The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-06-04 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL BTANbARIi.

THE BIRKENHEAD COMMISSIONERS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
Sria,—ln the Mercury of the 31st ult., appears the re,
• port of the preceedino of the Birkenhead Commissioners
• at their meeting held on Tuesday last. Mr. William
Jackson, the acting chairman, in the course of the obser-
vatious he volunteered on the subject of the " Monk's
Ferry Bill," after complaining " that it was rather grie-
vous to find tl at any individual in Birkenhead who had
been benefitted by the improvements which had been
going forward, should so far aid and abet the Corporation
as to sign a petition against the bill ;" and exonerating
Mr. Edward Willoughby, (for which gracious act of in-
' demnity the exculpated petitioner is, as in duty bound,
no doubt, most profoundly grateful,) continues-1. he was
indeed surprised when he found such men as Mr. Hughes,
with several others, who had profited by the public im-
provements which had been made, putting the township
to the unnecessary additional expense in obtaining a mea-
sure so useful. What would be their reasons he knew
not, but at the same time it was right the township should
know who the individuals were." Mr. Bentham rose
"to express his astonishment that his colleague should
wonder at any thing that that gentleman did." He sub-
sequently said, " I think the individual in question is like
some others who long to do something to make themselves
known. He concurred with the chairman that the names
of the oppositionists should be known." I beg your par-
don for annoying you with this lengthy quotation. In my
own defence I am warranted in conducting my own case
in my own way.
What may be the exact nature of the motives which
have actuated Mr. Jackson to drag me from the privacy
I court, into the van of the body of the subscribers by
whom the obnoxious petition was signed ; although I am
not perhaps at a loss to imagine it ; I will not stop to
analyze. If it were his intention to mark and ticket and
push me forth, as the victim at whose " devoted head"
the fierceness of the indignation of the promoters of the
" Monk's Ferry Bill" should be hurled, I can assure
him that his motive is as paltry as his design will be fruit-
less. A residence of sixteen years in Birkenhead so far
fortifies me in depending upon the character I have
maintained, and the connection I have formed, that
I am emboldened to despise the terrorless threats ",of
the little tyrant of the fields" whom I have had
the temerity to withstand. There is a circumstance
connected with the meeting of the commissioners at
which this unprovoked outrage was hazarded, which I
cannot forbear to notice. Mr. Jackscn is a liberal. In
the course of the day on the evening of which he perpe-
trated this attack, he had been, no doubt, engaged in ex-
erting his influence to secure the return of Mr. William
Brown, the " free-trade candidate," for the Southern
Division of Lancashire. Stung with disappointment, and
exhausted with the fatigues an anxious canvass, he
still continues to muster up sufficient energy to perpetrate,
on a board from whose councils political discussion should
be expelled, a gratuitous attack upon an obscure indivi-
dual, " the head and front of whose offending" was simply
this—that " not having the fear of Jackson before his
eyes," he bad dared to exercise that prerogative for the
possession of which Mr. Jackson, the canvasser, con-
tended, and which Mr. Jackson, the chairman, forbids an
opponent to enjoy. I merely protested against the inflic-
tion of a measure which my extended experience as a re-
sident of Birkenhead convinced me would be not merely
useless but actually mischievous. In maintaining this
opinion I was not singular.
I, with others, have been guilty of the high crime and
misdemeanour of questioning the policy of projectors,
whose scheme I practically know will be futile—and that
I have presumed to doubt the assumed patriotism of cer-
tain parties who are loud and lusty in self-laudations.
As to assertions of " Friend Christopher Bentham,"
I am happy that I can afford to treat them with a recep-
tion with which he was never yet known to greet friend or
foe—that is, laughter.
I am content to reside in my own locality without as-
piring to the notoriety which, although I do not court it,
that distinguished brother of the " non-invading order"
is determined to thrust upon me. He himself, " Friend
Christopher," is confessedly a notorious man ; but rather
than I would seek that particular sort of distinction which
in a long career he has contrived to attain, I would sink
myself into the insignificance of any of the unbought tea-
chests harmlessly deposited upon Christopher's shelves.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
ROBERT HUGHES.
Birkenhead, June ht,1844.