The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-11-29 00:00:00

sending a police officer to reason with the workmen is
highly comical. These gentlemen in blue are not recog-
nised as reasoners, or teachers, or preachers, by the
mob. The men were assembled clearly for the purposes
of intimidation—they were obstructing the works—and
the business of the magistrate should have been to re-
move and disperse them in the most summary way. The
law went to sleep, and the police constable went to rea-
son ! Oh, dear !

At the same police office, on the same day, before the
same Solon, another singular scene occurred.
" A batch of nine male paupers from the parish workhouse of
St. George, Hanover-square, was put to the bar for having re-
fused to work. They were, with one exception, all strong
healthy men, in the prime of life.
" Mr. Randford, .the master of the workhouse, said there had
been a general strike amongst the paupers in the workhouse that
morning. When they were called to wcrk at the usual hour,
eight o'clock, the nine prisoners refused to comply with the
order. He asked them their reasons fur refusing, and wrote
their answers down at the time. They demanded to have over
and above the workhouse allowance the " labouring diet,"
Which was an addition of a pint of beer and five ounces of
meat, with a proportionate quantity of bread.
" Mr. Conant asked the ringleader, a strong bricklayer's
labourer, named Flynn, what he had to say?
" Flynn replied, that he could not do his work on the food
allowed him by the governor; it was nothing but bread and
water.

" Mr. Randford handed to Mr. Conant the table of food, ap-
pointed by the Board for each pauper. The table showed that
an allowance of twelve' ounces of bread, a pint and a half of
gruel, a pint and•a half of excellent pea-soup, and two ounces
of cheese, were given to each pauper each day, and three days
in the week they had five ounces of meat, with an allowance
of potatoes. The labouring diet was also given in addition in
those cases where anything like labour was required from the
paupers. The extra allowance had been withheld from the
prisoner Fly nn in consequence of his misconduct. If he was
set to work, and the slightest complaint made of his inactivity
Or slovenliness, he would throw down his tools, and say.
He'd b. d---. 41 if he'd work any more.'

" One of the governors of the poor begged to point out to
the notice of the magistrate the shameless ingratitude of the
pauper Flynn. His wife, and either four or five children, be-
sides himself, were wholly supported in the parish workhouse.
What the man wanted was to run away from the workhouse
and desert his family, as he had done several times before.
" The next was a hale old man, who said he was 75, but did
not look more than 65, and he, it appeared, had refused to work,
because he had heard the labouring diet was to be stopped.
He considered himself overworked.

" Mr. Randford said the pauper's extra allowance had never
been taken off, nor was it intended to withhold it when he
worked. In consideration of his age he was allowed to work
when he pleased, and leave off when he pleased.
" The third was a very fat young man, who gave as a reason
for refusing to work, that if he had-gone into the factory- he
should have been alone ; so lie had agreed to strike.

"Mr. Randford remarked that the strike was the result of a
preconcerted plan. At night the house 'was in a state of disor-
ganization, for the men kept up a continual cheering, which was
returned from the wdruen's side.

"The fourth pauper, a young man about 25 years of age, said
he was overworked, and had not sufficient food. He was ob-
liged to chop firewood fur the workhouse from eight o'clock in
the morning till four o'clock in the afternoon, with only an in-
terval of one hour for relaxation. He admitted he was provided
with a seat and a block to chop upon.

" The fifth said he too was overworked. His employment
was to tie up the wood, which the others chopped, from eight
o'clock till four o'clock, and as he was lame of one leg, the
work was too fatiguing. He confessed that he was at liberty if
he chose to sit at his work.

"One of the overseers said this last pauper had been received
into the workhouse some time back from motive: of humanity.
He was perishing from hunger and cold in Lambeth, when the
committee took compassion on him, and sheltered, fed, and clothed
him in the workhouse.

" Mr. Conant observed that the paupers received the bread
of charity, and they had no right to expect that they should be
permitted, not only to eat it in idleness, but to dictate the terms
upon which the parish bounty should be dispensed to them.
"As Flynn and the fat pauper (Burton) were considered as
the ringleaders in the strike, Mr. Conant made a distinction by
sentencing them to one month's imprisonment, and the remain-
der to three weeks, with hard labour for all."

Some people will call these trumpery proceedings, and,
so they are; but they are also signs of the times. Cer-
tain sages may not deem them worthy of notice; we, who
are plain persons, consider them of the deepest import-
ance. Here we have it right and left—operatives com-
bining in the streets, paupers striking in the workhouse;
the one blustering and menacing their employeri—the
others growling and spurning the hand of charity which
feeds them. The moral degradation of the system is still
more revolting than is the physical condition to which its
victims are reduced. A pauper, of the name of FLYNN,
a bricklayer's labourer, and questionless one of O'Coisr-
NELL'S beautiful peasantry; has, beside himself, a " wife
and four or five children wholly supported in the parish
workhouse." He complains that the nature and quantum
of his food are inadequate to his toil. Let us see, there-
fore, what his allowance is. He has twelve ounces of
bread, a pint and a half of gruel, a pint and a half of pea-
soup, and two ounces of cheese, per day ; and on three
days of the week he has five ounces of meat, with an al-
lowance of potatoes! Such fare as this, we contend, is
liberal in the extreme: it is better than he ever had in
Ireland, under any circumstances; it is as good as any even
O'CONNELL himself ever had in his youth, or his father be-
fore him. But we find a "fat young man," also a member,
if not a leader in the strike. What has a "fat young man"
to do in an English workhouse ? He has no business
whatever in a poor-house; it was not for him that the
poor-laws were framed. Mr. CONANT, therefore, did
right in sending this rogue and his fellow pauper to the
tread-mill ; and if instead of one he had given them six
months at this philosophical employment, the sentence
would have been more salutary.

But our principal object in calling attention to these
acts of insubordination and reckless demoralization is to
show that there is a precoßcerted and deliberative scheme
of fraud and aggrandisement on the part of the opera-
tive and labouring classes, and a desire to live in idle-
ness at the cost of the industrious portion of the commu-
nity. The conduct of the bricklayers is unpardonable
and highly criminal. They not only refuse to work
themselves, but they gather in masses in order to pre-
vent other and better disposed men from doing that
work which they refuse to execute. They have no sym-
pa thy with the master, to whom the non-fulfilment of a
contract is always a serious matter. They care not
though he should be beggared. This injustice has been
tolerated too long, and if the reformed Parliament do
not, early in the next session, pass a law to restrain
such insolence and such excesses in future, they will by
theirapathylend themselves to the guilt, and do much
to accelerate and precipitate those horrors and that reign
of terror to which all thinking men look forward with
fear and trembling.

The Duke and Duchess of Gordon arrived at Pitfour on Fri-
das last. His grace, with Captain Ferguson, of Pitfour, and a
small party, went out and killed 143 head of game on the same
day.

from an authority upon which we can place reliance, we
learn that some light has been thrown upon the horrid circum-
stance of the murder of Mrs Jeffs, in Montague-place, some
years since. It will be recollected that this horrid deed was
attributed to some relation of the murdered lady, and for which
a man named Jones was tried at the Old Bailey, and acquitted
but, for another offence, he was transported, and some months
back he was hanged for some crime in Van Diemen's Land.
The night before his execution he rent for the Sheriff of the
.Colony, now in England, and confessed himself guilty of
many crimes, and several murders ; amongst others, that of
the unfortunate Mrs. Jeffs.—( London paper.)
EXPORT OF Bt:LLIoN.--As proof of the extent to which the
exportation of bullion is at present going on, it may be men-
tioned that one vessel alone in the course of last week-conveyed
to Calais 40,000 ounces of gold, and 277,000 ounces of silver.—.
The operation cannot be a profitable one, and is most probably,
therefore, a precautionary one, entered into to prevent the
threatened decline of the exchanges. We have every reason
to believe that the state of the coinage, or circulating medium,
in some of the West India islands, affords a profit to the export-
ers of bullion ; it is no new circumstance, but we find that,
within a day or two, silver, in bars and coin, has been entered
outwards, for the island of Nevis, to the amount of 100,000
Ounces. This fact is worthy the attention of the government,
and especially of the colonial department, at a.periad when it is
considered that an excessive drainage of coin for the conti-
nent most materially affects the circulation of the Batik of
England. It therefore appears highly necessary that the cir-
culation cf the colonies should be placed upon a footing to
support, rather than to draw upon, the monetary resources of
the mother country. This remark may safely be concluded by
inquiring whether our modern free trade theorists have ever
turned their attention to the important question of improving
the condition of the circulating medium of our colonies?
TAXATION OF COSTS.—This process, as now carried on by
the officers of the courts, under the directions of their superiors,
affords anything but that protection both to the suitor and the
sued, which it was intended to convey ;- for by striking out of
the attorney's bill charges for acts absolutely necessary, and
payments unavoidable in the krogress of a cause, it enables
and in common justice entitles aim to make out a fresh bill of
extra casts upon his client ; whereas were taxed costs more
liberal, and allowed to include all that is actually and unavoid-
ably done and paid, means might be taken to snake extra costs
illegal and irrecoverable.—londoe paper.

THE LI VER POOL STANDARD.