The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-10-21 00:00:00

FIRE LAST NIGHT.

At about half-past eleven o'clock last night the "patrol
of the Customs" and the watchman of the goods of the
Genova discovered a tarpauling, covering the bunker-hatch
of the screw-steamer Genova, on fire. They immediately
spread the alarm of " fire," and on getting on board
and withdrawing the tarpauling, which was four-fold
over the grating, an immense volume of smoke issued
from the engine-room,—indeed it was so dense that it
was impossible to get below.
With due precaution, the steward, Mr. M'Arthur, and
others present immediately passed the gunpowder, blue-
lights, rockets, and other combustibles, on shore, during
which time, however, buckets were freely used to quell
the devouring element. At a few minutes before twelve
one of the engines arrived, but was not used, as the hose
was attached direct to the main, and, with the head
pressure from the Green-lane Works, gave a plentiful
and powerful supply of water. As the fire was evidently
near the funnel, the outer casing, which is of cast-iron,
was severed, and a branch brought to bear below.
Another branch was afterwards got further forward,
where the fire was apparently extending. After the lapse
of about half an hour, the fire was quelled, but not, we
fear, without the destruction, by water, of a great amount
of cargo.

The Genova is one of M'Kean and M'Larty's line of
screw steamers, and was to have sailed this morning.
Tne engines were tried yesterday, and it is supposed the
fire originated from the spontaneous combustion of some
oily cotton waste in the engine-room.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

SMOKE NUISANCE.—A correspondent, who signs himself "A
Tenant of Twenty Years' Standing," writes from St. John's
Market, complaining of a nuisance arising from the smoke
of fires in the several shops in that emporium, which, he
says, " instead of being emitted from the bole in the roof,
generally makes its escape by the doorway, to the great an-
noyance of the fairer portion of creation." The great com-
plaint is, that "the Markets Committee will not allow occu-
pants to make any alterations, nor do they themselves offer
to promote any improvement." When the gates are closed,
the writer thinks that the market would suit admirably as
a smoke-house for hams, bacon, Sze.; " and concludes by
asking " whether, under the clause in the bye-laws which
prohibits smoking in the markets, the authorities could not
be sued for 40s. and costs?"
SENEX is thanked for his "Philosophy of Bloomerism." We
have, however, one fatal fault to find with this lively essay—

it uses a freedOrn with the fair sex which we cannot sanction.
CONSTANT READER'S favour has been received. We shall
always feel obliged for bits of local information, commercial

or political, interesting to our fellow citizens.
The " Ode to the Corporation" is racy, but too personal. We
cannot be made the instruments of propagating ofensive
innendoes and vague charges against any persons, however
opposed we may be to them in political opinions.
A PROTESTANT'S Letter came too late for insertion this week.
He should have given us his name.
The letter of " Commune Bonum" is in type. but unavoidably

postponed for want of room.
We shall be happy at all times to receive communications
on subjects of local or general interest ; and if our friends
will be good enough to authenticate the same by their signa-
tures, for our own satisfaction, we shall feel obliged.

tiberpoot tattbarb+

TUESDAY MORNING, OCT. 21, 1851.

THE MINISTERIAL DILEMMA.

THE present Government—the Government of all
the compromises, of all the petty shifts, and expe-
dients, and compounds, and failures—is evidently
in a hopeless state of bankruptcy. Scarcely any
one member of it possesses a decent amount of
individual political credit; but the firm collectively
is utterly insolvent. Their legislative bills are va-
lueless as securities, and have been protested over
and over again. Their promises are worthless as
waste paper, or, to use an old but expressive
simile, are notoriously like pie-crusts—made to be

broken. They only make a show of holding toge-
ther, conscious that their doom is sealed, and that
dissolution may overtake them at any moment.
Having spent all their capital, if ever they had any;
having frittered away all they could appropriate;
having dragged on a miserable existence from hand
to mouth—permitted to keep possession cf their
official stools by the generosity of their enemies
and by the forbearance of their creditors—for more
than five inglorious years, they are at length at
their wits' end, and, as a last desperate resource,
are trying to raise a little political fund upon a
comical sort of post-obit bond. But the document
is not negotiable. The gentlemen of the Jewish
persuasion, whom they have so scurvily cheated,
won't put faith in the security; and the profes-
sional liberal bill-discounters know their old clients
and chums too well to trust in a pledge offered in a
moment of extremity, indefinite in amount, and
which most probably will never be, and which they
have reason to think was never intended to be, re-
deemed. In a word, the New Reform loan is not
taken up. Cobden pronounces it a sham, and de-
clares that he would as soon subscribe to a note of
hand of the Autocrat of all the Russias, or of the
Emperor of Austria. Bright won't even look at it.
Milner Gibson shakes his head at it, in the manner
of a man who indicates that he does not think it
worth a button. Hume abuses it in the best and
strongest Saxon terms he can command. Worse
than all this, the people don't care a fig about it,
and remain provokingly indifferent to its fate. It
is curious to note all this; but it is perfectly
natural. Lenders invariably expect to be told
accurately the amount, and time of payment, of
the bond or mortgage upon which they are asked
to advance their money. Why should political
borrowers of capital be exempt from the common
rule ? The pertinent question is daily asked,
What is this New Reform scheme which has been
so suddenly thrown upon the market—what is its
intrinsic value ? But nobody can truly answer.
To be sure there are plenty of puffers who say
anything likely to be agreeable, and who affect to
be able to explain the provisions and clauses of the
mysterious bill. One asserts that it is an ingenious
plan to popularise—that is, vulgarly, to swamp—
the county constituencies. Another that it is a
notable scheme to confer the right of voting, upon
some vague educational test, on certain persons
not householders. A third, that by it the ex-
isting £lO household borough qualification will
be reduced to £8 as in Ireland, and probably
to a lower figure. A fourth will have it that
the fascinating little gem of the Ballot will be
set in it—a concession, it is added, that was not
extorted from the Cabinet until after a life-or-death
struggle. But all this is rank puffery, too palpable
to have the desired effect on the public understand-
ing. It does not deceive a single person, or pro-
cure an additional adherent. These feelers and
agitators don't stir up the quiescent multitude.
Why, the members of the Government themselves
have no idea of the thing which they offer to put
in pawn. They avow as much. The Solicitor-
General, the only member of the administration
who has ventured to touch on the dangerous sub-
ject, has declared that he positively knows nothing
about it ; adding, by way of mollification, that he
feels convinced that whatever shape it may take it
will turn out a " substantial measure." A pretty
lawyer-like definition this for a blind promise to
pay something, at some future time, when conve-
nient ! Lord Palmerston, who has lately spoken
flippantly enough on other general topics, stu-
diously avoided this. His silence was sufficiently
significant. Thus, then, stands the matter. The
Government can't tell what kind of bill or bond
they will be prepared to give on the reassembling
of Parliament, and their usual "liberal supporters"
won't trust in Whig-professed good intentions, and
lend their names to shore- up the fallen credit of
Ministers. Instead of trying to negotiate an un-
derstanding or compromise, as is their usual course,

the parties begin to quarrel. The Government hold

aloof, and affect a mock dignity, but they instruct
the agents to keep peppering the contumacious
Reformers with objurgations and ridicule. In pur-
suance of the instruction, the Examiner sneers at
the politicians of the Manchester school, and taxes
them with personal motives, with disappointed
ambition, and with unbearable presumption and
dictation. The Globe performs its office more
gently, and, mixing entreaties with censures, it
conjures them not to continue the dissolving pro-
cess of last session, assuring them that if they do,

the once redoubted band of Reformers will some
fine morning be found melted into thin air—va-
nished in smoke. To this conjuration is appended

a special pathetic appeal to the tender heart and

feelings of Cobden. He is reminded of former
love-passages. He is asked to recollect that he was
offered the Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade
during the negotiations that followed the dissolu-
tion of Sir Robert Peel's Government in 1846,
which offer he refused, as is intimated, because he

did not think the office equal to his pretensions.
He is told that had he condescended to take the

Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade in 1846, he
would now be a cabinet minister. Is not this
enough to melt a heart of stone ? Should Cobden

remain callous to this tender appeal, he is a man
not of cotton but of adamant. We wait the issue
of this artful dodge, curious to learn whether, after

a little more billing and cooing. and after the in.