The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-27 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

SIR,—My former letter seems to have stirred the bile
of a Mr. Zephaniah Smith, who throws the skirts of his
coat of many colours over the proceedings of our com-
missioners : but there is not cloth enough to hide every-
thing. Notwithstanding his talk about " disinterested-
ness," " coats of arms," and all that nonsense, I shall
make what comments I please upon things on our side of
the water. Sir, I was educated in Carnarvon, forty years
ago, when people did not bother their brains with Latin
and Greek as they do nowadays. Lads were then taught
reading, writing, and accounts; and I don't think there
is half the honesty at present that there was then, for
everybody seems more disposed to live by their wits than
by their industry--at least I have an inkling notion that
it is a good deal the case with some on our side of the
water. I have asked our parson, who is, as everybody
knows, a learned man in unknown tongues,
.what the,
meaning in English is of " Sirikern ironibus holtzbusque, '
and he says it is " Don't burn your fingers." My grand-
son, who goes to the Mechanics' Institution, and who is
a sharp lad, expounds it thus—" Let everybody take care
of themselves." An old schoolmaster at Oxton says it
means " Keep the ball moving, a day of reckoning will
come." But I think Joe's definition of it is the best,
who writes from London, where he is billing and cooing,
that the proper thing is—" Strike while the iron is hot."
Now Joe (not Bushell's Joey) knows everything and
everybody, and is the cleverest, shrewdest, long-headed-
est fellow on our side of the water ; and I think he must
be right : and depend upon it he will make your corpora-
tion sing small before he has done with them, and he will
shew them what's what. You will excuse me, Mr. Edi-
tor, for using pet names ; because in our new town, v%hich
beats Dickens' Eden hollow, we are adopting a new mode
of designation, which is fast superseding the old method,
and it saves time, which is everything to a new and en-
lightened community. We do not know Mister this and
Mister that, but, " Lord love you," everybody knows
Joe, and Will, and old Sammy, and John, just as well as
if they had names as long as Spanish Dons. But, as old
men are garrulous, I am getting what we should call here
" up the Pool." My object is to say a word about
Monks' Ferry. You know there was a meeting theother
day about it—hut I couldn't go, as I had got the blues
and a touch of the rheumatiz, by a cold which catched
me on that abominable, wet, damp, nasty place, half
swamp, half mud. and half clay, along the Pool, where I
went to see whether I could buy a few million yards of
land at 155., and sell it the day after at 305., but I found
that it was all gone; and one of Maw's men told me that
a good lump had been sold cheap only the day before to
a great literary ironmonger, and that he had been much
favoured, as a reward for the able manner in which he
had copied out a number of " leading articles," which
he had stitched into a pamphlet, and 'cutely disposed of
for the benefit of the township and—the public—ha!—at
one shilling each : so I got nothing by my stroll but a fit
of rheumatiz. Well, the Ferry ! The railroad is not
sold, (we never sell anything here,) but it is disposed of—
that's the word. The Grand Junction ought to have had
it, so the proprietors said ; but John Moss proved a cool
hand, and somehow or other is not so easily frightened.
I But it is disposed of, and, when it is brought down to the
dock, will undoubtedly pay 1,000 per cent. at least. In-
deed it is whispered that there is some talk about making
a second line to Chester: and if it was only proposed at
a commissioners' meeting—which, as I have already told
you, is held after dinner, like sensible fellowa as they are
(for a couple of 'bott/es of port assist legislation most
wonderfully)—why, the thing would be carried with only
three—dissenters (I think you call them) in ten minutes,
and the shares would all be allotted by twelve o'clock the
following morning, and be at a premium of 100 per cent.
the day after. But still I cannot get to the Ferry ! Well,
sir, the Goliath of land, and the man wot drives—not the
mail, but—the people of Birkenhead, said it must be pur-
chased; and it was ordered to be purchased. Now, sir!
I am going to let you into a magnificent scheme, worthy
of the mind of the late President of the U—nited States,
General Jackson. You must know, Mr. Editor, that
docks at Birkenhead are a mere trifle to what is intended.
To be sure they may do for an instalment—a small be-
ginning ; because, like wise men, we intend to creep first
and run afterwards. Birkenhead is to embrace the whole
space from the Rock Lighthouse to the entrance of the
River Weaver, and the whole ridge of hills from Bidston
to Eastham is to be laid out in lots for picturesque villas,
for the residence of the merchants of the great city ; be-
cause it has been discovered that the whole of the lower
land is a bed of cold wet clay, which is the deuce and all
to drain, and is something like the Vauxhall end of your
smoky, unhealthy, fever-breeding, and doomed town.
The top of Helsby Hill is to be levelled like the top of
Sugarloaf Mountain at the Cape, and it is to be reserved
for the monuments of those disinterested patriots (if any
such should be found) who sacrifice their land for public
benefit. Hooton Hall is to be purchased for a mechanics'
institution, and the Park is to be laid out for a park; it
being generally believed, that, with the exception of an
odd 29 acres, the whole will be had cheap, and our worthy
neighbour Sir William (God bless him for a fine lad!)
will be more than repaid by the improved condition of
the surrounding property. Easthatn Church is to be re-
built as a splendid cathedral, and there is some talk that
the new city is to be erected into a bishopric, and that the
village of Chester is to be annexed to Coventry. To be
sure some fifty or a hundred dock acts, and improvement
acts, and ferry acts, and acts of all sorts and sizes, will
have to be got to do all this ; but Joe is up to everything,
and getting a few dozen acts is nothing to him, because it
can clearly be shewn that " no individual will be called
upon to contributea single penny," and it will all be " for
the public benefit.,, But, sir, I have not yet told
you all.
The name is to be changed ! Birkenhead is not Saxon
enough. And I will prove to you Liverpool noodles, that
you know no more of the geography of Cheshire, within
six miles of you, than you do of the interior of New Hol •

land. Not one in a hundred of the Diiizy Sams :tilow
that. B irkeiiend is in the hundred of Wirral'—so famed
as itis in Nixon's Prophecies. Not one in a thousand
of
.ytAi know th.it it contains most celebrated towns,
Ninch existed long before Liverpool was heard of—
to wit, Prankby, Irby, Thurstasion, Prenton, Barnston,
saughall, Gayton, 'Moreton, Caldy, Bebbington, and
a dozen more which were known amongst what my grand-
son calls the haul ton of Cheshire, when yet your two
,veneration ancestors steered their own fishing punts and
mended their own nets. Having therefore antiquity on
our side, the commissioners are about applying to parlia-
ment to have the name of our young city changed to PORT
JACKSON, because every body is transported with its
inildarit prospects. Will it not be quite euphonious?
Port Jackson Docks—Port Jackson Park—Port Jackson
Ferry—Port Jackson Market—Port Jackson Bills of
LAiig! !! Sir. lam proud of my country—as proud as
Mr. Smith can be; and although a few hundred men may
at first be ruined by buying land a leetle too clear; for
such a consummation as that which I behold in the vista
of my imagination, why. Sir, looking to the benefit of our
posterity, it will be cheap, though three generations are
ruined to obtain it. Nothing risk, nothing have, has long
been an Americanism, and depend upon it, that before
you are three years older Port Jackson dock bonds will be
more valuable than Pennsylvanian scrip, by at least iths-
per cent ! If my old and valued friend Attwood- would
only throw up his seat in parliament, and come and esta-
blish a bank here, so as to give us plenty of paper money,.
I would guarantee him a fortune in the twist and twink-
ling of an eye. As to Peel's currency bill, there ought to.
have been some special exemptions, because nineteen-
twentieths
sovereign
rivern re a
.dgooni'dt
pkaniodw wha
t
itw enti
means.eth s ofT huesreo nthis
was
asa
some-
time ago as a deposit for some land, which was bought at
Is. 9d. per yard and sold at four guineas, (at least I am
credibly assured so, although I did not see it ;) and the
fortunate possessor, it is said, has taken special care of
it, and intends to present it to the Port Jackson Museum.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
EBENEZER JONES.
WOodside, Feb. 24, 1844.