The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-04-02 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

In consequence of an unusual pressure of advertisements, we
are compelled to postpone the insertion of several comtr,uni-
L cations.

kiberpool &tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 2, 1844

We have not troubled our readers with a reportof
the Amphitheatre Repeal Gathering of Thursday
last, and the sayings of the various spouters, great
and small, or a description of the motley company
which met to shout their approbation of
,the con-
victed conspirator and his apologists. Nor do we
here purpose entering into any analysis of the sylla-
bubs of fustian oratory whipt up for.the occasion. The
Whig-Radicals of Liverpool are already sufficiently
low in the estimation of their fellow-townsmen to
render it an act of superfluity and even of cruelty
on our part, to exhibit them in the contortions with
which they are seeking " a lower deep"—a more
unadulterated bed of slime—a duller and murkier
arkness.

A few remarks, however, we may take the liberty
of offering connected with this affair; and first let
us turn to the position occupied on this occasion by
that very unhappy old gentleman, William Rathbone.
What then was the character and what the objects
of the meeting at which Mr. Rathbone, a magis-
trate—a man entrusted with the administration of
the law, and bound to defend the peace of the town
—thought proper to preside ? What, too, were
the men who constituted nine-tenths of the meeting
Its character was one closely bordering upon the
seditious. The very placard by which it was called
together imputed to the highest officers of the law
" a manifest perversion of justice;" and the speakers
on the occasion did not scruple to call that perver-
sion wilful—to impugn the purity of a British judge,
and to more than insinuate perjury against a British
jury. The object of the meeting, if not to inflame
the minds of an ignorant and already excited people,
could be no other than to interpose a shield between
a convicted conspirator and the law which has stil
to pronounce his sentence. We defy the most je-
suitical Whig-Radical to find a middle object. 1.1
was to excite the passions of the people, or to over-
awe the constituted authorities in their administra-
tion of the law, towards men whom a jury of their
country had declared guilty of an offence against
the constitution of the realm.
Such were the character and the objects of the
meeting, at which a magistrate of this borough pre-
sided, and other magistrates were present ; and
now what were the men who constituted nine-tenths
of the meeting ? We say nothing of the factious
busybodies who occupied the prominent seats upon
the platform. We say nothing of the juveniles of
the Anti-Monopoly Association, who gave their
sublime presence to toady the great mendicant, as a
per contra for past favours conferred upon their
own paltry League. We say nothing of the mar-
vellously-assorted medley of unitarians and quakers,
baptists and independents, socialists and infidels of
other denominations, who exhibited themselves
cheek by jowl, and grinned, chuckled, and shrieked
in chorus over the insults levelled by the truculent
impostor and convict against the constitution and
the church of their land : but we ask, with respect
to the great majority of the meeting, what and who
were they ? REPEALERS—RepeaI wardens and
their plundered dupes—men implicated in the very
agitation for which O'Connell is a convict—the men
by whose hands, in the event of such agitation being
put down by the coercion of the law, we were told by
that convict himself, " the docks and the shipping
of Liverpool would be in flames," and " the manu-
factories of England be in a blaze" ! Such were the
men whose wild passions were to be stirred by sto-
ries of " the wrongs of Ireland"—who were to be
excited by the tale of injustice committed upon their
protogee—of violated constitutions—invaded liber-
ties—trampled rights—insulted religion, and the
other stock ingredients of Radical and popish agita-
tion ; and we leave it to the public to decide whether
such task of excitement was properly one in which
a magistrate ought to have been so prominently en-
gaged. -
If Mr. Wm. Rathbone has been seeking, by such
indecent prostitution of his magisterial office, the
dignity of martyrdom, we must say it would be a
pity that the poor fatuous gentleman should be dis-
appointed in his quest. The rejected of we know
not how many municipal constituencies—the dowa-
ger amongst political old women—would be a pearl in-
deed to string upon the rosary of superseded Shallows,
which the Irish demagogue parades, as an orna-
mental necklace around his brawny shoulders, now
that they are no longer decorated by the parapher-
nalia of the Dublin mayoralty. Do, Sir James
Graham, indulge the poor man !

And now a few words with respect to the speech
of the great oracle of the meeting, Daniel O'Connell
himself. We have heard many of the addresses of
that personage, and read more. We have heard
'him address intelligent audiences, and we have heard
him address mobs; but we never yet heard him
perpetrate a speech which, throughout, was calcu-
lated only for an assemblage of gibbering idiots
within the walls of a lunatic asylum. No perfectly
sane man would have ventured upon the utterance
of such a tissue of insolent falsehoods, interwoven
with sheer folly and outrageous absurdity, before a
meeting of sensible Englishmen ; and it does there-
fore strike us with amazement, not that every alter-
nate sentence was cheered by the bulk of the meeting,
composed as it was, but that any portion of it could
be tolerated at all by the few men of reputed good
sense who ornamented the platform, whatever the
violence of their faction and their hate to those in-
stitutions, of which the speaker has ever proved him-
self the most virulent enemy.
Take, as one specimen of the speech in question,
the following piece Of unmitigated and ummistake-
able blarney :
" I have heard language here to-night (!) that would do
honour to the best orators. lam not flattering. I have
heard more good speaking, more dignified sentiments,
than lever heard in one night before (!), I have heard
gentlemen over whom I can, of course, have no control;
gentlemen who differ with me upon the most material
points ; gentlemen who do not agree with me politically,
and who are totally opposed to me in religious belief; I
have heard them advocate the cause of justice to Ireland
to-night with a zeal, an energy, and a splendour of ta-
lent (!) that I can admire, but would in vain endeavour to
imitate. (Great applause.) lam going to tell the people
of Ireland we have made a great mistake! [Cheers.) I
am going back to bind for ever a real union between the
two countries."
What a picture might not a Hogarth, a Cruikshank,
or a Phiz have made of the scene which presented
itself upon the stage at the utterance of this farrago
of mingled fun and hypocrisy ! In the foreground
the great Irish actor, with his tongue dexterously
stowed in his cheek, atri an expression of rollicking
humour, mixed with contempt, in his eye, as he con-
templated the silly trouts around him, for whose
sweet voices he was so delicately angling; and, in
the background, the Hollands, the Robertsons, the
Mollineuxes, and the Blackburns, looking unutter-
able self-glorification, and bowing to be tickled by
the astute Daniel. "I am going back," exclaimed
the wily impostor, ",to tell the people .of Ireland
we have made a great mistake"—wonderful dis-
covery (!)—at the utterance of which William Rath-
bone grinned concentrated amazement, and Mr.
Eyre Evans was observed to fasten his teeth in his
lip, to restrain a fit of unseasonable laughter.
Another specimen :
" Yes, I go back to announce to them, that it is not
sufficient they should struggle for us, but that the deter-
will go abroad not to allow the present trans-
actions to sink into oblivion until an attempt is made—
and I trust a successful attempt—(cheers)—to impeach
the authors of the evil, and the contrivers of all this mis-
chief. (Tremendous cheering for sometime.) I announce
it now that I shall devote, not, perhaps, some years, but
whatever time I have to spare of my life, to the impeach-
ment of those men." (Enthusiastic cheering.)

How this doomed ministry must be shaking in
their shoes ! How happy must the people of Ire-
land be at this announcement ! No more Repeal
gatherings—no more Repeal shillings—no more
struggling for a parliament in College-green ! .Their
great apostle is from henceforth to devote the leisure,
which a gaol will allow him, to agitation for the im-
peachment of Peel and Graham, Sugden and Smith !
What next, Mr. Merriman

_ •
Here it is. The ministry is "an inhuman minis-
try," because it has refused to shorten the hours of
labour for the suffering factory children. And this
from Daniel O'Connell, who has never yet denied
that he sold those factory children for certain monies
Paid and influence afforded, by certain millowners
in Manchester ! Oh ! Daniel—Daniel For your
very ears you durst not touch upon the subject of
factory labour—you durst not invoke your humanity
towards the factory chd dren—where your base be-
trayal of their interests is better known than amongst
the _dock labourers, and the hod carriers of this town
of Liverpool.