to accord, fair play—an open trial, in the face of
his fellow-countrymen ; and we do believe that, such
is the extent to which this love of impartial justice is
carried by the vast mass of the people, that the escape
from punishment of a criminal, whose crime had been
almost universally acknowledged, would be received,
and is received, with less of dissatisfaction than would
attend his conviction. by means of the straining of one
of those salutary forms, with which the constitution
has hedged round the liberty of the subject.
To what, except the existence of such a feeling, and
an impression that it had been outraged, are we to at-
tribute a scene which occurred in our Criminal Court
last week, on the occasion of the acquittal of a young
man named Henry, who had been arraigned for the
crime of arson ? We are informed that the verdict of
" not guilty," returned by the jury after only " a few
minutes consideration," was " hailed with loud applause
by the spectators, and that the qfficers of the court en-
deavoured in vain, for a few moments, to curb this mani-
festation of feeling. As soon as the crowd outside
learned the verdict, they also cheered." (.9 Manifestly,
there was nothing, in the nature orrtheLcrime or the
station of the criminal, to excite so,extraordinary a dis-
play of popular sympathy. There is nothing in the
crime of ARSON to excite any other feeling than de-
testation against the party found practising it ; and
the accused, HENRY, was comparatively an obscure
young man. Yet his acquittal. was " hailed with loud
applause," both in court and by the crowd outside,—
by persons alike detesting the crime imputed, and un-
acquainted with the person accused ! The only ground,
therefore, upon which we can account for a circum-
stance, so unusual—whether we look at the solidity of
the English character, or at the grave decorum which
ordinarily pervades the proceedings of a British court
of justice,—is the existence of some impression, upon
the mind of the public, that justice was in some way
outraged in the person of the unknown individual in
question.

It is not our purpose here to enter into the enquiry
whether justice had been so attempted to be outraged
or not. The verdict of the jury was no doubt " a
true verdict according to the evidence ;" there can be
as little doubt that all the evidence possible to be pro-
cured, and all the legal (?)' ingenuity, to bring that evi-
dence to bear in a conclusive shape upon the case, was
put in requisition; but, although such verdict was that
the accused was "not guilty" of the charge alleged
against him, ancilittempted to be substantiated by such
an array of police acumen, we are not about to argue
that no prosecution should have been instituted. It
was not, either, that the verdict had been rightly or
wrongrnliy- rPturned—that the evidence of the various,
witnesses had been wrongfully or rightfully delivered—
which gave rise to the explosion of sympathy at the
conclusion of the trial ; but, solely, a feeling of satis-
faction that a case had failed, which the public thought
had been improperly, and some would say, unconsti-
tutionally got up, and urged against the prisoner.
How was this case gat up, and by whom ? The
parties suffering through the alleged arson—the in_
surance office—were not the parties moving in the
prosecution. Why was this ? Possibly the insurers
were not possessed of that peculiarly keen scent, which
enables a commissioner of police to trace crime out of
the circumstance, somewhat ordinary, of a tradesman's
having, in these days of scheming and cutting, been
driven to the facilities of the auction-room, to raise the
means of meeting his payments; for this, in fact, is
the only portion of the evidence offered which appears
to us at all to justify the prosecution. These gentle-
men were not of opinion that a case of suspicion pre-
sented itself, sufficiently strong to warrant them in de-
priving of his liberty, even•temporarily, an individual
who, for anything which appears to the contrary, had
incurred suspicion by no previous ill-conduct. They
had no incentive for the display of that exceeding inge-
nuity, which can string together the disjointed and
trumpery evidence of apple-women and policemen into
a charge sufficiently strong to place human life in jeo-
pardy ; and had the whole matter been left to them, or
to the ordinary working of our criminal law, we may
safely say that there would have been no prosecution at
all! The case in question, therefore, fell into the
hands of a paid public officer—becaine, in fact, a police
prosecution throughout .--the virtual prosecutor being
the representative of the board •of police, and police-
men being the principal witnesses; and it is, as such,
that it was--and we trust that the feeling will not
readily die away from the minds of Englishmen—a
peculiarly distasteful prosecution ; and that its failure
was matter of gratification to the public.

The people of Liverpool, it is plain;—and the people
of England at large, we believe,—are not enamoured
of a practice which, if carried out, would virtually
place the liberty of the subject at the disposal of any
police official whose ambition to distinguish himself
by superior cleverness is in an inverse ratio with his
discretion. A police force unquestionably we must
have; so long as crime exists amongst us ; a force for
the detection of that crime, and the protection of life
and property. We presume, too, that a Commissioner
of Police is a necessary evil ; but we must pray that
the duty of a public prosecutor may be removed far,
very far, from the hands of gentlemen exercising the
duties which we conceive to belong to such a character.

It will be found, by reference to our news of the
day, that another of the West India Mail Steam-ships,
the " Solway," has been totally wrecked, with a lamen-

table loss of life, on some sunken rocks about 20 miles
to the westward of Corunna. This is the third ship

of the same line, the destruction. of which, with its
attendant calamities in each case, the country has to
deplore ; and, we may truly say, without impugning
the conduct or character of the commanders of these
vessels or their directors, that, whether in respect of
shipwreck, or disappointment to the public in their
anticipated dispatch and consequent advantages to the
mercantile community connected with our West India
colonies, and the neighbouring stations in South Ame-
rica at which they were bound to call, the undertaking
has been singularly unfortunate.
Many valuable Eves have, it will be found, been
brought to a premature close by the loss of the Sol Way.
With none of them had we any personal or other ac-
quaintance, with the exception of her commander, Mr.

Charles Duncan, who was well known and highly

esteemed in this port, and to whose memory we are
painfully called upon to pass a tribute of respect. Mr.
Duncan was the son of the late Mr. Duncan of Holy-
head, long a sailing master in the Royal Navy. He
became connected as an officer with the Transatlantic
Steam-ships of this port from nearly the commence-

lent of their running, hating served successively in

the "Liverpool," in•the "Acadia," and in the "Presi-
dent,"—which last vessel he left along with' Captain
Fayrer, now of the " Forth," West India mail-ship.
He added to the skill and bravery, all the generosity
of the true British seaman, and was beloved both by
officers and crew. —He was an admirable swimmer,

to toyer 4pitrat hinvieit to borvo the )iveN of othera

danger. in I

Alen in wren a very young man,
he rendered great assistance in saving the crews of two
brigs in Holyhead Bay. In company with another
volunteer, while he was with the " Liverpool," he
saved the life of a man who had fallen overboard
in the Atlantic in a gale of wind, and regained the
vessel, with his prize, at imminent peril. In the
summer of 1841, at midnight, he jumped over-
board in Kingston harbour from the " President"
steam-ship (also Capt. Fayrer,) and saved a man and a
boy from a watery grave. The writer of this was on
board at the time. The passengers and officers on
board immediately afterwards presented him with a
silver snuff-box, with a suitable inscription ; and, on
the representation of a friend (for he was too modest
to make any personal application,) the gold medal of
the Shipwreck and Humane Society of this town was
awarded to him. On a subsequent occasion he endea-
voured, while with the " President," to save the life
ofman who had fallen in the night into the Coburg
Dock, where the ship was lying, but unhappily with-
out his usual success. He was appointed to the com-
mand of the " Solway" soon after her leaving Glasgow
for Southampton, and successfully navigated that ves-
sel until the unfortunate accident which terminated his
mortal career ; with reference to himself, and to those
who perished with him, so emphatically impresses the
sacred truth that—" in the midst of life we are in
death." Mr. Duncan, who had scarcely approached
the middle age, has left a young widow to lament his
loss.