The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-10-02 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

DUBLIN COMMISSION.—The case for the petitioners
closed on Saturday evening, not abruptly, as it is stated
by the radical papers, but advisedly, and in strict accord-
ance with the course of proceeding agreed upon by the
parties two months since. All the classes of votes ob-
jected to had been disposed of, and the result is, that the
clearest evidence has been given, shewing that upwards
of five hundred individuals polled for Messrs. O'Connell
and Rutliven who were legally dis,qualified, and who
possessed no right whatever to the franchise. Of the
nature of the decision no one can entertain a doubt—
no, not even the advisers and supporters . of the sitting
members ; and hence all the-rigmarole about conspira-
cies, and the affectation of horror at the development of
a plot exclusively of their own 'contrivance. That a
conspiracy did exist, and one as deep and flagitious as
ever was concocted, is perfectly true; and that it was
hatched by those who sought to bring discredit on the
petitioners and their case,- is equally- certain. Indeed,
the thing is so perfectly apparent—so self-evident to
every one 'who looks at the case with a dispassionate
eye; (and so morally convinced are we that it will so
appear when the knot comes.to .be unravelled in a court
of justice,) that we shall not condescend to ot&r a word
in defence of those who have been made the subject of
unmitigated slander. The Freeman's Journal of to-day
says:—" Neither Mr. O'COnnell nor his friends and
agents, nor Mr. Costello nor his agent, need the prof-
ferred services of the petitioners and their agents." We
can very well imagine--the object and determination of
the latter being to bring every minute and collateral
branch of this iniquitous plot into the face of open day,
that their " services" may be very inconvenient to those
who have other and different ends in view ;but it will
not do. Mr. West and those engaged with him are
resolved to prosecute with the utmost rigour of the law
those who, for the basest purposes, misled and deceived
him ; and if we are rightly informed, there be some now
before the public who are likely to cut anything than a
respectable figure in the transaction. This is not the
first attempt at gross deception that has been essayed—
although from the extreme ingenuity with which it was
prepared, and the corroborating circumstances by which
it was supported, it. succeeded better than the plan by
which a certain person was to have been the seconder of
Mr. West upon the hustings. The persons engaged in
that plot will understand us, and for the present it is not
necessary that others should.—Dublin Evening Mail.

We learn from the Morning Chronicle, that the Irish
agitator has at least one copyist in the celebration of the
Recess-Saturnalia, when, as by a natural process, the
dregs come uppermost. "On Friday," says our con-
temporary, " the blues of Newark gave a dinner; and
after the multitude had been gratified by walking in pro-
cession around the well•stored tables, tha dinner being a
cold repast, the sergeant, as he is familiarly called by his
friends, entered the hall, which was very tastefully feet_
rated with flowers, flags, &c." It must be owned that
the radicals of Newark are more easily gratified than
their brethren of the north, since the sight of .a cold
dinner, which they are only permitted to look at, serves
the purpose. One hundred and seventy only, it appears,
sat down—the gratification of the rest was the least gross
possible ; awl yet, if we are to believe the reporter, these
abstemious admirers of a cold dinner are commensurate
with all the honest and industrious inhabitants of Newark.,
Well, the 170 sat down to honour, in the person of
Griffith Jenkins, attorney, the fitting representati
their honesty ; and that person, now in the dignV
character of Sergeant WildeAktdressed the compan,

The John Bull reminds us of several public men, the
worst and meanest of wham is degraded by a comparison
with Mr. O'Connell; and one of whom (the late Mr.
Cobbett) is, we think unjustly, placed in such associa-
tion, and otherwise unjustly dealt by—the John Bull, we
say, reminds us of a list of public men who have suc-
cessively .occupied the agitator's stage, without producing
any permant evil to the country. The following is our
contemporary's list :
"The conservative papets play O'Connell's game by talking
of him.
" Do they not recollect that poor Mr. Henry Hunt, the re-
spectable burner of rye and maker of blacking, infinitely a
braver wan, and of a better breed than O'Connell, was once a
great creature, and had a triumphal entry into London? He
saw his folly, and repented—he found that be could do nothing,
and he went out of the world unheeded and disregarded. Cob-
bett, ten thousand times the man that O'Connell ever was, or
ever will be, as to intellect, placed himself on a pinnacle under
every disadvantage. Cobbett made a splendid income of his
talents—not by begging. He did not preach up the'poverty of.
the people, and screw the pence wit of the pockets of the poor;
by the display of talent he acquired a splendid fortune—kicked
down again by speculations, injurious only to himself. He was
a political giant—he died at Barnes of a cold in his head, and it'
a rushlight had gone out, it would have created just as much
sensation. .
_ .

"-Colonel Despard, a gentleman of high character and cou-
rage, went one step beyond these patriots, and linked himself
with the people, and founded a society, consisting of Lander the
cobbler, Broughton the milkman, and God knows how many
other unhappy wretches, for the purPose of murdering the king,
and overturning the government. Dcspard, we say, was a gen-
tleman : he had accomplices—we go farther, and say, we know
those accomplices, and know that they still live—live, loyal and
unsuspected. He might have betrayed them, and saved him-
self—he chose the Roman alternative, and died. Who cared ?
In twenty-four hours after this man and his victims—for his
they were at second-hand--were sledged, hanged, beheaded,
and quartered, no human being cared for them or their fate,
and their names even now are forgotten.
Later came Thistlewood and his associates: their scheme
was of an infernal character—nothing more than annihilating
the cabinet ministers at dinner at my Lord Harrowby's—shoot-
ing the covey sitting—and what a disclosure of feelings and
principles was there then made. There was a hitch in the plot
—one fellow could not be ready to bring up the artillery from a
depot in Gray's Inn-lane, because he had to carry home a pair
of shoes at seven o'clock; another man could not undertake to
seduce a battalion of the guards, because he had to go round
with milk to his customers ; and yet Thistlewood, an extremely
clever man and a good orator, had the power to enchain these
men, and lead them to an enterprise wh,ch was as nearly suc-
cessful as possible.
" What happened to this man ? He was a patriot, and
idolized by the ' unwashed;' and when he was tried and con-
victed, the ' unwashed' said, • Hang Mr. Thistlewood
NEVER. ! ' !' and we perfectly remember it being currently
reported that this' would-be deliverer of his country would
never he executed, or if lie were, it must be on the top of New-
gate, for that two hundred thousand men were ready to rescue
him, or die, if he were hung in the ordinary place of execution.
" When the morning came, the illustrious patriot was hanged,
exactly as every other murderous scoundrel had been hanged
oreviously, upon the new drop in the middle of the Old Bailey.
His head was cut off, and held up as the head of a traitor, and
the same process was performed upon all the rest of the party
who had proposed to drop in sans facon at Lord Harrowby's
dinner; and sn perfectly indifferent was the mob to the signs,
that—it is positively true—towards the end of the protracted
execution, the mob, who tame to weep, began to laugh.

" Why, what is O'Connell more or less than these, as to po-
pularity ?"—Standard.

An erratic body was discovered early in ,the morning
of yesterday, (25th inst.) .in the direction of Largs; but
the morning being wet and cloudy, an accurate observa-
tion, from the passing glimpse obtained of it, was im-
practicable. It has been seen, however, in many other
places; and the best astronomers are of! opinion, that its
orbit is absolutely unique—that its body is not self-lumi-
nous, appearing biggest when in 'opposition—and that
the radiance or tail (a long one, though little of it seen
here) is like the body of the Comet itself, a lucid vapour,
so diaphonons that.even without the aid of a glass it may
be readily seen through. This Comet has been distinctly
visible from the Calton Hill Observatory, the Glasgow
Observatory, and the Brisbane Observatory at Largs ;
and though from the latter seen at an early hour in the
morning, it has appeared a la soirée in other parts of the
land. The tail of this Comet will be gradually seen
lengthening as it advances towards the west, and some
astronomers are even afraid,. that, from the immense
length 'of that tail, its vast tendency to ignition, and its
coming so much- in contact with some parts of our
Planet, the British Isles may be scorched, or even, in
some places, set on fire. There seems to be some differ-
ence of opinion among astronomers, about the period of
its return—it being so very erratic, that they have no
data on which to ground any thing like accuracy of calcu-
lation as to its time of re-appearing; and its return,
attended with so much risk, that they trust if it does
appear.again, like many other luminous bodies' of .that
description, it will be after a long interval, and when
shorn of its ignious heatns. There is supposed by some
to be a peculiarity in the Jaws of attraction, as regards
this Comet, and it is supposed we are likely to have some
interesting remarks upon this subject front the scientific
pen of a Brewster, who, through the aid of a few good
glasses, has had better opportunities than most philo-
sophers of viewing the Comet in the greatest proximity.
But others again believe, and I think more correctly,
that the same laws of attraction by which the other parts
of our -Planetary system are regulated, may be also
traced to, the O'Connell Comet—namely, "that the ten-
dency of bodies to be arttacted towards it is in the
inverse ratio of their magnitude." -
P.S. The above Comet will be seen to great advan-
tage in the Papal States.
, 26th Sept.,

Duelling and the Laws of Honour examined, upon the
Principles of Common Sense and Revealed Truth.
By J. C. BLIJETT. London : Seely and Co., Fleet-

street.

In this volume the author has embodied all the argu-
ments that have been advanced—perhaps all that can be
adduced—against the practice of duelling. Although we
are not disposed to enter the lists with Mr. Bluett in de-
fence of duels on slight and trivial, or, indeed, on any
occasion, we much question whether duelling be an evil
of sufficient magnitude to require his interference, parti-
cularly at a time when there are no good grounds for sup-
posing it to be on the increase. In seeking to improve
the moral and religious feeling of the people, we should
not altogether overlook their manners, by which the for-
mer are.so powerfully influenced. The dread of sum-
mary- vengeance, the fear of being called to a personal
account, the horror of sustaining an argument at twelve
paces distance from an antagonist, with the chance of be.-
ing silenced by the touch of a ltair trigger, represses
those wrongs seising from intemperance of speech and
action and a thousand other imOertinences and insults
which no positive laws can prevent or adequately punish.
The professed duellist may be very safely left to the
punishment invariably inflicted upon him—the scorn and
contempt of the world.