The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-08-06 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A number of advertisements recaved at a late hour has crowded
out several original articles.

oar tiberpool &tanDarD.

TUESDAY 1110RAING, AUG. 6, 1844.

Our neighbours in Manchester, we perceive, are
setting to work in earnest to provide for the masses
of their population public parks, playgrounds, pro-
menades, and baths, upon a scale commensurate
with the necessities of their position. It is not,
however, proposed to provide any single public re-
sort. No central situation could now be procured

for such a purpose ; and it is therefore highly pro-
bable that not less Ilan four sites will be selected,
one upon each of the four sides of the borough, to
insure convenience of access ; and it is suggested by
the editors of the Manchester Guardian, who in a
very laudable spirit have devoted their columns to
the advocacy of the measure, that by the arrange-
ment of these in different ways—for instance, one
as a public promenade and park, another as an ar-
boretum, a third as a garden, and a fourth as a park
and a playground—a variety might be introduced
which would compensate for the want of that extent
and centralisation of plan which it is now impossible
to realise.
With respect to the means by which a measure,
so desirable and so conducive to the future comfort
and health of the population, is to be carried out,
it is anticipated by our contemporary that little diffi-
culty will be experienced. It is conceived that con-
siderable aid, in the shape of donations of land, may
be expected from the neighbouring landowners;
and when we consider the effect, upon the value of
adjoining lands, of the opening out by any public,
and especially an ornamental undertaking, of plots
however obscure and apparent'y unpromising, such
an anticipation is not at all unwarrantable. In ad-
dition, however, to the aid from this source, it is
proposed to raise from thirty to fifty thousand
pounds by private subscription ; and for the origi-
nation of such a subscription a public meeting will
be held in a few days.
Most heartily do we wish the success which it
deserves to these efforts of our Manchester friends.
It is not, however, to give this expression of our
goodwill that we now refer to the subject. We wish
to ask of our townsmen—of the merchants and espe-
cially of the Town Council of Liverpool—is this not
an example which ought immediately to be followed?
Is this large and increasing town to remain in its
present bad pre-eminence as the most unhealthy
locality in the United Kingdom, or are we at length
to provide it with lungs to breathe, and public
grounds to which its pent-up inhabitants may occa-
sionally escape, to inhale the fresh airs and revel in
the unpolluted sunlight of Heaven ? Are we, with
all the vast and improving resources of our Corpo-
rate Estate, to sit still and see ourselves mewed up
by the tide of building which is rising around us—
to see every available spot occupied—or are we, at
the last, at far too late an hour, to make an effort
for the attainment of air and health for our growing
population ? A Sussex, a Hampshire, or a Devon-
shire peasant can boast of an average life of 55 to
56 years. In Liverpool the average is only 26 years !
The whole population of this busy hive of industry
die off in little more than a quarter of a century;
and can it be that, with all the advantages of situa-
tion which we possess, and the large public means
at our disposal, we are willing to allow this wilful
self-slaughter to continue, for want of the very small
amount of exertion and temporary sacrifice which is
necessary to render this locality one of the most
healthy portions of the United Kingdom ?
We trust that such blindness will not continue to
actuate the conduct of the authorities and the mer-
chants and gentry of Liverpool. Let us remember
that although the rich, and even the moderately
wealthy man, can retire, after the fatigues of busi-
ness, to the healthy suburbs—can enjoy the breezes
of our noble river or the refieshing airs of his coun-
try retreat—the poor artizan, immured through the
day in some narrow and pestilential street or court,
no such means of relaxation are open. No public
parks, no gardens or exercising grounds, tempt him
from the close atmosphere of his dwelling-place; and
what is the result ? The tavern and the beer-house
engross the hours which would be devoted to bo •
dily and mental recreation; and at the expiration of
what ought to be a day of rest, he is compelled to
return to his endless round of toil, fevered and re-
laxed in mind and frame, instead of being refreshed
and strung up to new exertion, and a healthy en-
joyment of the lot which Heaven has decreed for
him.
We are not sanguine enough to expect that the
effect of the neglect of years past can be repaired in
a day. We are aware that the Corporate Estate
of our town is just now largely drawn upon, and
that we have no present surplus income available
for so large an effort as that which will be required.
Still we might prepare in time for such an effort.
The amount of capital necessary for providing ample
means for the recreation of all' classes will not be
immediately called for; and, whilst building in all
our suburban districts is going on so rapidly, it
strikes us as most important that we should be
looking round us for proper sites for our parks and
gardens, before they are otherwise broken in upon
and occupied.
We are, moreover, fully satisfied that such amount
of capital is very much over-rated, and that a con-
siderable portion of the first outlay might at no dis-
tant period be made to contribute a return of inte-
rest. The spirited undertaking of Mr. Yates, to
whose liberality and extended views the inhabitants
of the south end of the town are about to be so
largely indebted, will, we are confident, show in its
ultimate results that even private efforts to benefit
the public are not always unproductive of personal
advantage ; and if an individual can be found ready
to risk the issue of such an effort, surely a public
body or a community, anxious for future as well as
present advantages, ought not to be deterred, on the
score of cost, from a work so important.
We shall return to this subject more in detail on
an early occasion; and in the meantime we beg to
urge for it the serious consideration of our brethren
of the press and of our fellow-townsmen.

We must express the gratification with which we
have noticed the proceedings, at the dinner given on
Wednesday last to the deputation recently in London
to advance the Birkenhaad Dock Bill. We would
readily have pardoned any trifling burst of exulta-
tion from parties who have just returned triumphant
from such a struggle as that in which the Birken-
head Commissioners have been engaged. We do
pardon a few expressions, of triumph over the op-
position which has been offered to his projects, on
the part of a gentleman who has entered into their
advocacy with such zeal and perseverance as have
been displayed by Mr. William Jackson. And we
are, therefore, the more prepared to admire the good
taste which, on on his own behalf and that of the par-
ties most interested, dictated the studied avoidance of
recrimination upon theirlate opponents, characterizing
the entire proceedings ; and especially we admire
the following candid acknowledgment, which fell
from Mr. Jackson himself, of the credit for honour-
able motives due to those opponents, and the wish, at
the same time expressed, to let " bygones be bye-
gonesP:---

Let us pass over," remarked the gentleman in ques-
tion, " the opposition which has been made to our bill;
and let us, in so doing, give credit, at least, to our op-
ponents ; for when we come to look at the vast measures
we are about to carry into execution and its probable
effects upon the river Mersey, we may safely give them
credit for just fears, and for due precaution, in going N
any expense in ascertaining whether those fears are right
or wrong. It was not a question whether this side of the
water would be benefitted or not ; but a serious question
arose whether these measures would not injure the navi-
gation of the Mersey."

And again—
" The Dock Trustees had a large and vast property in
their charge ; the Corporation of Liverpool had a still
greater ; and if, from the construction of these works,
they lutehrcicufht any injury likely to arise to the navigation
.r, it was their duty, and at all events, they were
justified
fore competentinhavinfl the question fairly inquired into be-
House of Commons,
of the House of Lords and the
re-
sponsibility in An:et,' in_ order to relieve themselves of re-
injury being done."
These are sentimenet'nuotfsutt befitting a man of intellect
and expanded views
evenings
and we are only sorry
that any portion of the
characterized ili;g's proceedings should
have been
and still
should
of good taste and good Yserleless
haven been still more
sorry that such a want
dis-
played by a gentleman connected with thepress of
our town. In all questions of purely local interest
it is important that the advocacy of the press should
be directed by opinions aloof from party bias, and
especially from personal bias. We ourselves have,
from conviction, possibly erroneous, opposed certain
features of the Wallasey Dock project. We have
:faared the tendency of the plan to injure our noble
Ili A.

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