The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-10-11 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

Cbe Eibtrpool .tanbarti.

FRIDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 11, 1833.

It was only in our second edition of Tuesday that we
were enabled to confirm the important news relative to
the death of FERDINAND VII., King of . Spain. His
MAJESTY died on the afternoon of Michaelmas day.
In consequence of this demise, and the fear of civil
war in. Spain, the French funds have fallen nearly two
per cent., and the English funds about one per cent.
Orders have already been issued for augmenting the
French army, and it is confidently stated that a corps
of observation will forthwith be stationed on the Spanish
frontier. It is likewise reported that Don CARLOS, the
claimant, in opposition to his niece, the infant daughter
of the late king, has entered Spain, and has been pro-
claimed king in Catalonia.
At all events it is the universal opinion that a great
struggle is about to commence in that interesting but
unfortunate country. The Salic law has prevailed in
Spain since the time of PIIILIP V. until last year,
when it was repealed by FERDINAND, in order to secure
the succession to his daughter, an infant between three
'and four years of age. The invidious nature of this re-
versal of the order of succession, when CARLOS was heir
presumptive, and the father also of sons, is the worst
part of the proceeding, and which is likely to lead to that
contest which all Europe would have reason to deplore.
France will of course take part with the female infant,
instigated thereto by mere selfishness on the part of
Louts PHILIPPE; but as the motive of this sucker of the
Bourbons will be easily penetrated, and as he and his
family are universally despised, (some proofs of which
we give in another place,) it is questionable how far the
army will aid in supporting his narrow but ambitious
policy.
It is obvious, however, that this demise will effect an
important change in the face of affairs in Portugal. Don
CARLOS and Don MIGUEL are both embarked in the same
cause, and will be found ere long fighting the same bat-
tle. It is singular, we must confess, that we have no
certain Intelligence from Lisbon of a later date than the
17th of September. But it matters not. No news, to
say the least, is not good news to PEDRO; while the
death of FERDINAND is the most unfortunate event that
could have happened. We wait, therefore, with some
anxiety the arrivals of the next few days. If Boun-
MONT has committed the command of Don MIGUEL'S
army into other hands, the cause
.is easily found in the
occurrences now explained. We may depend-UPon it
that he has not quitted the lines without leaving an able
general in his room.
LOUIS PHILIPPE may well feel uneasy in his new
position, for the cause of CARLOS in Spain, and of MI-
GUEL in Portugal, is the cause of HENRY V. in France.
Before these conflicting claims are all severally adjusted,
the English funds, we suspect, will have to undergo,
many serious transitions.

We have already alluded to the unpopularity of Louts
PHILIPPE and his family in the north of France. On
that occasion we published an extract of a private letter
from St. Omer, written by a sincere admirer of the Citi-
zen King, in which the cold reception of the Duke of
ORLEANS and his brother, at a grand review in that
neighbourhood, was graphically and sensitively described.
Another letter of a later date, (St. Omer, sth Oct., 18330
from the same correspondent, alluding to the same visit
of the Princes, says,—

" They were obliged to accept the only entertainment offered
to them, which was a ball given by a very rich pipe-maker and his
wife, the daughter of a Calais milliner, all the nobility, being
Carlists, having left St. Omer to avoid them ! The partners
selected by the two princes (there being no female persons of
sufficient consequence present) were the daughters of a retired
officer and a London bookseller. This elated our countrymen,
who threatened to give them a ball on the Monday following,
but this being de trop, the two neglected youths, instead of at-
tending a grand review which had been arranged for them, went
to Boulogne—and so ended the visit of royalty to us."

We suspect that there will be an end of something else
soon, and the safer course for LOUIS PHILIPPE to pursue
would be to make way for HENRY V. with as little delay
as possible. When the French Government are so con-
scious of their weakness as to order a watch to be kept
upon the Duchess de BERRI and a-poor steam.bcat, they
must be in a bad way.

Most of our readers, we presume, have heard of that
strange compound of fiction, eccentricity, and absurdity,
the late JEREMY BENTHAM ; and many of them, we also
presume, are aware that this JEREMY BENTHAM previ-
ous to his death, and of course before his dissection—
for dissected by the surgeons' hands the philosopher li-
terally was—bequeathed to one Dr. BOWRING, the
whole interest which he (BENTIim) had in the Westmin-
ster Review. This BOWRING was a sort of philosopher
in a small way himself. BENTHAM was to BOWRING
what tile ETTRICK SHEPHERD was to his dog, with this
dissimilarity, that they did not go to church together.
BOWRING was the Editor of the Westminster Review,
but the bequest of his patron made him a proprietor as
well. Having been reared in the Benthamite school lie
naturally enough became a publicist and a politician—a
profound dogmatist on law, morals, and social govern-
ment—and last, not least, a poet of transcendant origi-
nality, having been for some time the accredited Eng-
lish versifier of the ancient and modern bards of Mag-
yar and Yahoo.

But it is only in his character as a reviewer and an
employe of the present administration that Dr. BOWRING
is particularly known to us. During the hurricane of the
reform bill he aspired to a seat in the House of Com-
mons, and offered himself upon Whig principles; but,
unfortunately for the world, the worthy electors could not
discern his merits, and he was unceremoniously rejected.
Whether the honourable candidate spent any money on the
occasion we cannot tell, or whether the treasury, having
guaranteed his return, were, in consequence, bound to
make him compensation, is also to us a secret ; but this
far we know, that, soon afterwards, Dr. BOWRING was
despatched on one of the most extraordinary missions to
France that ever was contrived in the annals of jobbing.
For the last two or three years the defeated candidate
has been studying arithmetic and book-keeping in the
bureaux of Paris, for the benefit of the British nation
In this, the greatest mercantile and commercial country
in the world, no man, it would appear, is deemed compe-
tent to instruct Lord ALTHORP how to keep his finance
accounts. The Whigs send to Paris, not only for their
principles, but also for their counting-house forms.—
BOWRING is employed at a salary of from £l,OOO to
£1,500 a year in teaching how to rule, square, divide,
check, and balance the Treasury books, and, in order
that he should have enough to do, and that his salary
might continue like a pension for life, he was further in-
structed to collect evidence at Lyons with respect to the
silk trade, for the benefit of Mr. PouLETT THOMSON, al-
though he (BowurNG) knew just as much of silk as Mr.
SILK BUCKINGHAM does of Greek, or Mr. JOHN GULLY
of the five predicables of Aristotle. We can understand
the KEY job, the WOOD job, the RUSHTON job, the PARKES
job, and five hundred other vile and barefaced jobs, but
the BOWRING job is quite beyond our limited compre-
hension.

Be this, however, as it may, the job is staring us in
the face; the protege of JEREMY BENTHAM is in the re-
ceipt of his pay, and still continues Editor of the West-
minster Review. In this capacity, or rather in that of a
Whig pensioner, BOWRING may be presumed to be
friendly to the present administration. His reproofs in
the Reriew must be taken to be the gentle admonitions
of a sincere and grateful friend. He cannot, surely,
like the merchant of Venice, take monies of the Jew
and spit upon him for his liberality. He cannot surely
eat his patron's beef, and at the same time, like LEIGH
MINT, betray his weaknesses, or slander his reputation.
And yet, in good sooth, what we are about to notice
gives strong indications of something as radically repul-
sive.

But to keep the reader no longer in suspense, we
have to state that the Westminster Review for this pre-
sent month of October contains an article, evidently from
the pen of BOWRING, replete with the peculiar slang of
the salons of Paris, and apparently written in that city
of slavery, in which article Lord GREY, his col
leagues, and the Reform Bill—the darling bill !—the
healing measure !—are torn to pieces after the most ap-
proved manner of Indian warfare. The matter is ve-
nomous, but charity forbids us from predicating that the
motive is malicious. We are bound to assume that the
Doctor writes in the pure spirit of friendship; but if
what follows be friendly, what in the name of Plato
must unalloyed enmity be? The article to which we al.
Jude is entitled The Gone-by Session, and its " dulcet
notes" are these :

Page 388.—" There is not, nor has there been, a more awk-
ward thing in nature, or human works, than the present House
of Commons. The mob of Rome might be counted upon with
as much certainty, and guided by reason to the full as easily as
this mob of gentlemen. The medium kind of thing by them
called a reformed Parliament has demonstrated its capacity for
good to be midway between helplessness and mischief; if between
these stages a difference can be found. In after times the past
session will be styled for distinction's sake the first session of
the do-nothing Parliament, or the session of the shearing of the
hogs."
Page. 408.—" There would have been a disposition to rely on
the Ministers to some certain extent. Now nobody has faith
either in their honesty or firmness."
Page 423.—" The Whigs indeed are to be feared. Avowers
of good and doers of mischief. Ignorant, self-sufficient, wanting
honest. enthusiasm, what reliance can the people put on them ?
Let the events of the session speak for them? The people have
been in fault certainly for chusing such a house."
- Page 430.—" The men who govern the country look neither
behind nor before them. The whole world is to them the little
spot on which they stand, eternity the moment present. They
hare not principle, and are crushed by detail. They are content
to mend a small hole, when all the rest of their vessel is ready
to break out, and give them another and another hole to mend.
They are the men who put new wine into old bottles, when it
would cost us little both of time and money to have new."

This is the language of pure friendship—homely and
coarse, but true ! It must have required some nerve
untouched by a £lOOO a year to have spoken out so
plainly. The people of the Times newspaper could not
write more savagely against the Whigs if the Tories
were once more in office. The following is equally in
the philosophic strain:

Page 402.—" The divisions on questions of taxation have
been the chief skirmishes of the session. The same hesitating
policy, or want of policy, has been shown by the ministers in this
as in other branches of parliamentary business. They have re-
sisted first and then have yielded. If a general should take the
field, unprepared as they have done ;—if, for instance, he should
transmit one report of his plan of operations, when he knew,
or did not know, that he meant to change it next day for ano-
ther, as the ministry did to the West Indies, and should be
guilty of meeting the enemy without plan or purpose, he would
be broken without mercy."

Page 39.—" The very first act of the ministry in the house
betrayed feebleness or treachery."

The next extract personally concerns Dr. BOWRING
himself. The reader has already been made acquainted
with the nature of his avocations in Paris, and the fol-
lowing is a rather splenetic commentary thereon :
Page 400.—" There is one point which is even of. greater
value than retrenchment; it should have been the first step to it
—the establishment of a business-like system of accounts. Have
the ministers completed their plan for the reform of the Ex-
chequer ? And if so, why has it not been produced to the house?
Think of a nation carrying on its business with accounts that
would disgrace a huckster! The measure has been promised
for two sessions; the happy new year will probably have the
good fortune of bringing forward another indication of its
birth."

There is more in the above than meets the eye. The
book-keeping reforms of the Doctor have not been pro-
duced to the House! This is the sore point. Lord AL-
THORP seems to set no value upon BOWRING'S new sys-
tem of accounts. It is quite possible that the noble
Lord does not understand them ; it is also possible that
other persons more competent than his Lordship are
equally impervious to the accountant's explanations, and
there may be some hardy enough to whisper that they
are nonsensical, empirical, and impracticable. In this
latter case it is easy to account for the Reviewer's bitter-
ness. His hobby is spavined and won't go, and Bow-
RING imagines that this is more owing to the ministerial
rider than the poor hack herself. Of course we are un-
able to decide who is right and who wrong. The only
way to amend the matter is to continue the Doctor in
the public service for a few years longer, and instruct
him to write a quarto volume in elucidation of his hi-
therto neglected improvements. When this is done,
and some five or ten thousand pounds more are ex-
pended upon the job, the public will be in a condition to
decide which is the greater blockhead--=the minister or
his man 1

We shall only trouble the reader with one more e x
tract, and have done. The doctor is a poor man and a
defeated candidate, and, therefore, on the subject. to
which he refers, speaks, or, we should rather say, writes,
feelingly :

Page 389 and 390.—" If there be not a sufficient number of
men fit, then let the constituencies offer pay. And after all,
this is the best way, and the only way to obtain true talent.
Many -well-meaning persons apprehend that adventurers will
start up. Who is an adventurer ? Every man whose progress
depends on his exertions and his talents."

In this we detect the modesty of the veteran jobber
and the usual hankering after money. They al e always
looking after the pay. It is not that which goeth out of
the head, but what comes into the pocket, which concerns
the modern patriot. The money ! the money ! is the
thing. They are not content with plundering the public
by means of a ministerial job, they are anxious also to
prey upon their constituents individually. WHITTLE
HARVEY, FAITHFUL of Brighton, WHALLEY of Mary-
le-bone, and some twenty others, are perpetually calling
out for pay, and BOWRING joins in the cry in the hope
that something may turn up for him.
But the Doctor's definition of an adventurer is equally
amusing and characteristic, for no one is more compe-
tent to speak authoritatively on the subject than himself.
"An adventurer," he says, is a man " whose progress
depends on his exertions and his talents." 1 Be it so,
Doctor; but then, by your own definition, an adven-
turer is a thief. A swindler on the stock exchange is an
adventurer. A clever rogue who picks pockets is an
adventurer. A government underling who trades in the
funds is an adventurer. A minister who deals in tallow
or barilla is an adventurer. Louis PHILIPPE of Paris is
an adventurer, and so is Don PEDRO. But the most
dangerous and most detestable adventurer of all is the
man who panders to dile mob for the sake of popularity,
who favours every delusion in or4er to gain admirers,
who:professes liberality, but is whuily influenced by a love
of pelf, and who pledges himself to remove mountains,
merely that he may be enabled to deal in corruption.
The Doctor may apply the definition to himself in any
way he pleases.

The old factory system has been brought once more
under review in a horrid case of cruelty which occurred
at a flax-mill in the vicinity of Leeds. A poor boy, it
appears, was partly beaten and partly strangled to death,
and a coroner's inquest has returned a verdict of man-
slaughter against the overlooker by whom the injuries
were inflicted. This, as far as we remember, is the first
case that has come within the reach of the law since the
memorable inquiry conducted by Mr. SADLER. The re-
sult of that inquiry was a volume of evidence, replete
with acts of cruelty, torture, long-continued oppressions,
long-tolerated vices, and disgusting demoralization. The
case before us is, of course, an isolated one, and it occurs
in the worst locality ; but we have this advantage in
founding any arguments upon it, that the facts stated are
given upon oath, in an open court, before a disinterested
and impartial judge, with counsel present to cross-exa-
mine the witnesses, 'and conduct, the defence. This cir-
cumstance removes all suspicion with respect to preju-
dice or passion on either side ; and as the facts are incon-
trovertible, all that remains to be done is for humanity to
say whether such a system should be suffered to exist.

The treatment which the poor boy, now in his grave,
experienced at the hands of the overlooker, JOSEPH RAT-
CLIFFE, is thus described by two or three witnesses.
For instance :

" About a fortnight before he left Mr. Walker's (the mill in
question) the heckles had broken at his machine. The deceased
then went to fetch a ladder to get some new heckles, which were
in a cupboard some yards from the floor, and by accident he
pulled some of them down with his smock. The overlooker,
Joseph Ratcliffe, who was at the machine, then went and took
the ladder (which was a light one) and struck the deceased at
the back of the neck with it; he fell on the floor."
"On another occasion the overlooker pulled some flax out of
his holder, and told him it was not screwed tight enough. The
long brush was near him ; he took it up, and struck him over
the head and shoulders with the shaft. The deceased had not
done or said any thing before he was struck. The witness could
see the overlooker pull it out, and he said he should screw the
holder tighter. He then struck him three or four times very
heavy blows; he cried out, and the more he cried out he laid on
heavier."

This is bad enough, but the crowning cruelty remains
to be told:—

" The deceased and myself and some of the boys were playing
in a shed in the yard in the. morning whilst the bell rang, and
we pulled some mats down, When the .bell rang we went to
work; the overlooker called him up to him, and said something
to him. which I did not hear. He then called the rest up. I
was one of them. The deceased then said he could not think of
all of them that had been playing. He pointed some of us
out. The overlooker inquired about the mats. We told him
we had been playing. He then payed us with the rope over the
back. Knew the rope, because I had been payed before with it.
We went to our work, but the deceased stopped with the over-
looker.—(The Witness here produced a rope about a yard and a
half long, which he bad brought from the shop.)—The overlooker
put the "loose, made to slip, round the neck of the deceased, he threw
the other ore,' the steam-pipe, drew the deceased up, and let him
hang there for three or four minutes, with his feet about two or
three feet from the ground, and his body about two feet from the
pipe; he then let him fall on the floor with the rope round his neck,
took it (II; struck him on the back, and sent him to his work. Worked
all the day. I heard him complain of ,his neck being stiff that
day. He came to his work atter that two or three days, but
never came again, He came to his work about a fortnight after
the time he was struck with the ladder and the brush-handle.—
After that he left for good, now about twenty-nine weeks since.
Saw him several times struck with the rope over his head by the
same overlooker before he was struck with the ladder. 'First
heard him complain of the pain in his neck that day ho was
hung by the neck. The weight of his body hung by the rope.
The rope is kept on purpose to beat us with."
Will it be said that the owners of the mill did not know
that such a rope " was kept on purpose g " But let this
pass. The concluding evidence is that of Mr. Swim,
the surgeon to the Leeds Infirmary. He states : •

"idly attention was called to him as a case of most serious
injury produced by blows. I examined and found him in a state
of hopeless palsy. I found a trifling swelling at the back part of
the neck, below the setting on of the head; that was the whole
of the external appearance. I have, since his death, examined
him, in conjunction with Mr. Win. Hey. On dissecting the
muscles at the back part of the neck the scalpel penetrated the
sac of an abscess, from which a quantity of thick matter was
evacuated. We found caries of the spinous process of the se-
cond vertebrae, and also of the transverse processes of the fourth,
fifth, and sixth vertebrw. There was also a considerable thick-
ening of the membranes covering the spinal marrow. The
abscess which was first opened communicated with the spinal
canal, and the spinal marrow would in consequence be com-
pressed just above the part from which the nerves are trans-
mitted to the superior extremities • that would produce the palsy
of which I have spoken. lam inclined to believe that this disease
has been produced by external injury. A heavy blow inflicted
about the neck is likely to produce such a disease. I think it
might produce the same effect if the boy had been suspended by
the necicfor two or three minutes; I should think a mere fall not
calculeted to do it. We attribute the primary cause of death
to that disease of the spine which I have mentioned. The injury
which he had received has been the immediate cause of his death."
Mr. Wm. lIEy, the other medical:witness, states, that
the boy was "dreadfully emaciated," and was, when he
saw him, in the "most helpless and loathsome condition
which any human being could be reduced to !" The
jury, it is true, have returned a verdict of " manslaugh-
ter" against JOSEPH RATCLIFFE, but are JOSEPH'S em-
ployers to escape? The evil is not in individuals more
or less ferocious, but in the system ; and so long as ropes
are allowed to be " kept for the purpose," the rope ought
to be applied to the owners of it, as the real offenders.

We refer our readers to a letter on the sugar trade,
under the signature of "A West Indian," given in our
present number, which will well repay the trouble of
perusal, by those who take any interest in the affairs of
the colonies. As the facts are important, so is the rea-
soning, throughout our correspondent's letter, most judi-
cious. He is evidently master of his subject; and has
taken a rational and business-like view of the question,
with reference to production, consumption, and revenue.
In the second part of Blackwood for the present month,
under the title of "British Tropical Colonies," and in
the form of a letter to Mr. STANLEY, as colonial secre-
tary, we also find a luminous and most comprehensive
view of colonial affairs, which is not restricted to the
concerns of the British colonies, but is carried over
those of all other countries in the western world, in-
cluding the United. States. This letter is from the
pen of that most able and intelligent writer Mr.
JAMES M'QUEEN of Glasgow; of whom it is not too
much to say, that, in extent and value of information
relative to the colonies, he has no equal. It was
our wish to have made some extracts from this ar•
title; but the facts and arguments are so interwoven,
that we are unable to take any moderate portion which
shall conclude the branch of the subject upon which it
treats; and the whole article the press of general mat-
ter for our columns will not admit of our giving. It is,
therefore, our intention to embody some of the impor-
tant facts contained in Mr. ITQUEEN'S letter into our
own statements ; which we should, however, be ashamed
to do, without acknowledging the channel from which
we derive them,, and the diligepve,. research, and talent
displayed in -their 'original compilation,

.OGTO ELF .11, 18:13:

LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS.

We have received the twelfth volume of Valpy's 'PlaYs
Poems of Shakspearc, with illustrations from Boydell's
and we need only say that this elegant and popular work OW
tains, as it advances, the strong claims which it made atllo
upon public patronage. The present volume contains Anton/
and Cleopatra and Cymbeline.
The fourth number of Valpy's National Gallery of
and sculpture has also come to hand, and a more bcol'
work at so modest a price we have seldom or never seat'.

NEWEST LONDON FASHIONS.

( From the Warld of Fashion, a Monthly Magarilie.)

MORNING DRESSES.—ChaIys have yielded for the ma het
Indian silks, which imitate the foulard so closely, as fq
taken for it. The favourite patterns arf, very full of colltril
we have, however, remarked some very beautiful dressei ;co
black ground, and two roses, thrown at a little distance
each other, one pink, the other feuille 'none • this same pit fn
is given also on green and blue, the colour of the roses varVij
accordingly. Redingotes are still very generally worn, lards
until some newer.material appears, they will consist of ibu a rfr.
of the richest shades and colours. Aprons have not lost fas°ll3,
particularly in the country; some are now made of the nnek:
merino, grey, ornamented round with printed patterns in bl 5
some persons give them an additional finish of black lace.
,ed
apron of green gros de Naples, embroidered with black silk eeg
with lace, and Having shoulder-straps united to the belt en ca orii
had a very pretty effect; (the shoulder-straps were also trire_lutiveic
with lace, and gradually widened to the top of the arm-) luthey
ladies wear worked muslin aprons, lined with rose-colour;
are trimmed round, and the pockets edged with narrow lacelig,
EVENING DRESSES.—Those most in favour are black 111111,di
ornamented with various beautiful designs. A brown dress,
a _running pattern of sweet-peas, differently coloured, 'See
charming effect. Full-dress hats are trimmed with blond t.,
and flowers,- Under the brim is worn a deep blond. The Sa
du Levant is still unrivalled: it breathes of the g6rgeous enici
and when the lamp-light falls on the glittering folds, yeue •
a bright Sultana unveiled before you. Th 6 colours of tu'"ila-
quisite material are always of the brightest and softest Islehslue,
FASHIONABLE COLOURS FOR THIS AlONTH.—RayWOßurtior
every shade of bright green, jonquil colour, Marron, Sala&
rose-colour (of a deeper tint,) Bishop's purple, and cherry-0