The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-09-26 00:00:00

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TUESDAY MORNING. SEPT. 26, 1848.

THE presidential election, which is just now

going on in the United States, is one of-the most

important which has taken place since the forma-
tion of that republic; yet, neither in Great Britain
nor in anv other portion of Europe, does it seem to
be regarded as more than an ordinary party or in-
dividual contest, or as interesting to any other than
the American people themselves. It is not a tariff;
it is scarcely the institution of slavery, it is no
definite scheme of annexation or aggrandisement,
which is at stake; but the broad question, whether

the American people are to be urged on to a wild
crusade for the possession of the entire continent,
upon which they have located themselves.. Their
half disciplined soldiery have, for the first time for
half a century, been permitted to flesh their swords.
The nation is flushed with their recent victory over
a feeble people ; and the presidential struggle must

o .. .
- now Ile one between the advocates of peaceful in-
duslry, and those who regard their favourite object
r—" progress"—as to be attained only by war and
encroachment against their neighbours. Amongst
a large portion of this party the idea has gained
ground, that the time for making the effort has
arrived; and that a pretext and the man are only
wanted to authorise its being forthwith commenced.
We can't imagine nothing of more momentous
danger, not only to Europe and the world at large,
than any event which would give predominence in
.the direction of the affairs of the republic to this
party. We can conceive nothing which would
more disasterously arrest the growth and consolida-
tion of the true greatness of America herself, than
even a successful war with an enemy worthy of
herself. Yet we see, amongst the candidates
offering themselves for the presidential chair,
General Cass and General Taylor, two men to
whom the opportunity for entering upon such a
war would not he an unacceptable event. By the
former of them, indeed, we believe that it would be
sought for with enthusiastic ardour, especially if it
afforded a vent for a long cherished hostility,
against the British nation. The dangerous charac-
ter of this man, and his policy, are well sketched
by an eminent American statesman—Mr. Webster,
—in a recent address, delivered at a meeting of his
friends in Massachusetts, in which he expresses his
opinions of the comparative fitness of the various
candidates. General Cass, be says,—

" He will go into the government by the same party
that elected Mr. Polk, and he will follow in the footsteps
of his illustrious predecessor. (Vociferous laughter.) I
hold him, I confess, in the present state of the country,
to be the most dangerous man on whom the power of
government could be placed. He would describe himself,
not as a conservative nor a protective, but be would say
that he belonged to the party of progress. He believes in
the destiny of the United States, to go through wars and
aggressions, to establish a universal government over the
whole of this vast continent. We know that if General
Cass could have prevented it, the treaty with England
would never have been made in 1842 ; nor if he could
have prevented it, would the Oror.on question ever have
been settled, es it was in 1846. We know that General
Cass could have prevented the declaration of the Mexican
war if he pleased. We know he supported it with all his
might, and in all the deliberations of congress on the
matter, that he was for pushing the war to every ex-
tremity. He is a man of learning, a man of talent, and
in every particular superior to his predecessor; but I
think him a gentleman of rash principles, pushed on by
an ardent and rash party, and committed to such a course
of admiration as I believe not to be consistent with the
security and peace of the country."

The possibility of such a man being elected to
the Presidency is one which cannot be regarded
without alarm ;. for we could not assure ourselves
for an hour that the peace of the world, and the
relations between this country and America might
not be broken. The spectacle of a collision between
Great Britain and the great kindred people which
has sprung from her loins, would be one at the
sigh of which all the truly good of the human race
would mourn, whilst anarchy, infidelity, and des-
potism combined, throughout the world, would
clap their bands for joy. May the good sense of
the American people avert so disastrous a consum-
mation !

WE beg to draw attention to the meeting to be
held this evening, at the Music-hall, at which his
Worship the Mayor will preside, for the purpose
of forwarding the objects of the Early Closing
Society. We are satisfied that, much as has been
spoken and written on the subject, the publis are
not yet sufficiently impressed with the importance
of the boon, which it is in their power to confer
upon the young men and others employed in our
shops, by adopting the custom of making their
purchases during the day, and avoiding, wherever
it is practicable, night shopping. Nor do they
sufficiently appreciate the advantage which a lesson
set by the wealthier portion of society would con-
fer upon their poorer neighbours, by imposing a
sort of necessity for buying their articles of wearing
or consumption at a time when their quality could
be fairly judged of—by daylight, in short. It is
well known that in the glare of gas it is that the
cheap and trashy fabrics, by which the working
man is so often fleeced of his money, are shown off
in their most deceptive aspect; and there is this
moral advantage to be reaped from such a com-
pulsion, that the incitements and excuse for leaving
their fire-sides during the evening, and the con-
sequent temptations and contact with vice, would
be withdrawn from the young of many a family.
We trust, upon every ground of sound policy
and consideration for the comfort and improve-
ment, both of mind and body, of the numerous
young men employed in our shops, that a good
attendance will be given at this evening's meeting.

WE have been accustomed, immediately pre-
ceding or pending the picking and housing of the .
cotton crop in the United States, to hear reports of
damage done by blight, by the worm, and other
enemies of the planters' interest ; and we have
generally regarded such reports as of about the
Fame value to some of those Corn-exchange tales,
which find circulation about the period of our own
grain harvest. The following, however, received
by the mail which arrived yesterday, is of too
serious a character to be thus treated, borne out as
it is by concurrent events. The authority is the
Concordia (Southern States) Intelligencer of the
26th igltimo :
" The severe storm which was raging when we went to
press last week was one of the most widely spread and de-
structive visitations of the kind that we have had for many
years. It came at a time the most unfortunate for the
cotton planter, there being much cotton open and all
hands prepared to take advantage of a rich picking sea-
son. The damage wrought by the rains and wind that
made up that storm has been immense, and faily dis-
heartened our planters. We have reports of its doings
from all parts of this cotton latitude. It has blown over,
twisted, and rendered unfit for picking the greater part of
the high cotton, caused the shedding of millions of forms,
and even destroyed more bolls than we have ever seen on
the ground at any one time. The prospect of a crop now
is f r worse than that of the same time last year, and it
will be recollected that last year we had one of the most
favourable cotton picking times ever known—such a long
continuance of dry weather as we may not enjoy again in
many years. The damage of the storm of Friday of last
week has injured the prospect of the cotton crop in Mis-
sissippi and Louisana, not less than 25 per cent."
From the New York Morning Herald we also
take the following :
" An arrival at New Orleans brings dates from Havana
to the 23d ult. The island at that time was perfectly
tranquil. A heavy storm occurred at Matanzas on the
17th, which did much damage to the plantations, and in
which several persons were killed."
Considering this intelligence, along with the
-melancholy fact reported in our columns, and re-
ceived by the West India mail, which arrived at
Southampton yesterday, of the destruction of An-
tigua by a hurricane the most severe ever felt, we
have some reasons to fear that the reports first
quoted are but too correct ; and that there has
been an atmospheric disturbance of a serious kind,
which has passed through a great portion of the
tropics. We are painfully affected by this intelli-
gence with respect to an important crop, of whose
prospects we were recently so sanguine, and the
abundance of which was one of the elements upon
which we built our hopes of a revival of the pros-
perity of the industrious portion of the British
people.

POOR John O'Connell ! We are heartily sorry
for him. His dolorous appeal for the maintenance
of Conciliation-hall has fallen upon deaf ears.
The last item of the machinery of the once profit-
able agitation of his defunct sire is about to be de-
secrated by its conversion to some sensible purpose;
and the young " Othello's occupation 's gone."
Physical force has gone ahead of moral force ; and
ridiculous, as both have made themselves, the phy-
sical force people are at present in the ascendant,
as objects of attraction to the many headed public;
and the champion of the moral force section feels
that his little light is obscured.
Well, people cannot help their want of valour,