The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-11-21 00:00:00

POLITICAL MISCELLANY.

The Plymouth freemen are approaching extinction un-
der the operation of the Reform Bill; on this year's list
there are only fifty-four.
It is understood that the long-contemplated union of
the Excise and the Stampsand Taxes department will shortly
be carried into effect, the preliminaries for that purpose
having been arranged. _ _

WEST RIDING.—At a meeting of delegates held at
Normanton, on Friday, to nominate a candidate for the
West Riding, Sir Culling Eardley Smith, Mr. Joseph
Sturge, and Mr. Thomas Godman, of Leeds, were each
rejected, and the meeting adjourned.
Mr. Urquhart has reminded Lord John Russell of his
pledgb in the House of Commons on Neapolitan affairs.
His lordship replies that whenever he pledges his honour,
it is only to his own intentions. The noble Premier is
making good progress under his Jesuit tutors.
Tun BENTINCK TEQTIMONIAL.—Mr. Alderman Solo-
mans has sent a check for fire guineas to the secretary of
the Bentinck Testimonial Fund. " Although I did not
partake of his political opinions," Buys Mr. Solomans,
I do not feel on that account debarred from joining in a
testimonial to his zeal, vigour, and honesty ; nor ought I
to omit the opportunity of recording my gratitude for his
lordship's kind and noble conduct in relation to the Jewish
Disabilities Bill." The subscriptions for the Nottingham
monument to• the memory of his lordship amount to up-
wards of £lOOO.

THE COLONIES.—We read in the Glasgow Examiner
Mr. Isaac Buchanan's explanations, intended to show
that Sir R. Peel's currency measure of 1819, CANNOT
POSSIBLY coexist with his free-trade, or anti-colonial,
measures of 1846; seeing that the former requires the
presence of gold in this country and the Colonies; while
the latter (by increasing our imports beyond what we can
pay for in labour, or exports of British goods) RENDERS
IT IMPOSSIBLE for us, or any of our Colonies, to have any
permanent, well-grounded system of banking or monetary
confidence, as depriving us of our stock of the precious
metals. Mr. Buchanan contends in some very able argu-
ments for making the Colonies integral parts of Great
Britain.

How THE ROMISH PRIESTS ARE TO BE ENDOWED.--
We of course cannot tell what amount of belief is to be
reposed in the following statement; but it is pretty gene-
rally circulated as the final determination of the govern-
ment with-regard to their pet measure in the ensuing ses-
sion. The eight millions of good cash which were lent to
Ireland in 1847 are, it is said, not to be repaid to the go-
vernment, but the interest of thegmoney is to be set apart
as a fund for the annual paymdht of the priests. Even
one word of comment upon so flagrant an intention, if it
really exist, would be superfluous. England lent the
money to the Irish proprietors to get nem out of difficul-
ties, not to involve Ireland still more deeply in trouble.
This new way to pay old debts is inadmissible. Do go-
vernment suppose that the people of this country will be
insensible to the damage done, provided no new assault is
made upon their pocket? We assure our Whig friends
that the dodge will not answer. Let them try another
tack !—John Bull.

PROGRESS OF EE-TRADE.—In a masterly and enter-
taining paper in Blackwood, for the present month, en-
titled " A Glimpse at Germany and its Parliament," we
have met the following striking passage :—" I strolled
from shop to shop, gleaning everywhere, as I went, statis-
tics touching the manner in which our free-trade innova-
tions have affected the industry of Great Britain. For a
year and a half the boot and shoe trade has been remark-
ably thriving ; the London market being the most profit-
able in the world, and nothing but British cold exported
in return. As to colon manufactures, Belgium and
Switzerland have the monopoly qf Southern Germany.
The trade in Bohemian glass is rapidly superseding at
home the labour of the silversmith. A complete service,
so beautiful that it might be laid out on the table of a
prince, costs about thirty pounds; and the names of the
British magnates, which the dealer pointed to with ineffa-
ble triumph as purchasers, were so numerous as to con-
vince me that the deteriorating influence of free-trade was
rapidly rising upwards. The same may be said of the cut-
lery, which is now sent to undersell the produce of the
'British artizan in his own peculiar market. When we
couple those faCts, which may be learned in every conti-
ngreinetvaoluts diownre,cat b
and the
whichehestateofoiusrimfaplloinsegd uponreven uue,s in h
and
the
shape of property and income tax, it is difficult for any
Briton to understand upon what grounds the financial re-
putation of Sir Robert Peel is based, or to comprehend
the wisdom of adhering to a system which sacrifices every-
thing infavour of the foreiyner, and brings us in return
no earthly recompense or gain."

REAL INDEPENDENCE.—A man of real independence
—not the mere independence of fortune, but the far higher
independence of personal character—has much to endure
in our tangled and complex system of legislation. As for
yourself, for instance, who can afford to despise patro-
nage, who have neither sons to advance in the navy, or
nephews in the Foreign-office, who neither want the Bath
or a Baronetcy—who would be as eick of the flatteries, as
you would be with the servility of party—why you should
submit to the lust, and heat, the turmoil and fatigue of a
session, I can't think. And how you would be bored—
bored by the ceaseless reiterations night after night, the
same arguments growing gradually weaker as the echo
grew fainter ; bored by the bits of Horace got off by heart
to wind up with ; bored by the bad jests of witty mem-
bers,; bored by Peel's candour, and Palmerston's petu-
lance ; by Cobden's unblushing effrontery, and Hume's
tiresome placitude. You'd never know a happy day or a
joyous hour till you accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, and
cut them all.—Roland Cashel, No. 7.
RUSSIAN PICKPOCKETS.—A gentleman buying a cap,
selected one of an unusual shape from the hatter's coun-
ter, and, after much haggling, purchased it ; although it
had been made to order, and the party for whom it was
intended was expected to fetch it momentarily. To
secure it, the gentleman put it on his head, and departed.
In the course of his walk he found in his pocket a snuff
box which did not belong to him, and which he knew was
not there a short time before; he could not account for
it; presently he drew forth a strange handkerchief, and
shortly afterwards he found himself enriched with a
pocket-book. Suspicious of these additions to his pro-
perty, he determined to stroll leisurely about to watch
the result ; and at length, from the quantity of things
plac-ed softly about his person, he became convinced that
he was converted into an ambulatory receiver of stolen
goods, of which the cap was the sign. He at once made
the discovery to the police, who were not long in turning
the information to account.—Thompson's Life in Russia.

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Nov. 21,1848.

Kfttrature.
POETRY.

THE GOLDEN BOUGH.

(From Willmott's Poems.)
The Dardan Wanderer, doom'd to flee

Over the ocean-desert wide,
Still pined his father's face to see;
Still for his father's arms he sigh'd.*

Long time he sigh'd, nor sigh'd in vain :
And hark ! his anxious heart beats high ;
Blest promise of the Sibyl strain—
The lonely wood at last is nigh.

In doubt and prayer he lingers—lo !
He sees a little shadow pass;
Two doves in all their silver glow,
Softly alight upon the grass.
Dear messengers of hope from heaven!
Before his watchful eyes they glide ;
And look I the sacred bough is given;
And see! his father at his side!

Sweet tale in Fancy's colours drawn :
And has Religion's hand of light,
Fairer than rosy-finger'd dawn,
No moral in that song to write?

Have we no path of gloom to trace?
No cave of terrors to descend?
No brighter Bough death's cloud to chase?
No holier Prophet for our friend?

Have we no vanish'd face to seek? •
No hand that dried our childish tear?
No lip that loved our infant cheek?
No voice that soothed our sickness here?

Long faded now is Eden's rose I
But ever in its flowering youth
The Tree of heavenly Wisdom grows,
In God's green 'Paradise of Truth.
Oh pluck this Bough of Gold! and soon,
By Dove of whiter beauty led,
Thy prayer shall reap a richer boon,
A tend'rer Father crown thy head.

r * The visit of Aneas to the Sibyl's cave, and the plucking of
the Golden Bough, which conducted him to the abode of his
father, Anchises, are in the recollection of every reader.

NOTICES.

The Spirit of the Gospel contrasted with the Spirit of
the Law; a Sermon by the Rev: W. Pollock. Liver-
pool: Newling.
This is the substance of a sermon delivered by the
respected incumbent of St. Mark's, in this town, on the
sth instant, to justify the reverend gentlemen's omission
of the form of prayer appointed to be read on that day.
The author denies that the service comes to us on the
authority of the Church at all," and asserts that it " rests
simply and entirely on an order in council." He objects
also to the service as a form of prayer, though he " de-
nies not that the deliverances which it commemorates are
worthy of being commemorated." He questions whether
several of the expressions in the service have any " ten-
dency to subdue our spirits, and chasten them for the
work of prayer; or whether they lead us in a suitable
and happy frame to the Holy Communion (for the cele-
bration of which the service provides), that feast of peace
and love ;" and whether it falls in with the gospel precept
'of forgiveness of our enemies, and with the prayer in the
Litany for such forgiveness.
Whilst showing every deference to Mr. Pollock's scru-
ples, we do not think he has established his positions in
his usual unanswerable style.
The following extract from the sermon will, however,
show that he is not by any means influenced in the views
he has propounded to his numerous and attached flock by
the sinful indifference which guides so many in the pre-
sent day :
" I object not to the service upon the grounds on which it is
frequently objected to. It is not that I have any sympathy
with the spurious liberalism of the day, which ' calling good
-evil, and evil good,' does but libel while it usurps the sacred
name of charity. It is not that I will ever hesitate to bear wit-
ness, as God enables me, against the deadly corruptions of
Romanism, those blasphemons fables and dangerous deceits.'
It is not that I would draw a veil over the instructive story of
the past. No I would have all men to read—yea, I would to
God they did read —intelligcntly, calmly, and sorrowfully
withal—the whole dark history of Papal enmity against the
truth, remembering still, as they go along, that it is Rome's
own loudest boast, that she is unchanged and unchangeable.
But while I would thus ever warn myself, my Church, and my
country; while I would cut off my right hand before I offered
• any sanction to anti-social, anti-Christian Popery; while in
public and private, wherever the fitting opportunity presents
itself, I will never shrink, I trust, at whatever sacrifice, from
lifting up my voice against it—still I must love the Romanist
• as much as I hate his Romanism."