The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-10 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We can state emphatically, that the gentleman referred to in
the letter of Mr. J. W. Green, in our last publication, is not
the author of the communication in a former paper of which
Mr. G. complains.
",,An Old Inhabitant of Liverpool" has been rather long in disco
vering the authorship of the Thinking Man's letters. The fens
of Lincolnshire are better adapted for" thinking" than the noisy
streets of Liverpool.
We sb uld be glad to forward the benevolent object of " A Friend to
Ire' nd," who wishes to see a church erected in Liverpool where
the ierv. ie may be conducted in the Irish language. Perhaps
thi: not may suggest the idea to some benevolent persons who
may nave it in their power to accomplish the design.
It is impossible to gratify the wishes of every correspondent. Fre.
quently we are compelled at a late hour on Mon my night to with-
draw communications, tl.e interest attached to which has vanished
before our next publication, and it is then useless to make a spe-
cific acknowledgment of their receipt, with a reason for their non-
insertion.

Ely Rtherpool &tanDarZi.

TUESDAY 411ORKING, DEC. 10, 1814.

We find the following amongst last week's pro-
ceedings of the Repeal Association :

" A sum of £8 from Liverpool was acknowledged, and
the announcement of this fact led the ' Liberator' to state,
en passant, that he was sorry to hear that some most un-
seemly squabbling had lately taken place among the Li-
verpool repealers • but the committee of the association
had sent over Captain Broderick on a special mission to
try and effect a peace among them, and he had no doubt
that so able a diplomatist would be successful in his
undertaking."

A somewhat less amount than usual, this, from
the repealers of Liverpool ; aryl yet far, far too much
to be so tyrannously extorted, and so fruitlessly and
wickedly wasted. From how many a wretched
and half-starving family has a meal been snatched
to make up this small sum of eight pounds ! How
many of those whose pennies or shillings have been
forced from them by the " goad ecclesiastic," to
swell this subsidy to a beggar and an impostor, are
at this inclement season without a blanket to cover
themselves or their little ones ! And yet, mark the
griping eagerness with which the slightest weekly
increase or diminution in his basely-earned dole is
watched by its recipient. Eight pounds for the ex-
tortions of a week in Liverpool is a falling off. But
a fortnight ago it was boasted that, on an average,
Liverpool contributed to his capacious and bottom-
less wallet twenty pounds a week; and Capt. Bro-
derick, an " able diplomatist" (!) is forthwith sent
over on "a special mission" to heal the dissensions
amongst the repealers of our town, from which it
is surmised the falling off has occurred. And no
doubt by this time the diplomatic captain has suc-
ceeded in his object. No doubt the peace, so de-
sirable, has been made, and the unfortunate gulls of
the arch-demagogue have been taught that they may
quarrel and break each other's heads, in private, ad
libitum, but, as a body of repealers, they must be
harmonious for the future, because dissensions
amongst them tend to diminish the Rent !
But a word sr two about the dissensions in ques-
tion. Of course we have not the entree of the con-
clave in which they have taken place. We under-
stand, however, that, some meddling person or other
has .had the unreasonableness to ask for, that most
awkward document to treasurers and secretaries of
Irish associations, a " debtor and creditor statement"
of monies received and expended ; and required to
know, moreover upon what weighty errand sundry
members have liten, from time to time, in the habit
of visiting Dublin, or their friends elsewhere, at the
expense of the Association. There has been, in
consequence, we are informed, but we can scarcely
believe that Daniel himself would allow the prece-
dent to be established, some disgorging of money,
suspected of being thus misappropriated. We pre-
tend to no intimate acquaintance with details; but
the main facts which have caused the dissensions
deplored by him are those which we have stated.
The providers of the great Irish cormorant have
been doing a little business on their own account—
pecking a little for themselves—and have alien out,
as a certain description of people will fall out, in di-
viding spoil.
To one piece of information, however, which has
come to our ears, connected with this affair, we
must direct the attention of our readers. It is ge-
nerally imagined, we believe, that, when the various
sums of money, recorded weekly, as having been con-
tributed to the Repeal Fund are paid over to the
treasurer in Dublin, the aggregate amount is applied
to the general purposes of the association, or, more
properly, to the various wants of Daniel and his
fellow-conspirators. No such thing ! • A considera-
ble portion of each contribution is, almost invariably,
remitted back again to the place from which it was
originally forwarded, to be expended according to
the pleasure of its industrious collectors ! Thus
the thousands, so glibly talked of, as having been
lodged in Dublin, are, after all, only like shop-
keepers' dummies, made up for spew, and speedily
melt into hundreds. The most important conside-
ration, however, which arises from this singular
kind of management, is the nature of the relation-
ship which it establishes, between the parent asso-
ciation in Dublin, and the district associations
throughout the kingdom. The wardens and other
conductors of the latter not only feed the rapacity
of the great agitator, but are his paid slaves! They
grind their duped fellow-countrymen—force from
them their last penny or their last potato—and re-
ceive an actual filed per tentage upon the amount of
their extortions, (!) to be expended in supplying
their news-rooms with the seditious trash, which
emanates from the repeal press, or for any other
purpose which the arch traitor who employs them
may point out, as most calculated to forward his
daring projects. Surely this is a machinery of mis-
chief and rebellion which ought not to be permitted
in a well
.regulated country. The very existence,
in every great manufacturing and commercial town
in the empire, of associations, such as these. whose
leading members are the hired and paid servants of
a man, the boasted object of whose incendiary pro-
cejlings is the dismemberment of the empire, ought
to be an inducement to all persons, having at heart
the interests of their country, or their own interests,
to be careful to surround their property and their
persons with loyal men ; and to shake from their
confidence every favourer or member of such asso-
ciations. Truly the arch incendiary spoke not with-
out reason, when he threatened the shipping in the
docks of Liverpool, and the factories of the manufac-
turing districts with " a 1)* He knew in what
hands were placed the ion of the excitable
passions, the wild revenge, f the masses of their
Irish population of those fswns, to any outrage
which might be pointed out to them.

We promised in our last, to return to the subject
of the recent collision between the Magistrates and
the Watch Committee. Our object was to notice
the injurious operation which a concession of the
authority, contended for by a portion of the Magis-
tracy, must have upon the officers and members of
the police force ; and we now proceed to an exami-
nation of the question. But first let us define what
we have always understood, and what, we believe,
the law has always understood to be the respective
functions of the Watch Committee and the Magis-
trates.
In the hands of that body has been placed by
the municipal act the formation and regulation of
the police force of the borough, with an over-riding
power, however, in the Magistrates to suspend on
certain specified grounds. With the Watch Com-
mittee it rests to diminish or augment the strength
of the force, to determine the hours and the place of
their duty, and the number and powers of their
officers. When thus appointed, regulated and offi-
cered, the entire body, become subject to
.the direc-
tion of the Magistrates sitting in the discharge of
their ordinary functions, as constables under the
statute law of the land are subject to such direction ;
and may be suspended for offences recognised un-
der that law, viz.: neglect of duty, disobedience of
orders or unfitness for service. No further powers,
on the part of the Bench, have ever been contended
for herr, or in other communities where similar po-
lice bodies have been provided by the municipal or
by special acts. We have never heard of
.Magis-
trates in the metropolis, or elsewhere, attempting to
intend their control beyond the plainly recognised

power of noticing and punishing such breaches of
duty, neglect or inefficiency, which come judicially
before them.

For the first time, however, the Bench of this town
have claimed a more extended authority, and assume
the right of determining what shall be disqualifica-
tions for service in the force, beyond the ordinary
legal disqualifications: "No member of an Orange
or a Ribbon society," they say, " shall be permitted
to belong to the police force." Here is palpably an
interference with the very first power of the Watch
Committee—the power of appointment; and the
right of the Bench so to interfere once conceded,
how far may it not be pushed ? They go further,
however, and claim now the right to issue "regula-
tions," which shall override those of the committee.
They claim the right of interference with the inter-
nal discipline of the force. They call before them
members and officers of that force, to report upon
the conduct of private individuals or members of
another body, which was not legally before them,
and assume the right, upon that report, to issue
their censure of such conduct. They frame orders,
which in effect set aside the authority of the Watch
Committee, and direct them to be communicated to
the force as their dicta, to be observed without refe-
rence, or even the show of respect to the authority
of that committee. Finally, they make the superior
officer of the Committee—the Head-Constable—
under a very intelligible threat as to the consequence of
refusal, the instrument of conveying to the force
under his control what we cannot but consider as a
marked insult of the body which appointed, which
pays, and which should exclusively regulate them.
Mr. Rushton—we use his name most prominently,
not because his authority is personally of any supe-
rior weight to that of his magisterial brethren, but
because they appear to permit themselves to be con-
trolled by him in this matter—Mr. Rushton main-
tains that, in the steps which the Bench have thus
far taken, they have acted in strict accordance with
the law and for the public advantage. With the
legal part of the question we shall here have nothing
to do. In our opinion this has been already settled,
by the greatly prepondering weight of the opinions
taken, in favor of the claims of the Watch Commit-
tee, to which is now to be added the opinion of the
present Town-clerk. But that the course taken by
the Magistrates and persisted in can by any possi-
bility result in good to the community we utterly
deny, and shall endeavour to show.
In all bodies similar to police bodies, the main
source of strength, and the only source of complete
efficiency, mutt be discipline. In using this word
we do not mean that, portion of military discipline,
which consists in perfectness of drill, the capacity
of walking in strict line, or of executing expeditiously
certain evolutions; but a perfect recognition of theau-
thority of superiors, and a pro regulation of the
different grades of that authoriq: Such a system of
discipline has been established in the police force of
Liverpool, and we believe in a degree of perfection
which is surpassed by few, if by any, other bodies
in the kingdom. It is perfectly obvious, however,
that no discipline, and no efficiency in the exercise
of their duties, can be expected to remain in a force
which has more than one sup rior authority to look
up to for orders. The dilemma in which Mr. Dow-
ling recently found himself is a strong exemplifica-
tion of this. He had an order of the magistrates to
carry out, in itself illegal. He was required to carry
it out in a manner insulting to the Watch Commit-
tee, whose paid officer he i 3. If he refused to obey
the Magistrates he was threatened with their cen-
sure and feared dismissal or suspension from his
office. If he executed their order, he incurred, in
the first instance, the consequences of an illegal act,
and in addition, the censure of the Watch Committee,
who had an admitted power of dismissal. How was
he to act ? How did he act. Mr. Rushton, illegally
we contend, relieved him from the execution of one
part of the Magistrates' orders; his own legal know-
ledge deterred him from the execution of another
portion, (the reading to the police force of the libel
upon Mr. Parker, conveyed in the preamble to the
resolutions,) and for so doing no censure proceeded
from the Magistrates; and the coincident tenor of
the resolutions of the Watch Committee saved him
from, any difficulty as to the rest. But had the
Watch Committee dissented from the resolutions in
question, or issued counter resolutions, in what po-
sition must Mr. Dowling have been placed ?
To descend, however, a little lower, what might
be the operation of this Magisterial assumption of
authority upon the conduct of the inferior officers,
and even the private members of the police force ?
Their head has two masters, and has promulgated
to them the orders of both. Are they in the execu-
tion of their duty to pause to consider which of the
two they are to obey. The magistrates, in the case
already referred, have said, " report to the commis-
, sioner of police, who shall report to the Bench."
The committee have said, "report to the head con-
stable, who shall report to us." So long as these
two offices of " commissioner" and " head con-
stable" are in one individual, it is perfectly easy to
satisfy the requirements of both bodies. But sepa
rate them, and what will be the result ? Why we
shall have one portion of the force, in cases of in-
terference with them when on duty, running with
.their complaints to one functionary, and a second
portion to another. We shall have the force divided
into two factions—a kind of " red and white rose"
war carried on in the midst of a community which
pays both contending parties—combative Dogber-
ries on their beats falling foul of each other on every
available pretence, and a now disciplined body, in-
tended to be the guardians of our persons and pro-
perty, degenerate into a dangerous nuisance.
It is perfectly obvious that such a state of things
—such utter disorganisation as must result from a
concession, to the Magisterial body, of the powers
which they claim to exercise, independently of the
Watch Committee—could never have been contem-
plated by the legislature. We defy any man of com-
mon sense and common fairness to point out how
the admitted powers of " regulation, ' possessed by
the Watch Committee, can be exercised in conjunc-
tion with similar independent powers of regulation
in the Magistrates, or any other body. The notion
is preposterous. One party or the other, it is clear,
the Watch Committee or the Magistrates, must
abate their pretensions. The former must either
become a mere registering body—a committee with-
out powers—or the Bench must confine itself to the
exercise of, what has always hitherto been consi-
dered, its legitimate authority, and abstain from in-
terference with the police force, except when the
acts of any of its members come judicially before its
notice.

We have given insertion in another column to a
letter addressed to Lord Sandon, not because a
portion of the remarks which it contains is at ail
applicable to the noble lord to whom it is addressed,
which they are not, but because of the ability with
which it is written and the pertinence of the lessons
and remonstrances which it contains to the back-
sliding and spurious Conservatism which we see
around us on every side. We rejoice to be able to
record our implicit confidence, and that of the ma-
jority of big constituency, in the faithfulness of Lord
Sandon to his past professions, and to his thorough
Protestantism, as on several recent occasions mani-
fested. We would remind our correspondent that
it may be, and most probably is, from no consent of
his lordship, a subscriber merely to the fund raised
for repairing the church referred to, that the amount
is being expended in semi-popish desecrations. We
are assured that, from all our knowledge of his cha-
racter and principles, such an appropriation of it
would be very far from his inclination.

We have inserted in another place a letter from
Mr. Miller, late head-constable of this town, in
which some charges have been directed by him,
quite unnecessarily, against our respected chief ma-
gistrate ; and we have been requested to piblish
another letter by the same writer, but we did not
receive it in time for insertion to-day. Upon ano-
ther occasion we may express ourselves upon both,
At present our columns are fully occupied.

The Rev. S. Crag, who resigned the chaplaincy of the
workhouse, in this town. for the curacy of Harborough
Magna, has been promoted to the incumbency of the
newly-formed district of St. Thomas's, Coventry.
•

ROYAL MERSEY YACHT CLUll.—The monthly meet-
ing was held at the Mersey Hotel, on Tuesday evening,
and was very numerously attended. The commodore read
a list of noblemen and gentlemen desirous of joining
the club. It contained the names of the Right Hon.
Lord Viscount Combermere, Combermere Abbey, and
respectable merchants, shipowners, and others, thirty-one
in number, all of whom are to be balloted for at the next
meeting in January. A new marine compass was offered
for the inspection of the meeting by Lieutenant W. Lord,
R.N., invented by a friend of his, Captain West, R.N.
It is constructed on a plan to diminish the oscillating and
rotatory motion, so common to compasses in general
during tempestuous weather. It is very ingenious, and
also simple in its nature.