The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-09-11 00:00:00

CONTEMIIO.7 A RI" PRESS.

THE airy POOR Law BILL.—The conversation upon
the petitlori presented by Major Beauclerk, on Monday,
from a place in Surrey, relative to the working of the
poor law. bill, is deserving of temembrance. Major
Beauclerk said he wished to ask Lord J. Russell " if he
was aware that orders had been issued by the poor law
commissioners to stop all out-door relief in the present
season ? Suet) orders had 'came down to Sussex three
days ago to 'a place where he was stopping at the' time:
He .dined in that neighbourhood 'on Sunday last' with a
clergyman, and met on that occasion a large body of
magistrates. They were all guardians of the poor, and
all friendly to the bill, but they were all against enforcing
such orders at this season of the year., Their universal
opinion was, that the enforcement of such .orders.would
spread misery and want in the agricultural districts, and
that the old, the sick, and the infirm,' who had not anti-
cipated such a thing, and who had laid by
_nothing to
meet such an 'emergency, would-be consigned to starva-
tion. The clergy man in question, Mr. Constable, a
most respectable gentleman, had been a great friend of.
the.bill,hut he had late Iv withdrawn his name from the
list of the guardians of the poor, being of opinion tliat an.
attempt was made to carry the.bill too quickly into exe-
cution in all its parts. The old and infirm, for instance,
who had never calculated on such a measure, should not
he exposed to the operation of this severe part of it; it
sliould be reserved for the young, and for those who were
in employment, and who, calculating on such treatment
in their old age, would lay up provision to meet if."
We think we may leave this representation of the feel-
ings and opinions of practical men (for the resident par-
sons and magistrates cannot be set down as theorists)
withont one word of comment. The danger is displayed.
Let those who have. the power to obviate it exert them-
selves, or be Content to bear the responsibility of their
silliness or their wickedness. To allude even to the con-
sequences of such proceedings of the poor law commis-
sioners, or their adjuncts or assistants, would expose us
to the imputation of suggesting deeds which we hold to
be atrocious in the extreme tinder any condition of law,
and under whatever foolery in its administration. We
shall be told that the poor law commissioners,. or their
satellites " have -a discretion"' as to enforcing or not
enforcing the strict bondage,—as to tightening or loosen-
ing the spring eon's of this statute. It is quite true
that they are entoowerecl to exercise diseretion. But if
nature happen to have given them no discretion at all,
what is the use of such a reading of the act of parlia-
ment ?

Another point was raised in the course of this discus-
sion. It regards the contracts for medical attendance on
the poor. We constantly see advertisements for tenders
for one medical man to look after the health of an agri-
cultural'population of five thousand or six thousand per-
sons. The most miserable pittance is awarded' by the
poor-law authorities as a temptation to starved apothe-
caries, whose poverty, not their will, urges them to bind
themselves to perform duties which it is physically im-
possible they' or any other individual man can discharge.
This we take to be one of the humane means by which
the pressure of the poor rates is to be relieved, and the
relief attributed to the operation of the poor law act.
Let us, however, be just. The poor may be starved or
they may perish ,for want of medical aid, but still they
will it, seems, be buried, and not left to rot where they
May happen to fall. This is clear from an advertisement

nos-v
lying before us in a.country paper. The advertise-
ment proceeds from the guardians of a certain union,
who say they will "receive tenders for the undermen-
tioned articles." The .articles are coals, treacle, salt,
brooms, pepper, vinegar, &c. &c. ; and the list concludes
with " COFFINS." The following, are the exact words of
the advertisement :—" Coffins (planed and oiled, or
rough, the price to be stated separately) and shrouds,
4-e., of the following sizes ;--Under 3feet; 3_feet and
under 5 feet-; 5 feet to the larfiest size required. These
to be delivered iu any or all of the parishes in the
union."—Tinies.

. .
ARBITRARY PROCEEDINGS OF THg GOVERNMENT:—
Government having failed of legalizing their perSecution
of oraugemen, have adopted the arbitrary alternative,
and proceeded to punish, without the shadow of law, then
guilty of no crime, whether moral or legal. To be an
orangeman is no crime in the sight of God or man—to
be an orangeman either in the constabulary or the army
is no crime against any general law or previous regula-
tion under which these men entered into either service.
Nor has any law subsequently passed rendering the kold-
ing and professing of orange opinions criminal. It is,
therefore, an act of the most odious despotism, by whom=
soever it may be advised or exercised, to punish men- for
opinions which the law permits them to hold with impu-
nity. Nothing more arbitrary or tyrannical ever dis-
graced the reign of James the Second than .the two in-
stances we subjoin :
" The inspeofor-general of police for the county of Dublin has
directed a circular to the six chief constables under his com-
mand, informing them tlit Mr. Secretary Drummond had com-
municated to him that sub-constable Monaghan, of the Wex-
ford constabulary, had been dismissed from the police for at-
tending an Orange-lodge in New Ross, in order that he might
apprise the men under his command that dismissal from the
establishment will follow any transgression of a similar nature."
"PARTY TuNEs.—A drum-major belonging to a recruiting
party of the 46th regiment has been tried by a court-martial, and
reduced to the ranks, for allowing party tunes to be played in
the streets of Belfast."—Morning Register.

We should be glad to kno%v what law of the land, or
what bye law of the constabulary, sub-constable Mona-
ghan violated by attending,arrbrange lodge • and like-
wise, whit law of the military code, or what index Ex-
purgatoriuv of musical compositions the drum-major of a
recruiting party infringed, that a court-martial should
punish him by reducing him to the ranks ? Let us have
the list of party tunes—let us know when we offend, that
we may avoid offence.. But surely it is the acme of in-
justice, the very masterpiece of arbitrary government
and despotic tyranny, to punish men for what is no legal
crime—or for that which, if it be an offence, is so unde-
fined that no one has the means of defining it. A party
tune may be any tune that a man chances to dislike.
But surely the bread and character of men ought not to
depend on a rule so whimsical.—Dublin Evening Mail.

JEWISH SOCIETY.

(From the Derry Cifitin'el )

A meeting of the friends of the Society for the romo-
I ion of Christianity among the Jesys was. held in the hall
of the Court-house, Londonderry, on Monday last. The
Rev A. Thomas, and the celebrated missionary, Joseph "
Wolff, were deputed by the parent Society to attend. At
the hour appointed for opening the meeting, 12 o'clock, ,
the hall was nearly filled with ladies and among the i
clergymen •present we recognised of Very Rev. the
Dean of Derry; chairman, the Rev. Messrs. *Ross, Hay;
den, Wade, Crawford, Seymour, Harte, Radcliffe, Christie,
Stack, M‘Clure, Mansell, and Robinson. After a hymn
had been sung, Mr. Wolff proceeded to detail to the !
meeting the extent* of his missionary .labours. As he
speke with a foreign accent, and in a voice not sufficiently ,
loud to be distinctly heard, 'a great part• of his discourse
was, we regret to say, unintelligible to us, and to many
cf the auditors. • He. commenced by describing what real
conversion was -a change of the heart, not of the opinions ,
or sentiments—and then recounted the names of the
various countries and cities which he had visited, whilst
in search after his benighted fellow-countrymen; for his
researches did not apply to the history or antiquities ofi
those places, but to, that living antiquity—his Jewish !
brethren—and to that standing monument of the divine
judgment, the children of Abraham. Mr.. Wolff made
three different jcurnies: The first, from the year 1821 to
1825, was to Malta, Alexandria, Cairo, and Upper Egypt,
Mount Sinai, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Antioch,
Aleppo, (where he witnessed the dreadful earthquake in
1822,) Cyprus; Oufa, (the Ur of the Chaldees,) Mosul,
(the site of ancient Nineveh,) Bagdad, Bussorah,
sheen, Shiraz, Ispahan, Teheran, Tabriz, Erivan, and
Mount Aravat; then to Georgia, the Crimea, Odessa,
Constantinople, Adrianople, Smyrna, London,' Dublin.
In the year 1827 he set out on his second tour, in com-
pany with his wife, when he visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Gib-
raltar, Greece, Alexandria, BayroOr, Cyprus, Cairo,
Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Thessalonica, and Malta, where
he left his wife and son. He then again proceeded to
Alexandria, Shattaliah, (the ancient Atfalia,) Kutayah,
(the ancient Phrygia,) Brusa, (the ancient Bithynia,)
Constantinople, Angora, (in Galatia,) Tokat, Tiebisond,
Erzerqum, Bajazed, Tabriz, Teheran, Khorassan, Boo-
stan, liurgund, Tarsheesh, Torbad, Meshed,• Saraktts,-
Karakel, Bokhara, Balk, Caubul, (Peshawer,) Attack,
Lahore, and Ludbiana. After remaining two months in
the hospitable dwelling of Lord W: Bentinck, near the
Himalaya Mountains, he proceeded 'to Cashmere, Delhi,
Agra, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Benares, Patna, Calcutta,
Masulipatam, Hyderabad, •Madras, Secunderabad, along
the Malabar coast, to Goa, Barbary, the coast of Abys-
synia, Upper Egypt, Malta, London,,Dublin, and Lon-
donderry. Mr. Wolff then detailed a variety of incidents
which -occurred to him in:his travels.—The manner in
which he crossed the desert with hiS wife was exceed-
ingly ludicrous. His wife was slung in a basket on one
side of a Caine], and he himself, as a -counterpoise, on the
other. A Jewish sect which he visited in Cairo, and
whose designation, in English, is '" Children of the
Bible," he described as entirely different from the other
Jews scattered throughout the world. They ate about
six thousand in number—they are met with in Jerusalem,
in the Crimea, at Odessa, and Constantinople, and adhere
rigidly to the writings of Moses and the Prophets. The
history ofthis sect is remarkable, which they have written
on parchment; and deposited in their,synagogue. They
state in their account, that during the time of their cap-
tivity in Babylon, the Jews began to amalgamate with
the nations in that country, and to mix their law with
that of the Chaldean philosophers. A certain rabbi, who
lived among them, perceiving the danger, entered the
congregation of his nation, and addressed them in the

folio-wing manner :
• "Oh ! my brethren, is it not enough that we are in captivity?
_is it not enough that our Temple is destroyed?—is it not
enoug4„thßt our city is laid waste ?—is it not enough that we sit
at the rivers_of Babylon and weep? Shall we now'go and in-
crease our calamity, and call on us the wrath of the .Lord by
adopting the notions of idolaters? Oh! that such a thing may
never be dono.in Israel! Let us remain CHILDREN OF THE
Bung.,"

Mr. Wolff entered their synagogue, and they allowed
him to proclaim the Gospel of Christ to all present, after
which the rabbi standing in the midst, and surrounded by
the congregation, began the following hymn :

Rabbi.—On account of our palaces which are destroyed,'
Congregation.—We sit alone and weep. •
Rabbi,—On account of the temple which is broken down,
Congregation.—We sit alone and weep.
Rabbi.—On account of Jerusalem which is laid waste,
Congregation.—We sit alone and weep.
Rabbi.-6u account of ohr high priests who have sinned,
COngregation.—We sit alone and weep. •
Rabbi.—On account of our princes who have committed
[Dignity,
Congregation.—We sit alone and weep.
Rabbi.—On account of our kings, who have done wickedly,
Congregation.—We sit alone and weep. •
After.a pause, Rabbi lifting up his hands exclaimed—
.

"Have mercy on Zion—be pitiful fo Zion."
When the congregation repeated three times—
" Abranch shall spring forth`from Jerusalem,"

Nothing could be more pathetic than the plaintive and.
mournful melody of these simple and affecting words.
The anxiety of his Jewish brethren in Palestine and-else-
where to hear the Gospel preached, he desCribed as almost
incredible. Though they were prohibited by the Rabbi
Burshem, of London, from listening to Mr. Wolff, nearly
ten thousand of them assembled to hear him in Jerusalem.
Every where he was well received, and his mission was
respected except by those whom he designated as petty,
little, ignorant, "Jacks in office." Between Teheran
and Bokhara Mr. Wolff was exposed to a great degree
of suffering. He was robbed not only of his money,(£7o)
but even of his clothes, and for a part of the way was
cfragged along, tied to a. horse's tail; hut he prayed to
the Almighty, and he was soon afterwards released; in-
deed, he had never offered up a prayer, he said, without
meeting with a favourable response from heaven; and if
his prayer, was not answered in a manner which appeared
'to be 'satisfactory at the moment, he afterwards found
that it was only for his good. Having laid his grievances.
before the Khan of Tursheesh, after he had been plun-
dered by
,the barbarous hordes on his frontiers, that
equitable monarch replied, that as he (Mr. Wolff) had
seen a specimen of the injusice of his people, he should
then have an instance of his justice. The Khan immedi-
ately sent and recovered every penny of the stolen money,
which he generously put' in his own pocket. This was
an illustration of the justice of the Khan of Tursheesh.
-In Bokhara he discovered the descendants of the ten
tribes that had not returned to Judea after the Babylonish
captivity, and he continued preaching among them for
some time. He always found that the farther he went
from Europe the weaker were the prejudices Of the Jews
against him, because they were ignorant of the persecu-
tions suffered by their brethren in Europe. In adverting
to his adventures in Egypt, Mr. Wolff cited some
instances from the present condition of the country as
illustrative of the prophecies. " A cruel Lord shall reign
over Egypt;" " the Egyptians shall be a base nation,"
&c., and showed that, even in his efforts for the civiliza-
tion of the country, its present "Lord" is ministering un-
consciously to the • accomplishment of predictions which
he tramples under foot. Mr. Wolff' contradicted the
assertion frequently made by Unitarians and others, that
the Jews did not believe in the divinity'of their expected
Messiah, for passages had been pointed out. to him, he.
said, in the Talmud, by Jews who still look forward to
the coming of Messiah, which distinctly confirmed the
doctrine held by Trinitarians respecting the divinity of
our Lord. Mr. Wolff spoke with enthusiasm of the hap-
piness be enjoyed while at Angora, in Asia .Minor.
- There-members of the Reformed ,and Roman Catholie.
Churches lived together in the UtMostharmony ; and the
Roman Catholic Archbishop, instead of preventing hint
from circulating the scriptures, encouraged him in doing
so: How soon we should find a spirit of harmony and
peace spring up in Ireland under similar circumstances.
A strong persuasicn, Mr. Wolff observed, exists among
the Jews at the present that the period of their restora-
tion to their own land is very near. The prophecies
relative to this subject Mr. Wolff interprets literally.
Many biblical students, however, take them in a spiritual
sense. At all events, the arguments of Mr. Wolff` in
favour of his own views have the merit of plausibility, as
several predictions to which he referred have been ful-
filled to the letter. Towards the conclusion of hisaddress,
of which we have given but a very imperfect outline, Mr.
Wolff stated that neither of his journeys had cost the
Society a single penny, and he was resolved that his me-
ditated mission to Titnbuctoo should be equally inexpen-
sive to it.
A collection, amounting to £lB 'Ss. was made at the
termination of his interesting discourse.

A Scotchman, picked up out of the gutter in a state of "cipil-
ization" by the police, on regaining his senses, at once clapped
his hand in his pocket. Finding that be had not been robbed, be
probably recollected that he had at all events been guilty of an
imprudence, for he exclaimed with much dismay, Gude God !
ha' I changed amu r' An Irishman in a similar situation,
instead of lamenting the conversion of his paper into cash,
would, in all probability, have consoled himself by returning to
the alehouse, and spending the remainder.

A SERVANT SHUT BY Hl§ MASTER.On. Thursday an in-
quest was held at. Lackingtoo, Wilts, on the bodv of Alfred
Nielson, who.had been shot by his master; the Rev:Nirireasdal,
in mistake for a robber. It appeared that 'on the' I lth' tilt., the
deceased had got up at two o'clock in the niatting, but for What,
lurpose did not appear, and the reverend gentlemen arid' his.
ads, having been alarmed, got up anti looked 'out at the window;
the latter perceived a man goin.,' out of the house, and the for-
mer immediately ran and got a brace of pistols, which be had
latterly kept loaded. Having called out to hire; and receiving
no answer, or not hearing the answer if any was given, he dis-
charged one of the pistols, and wounded deceased in the thigh.
As'soon as the mistake was discovered, one of the female ser-
vants was called up and sent off to Didmai ton for a surgeon,
and another medical gentlaioin was subsequently sent for from
Brikol. Deceased received every attention that his case de-
manded, and he went on very. well until the twelfth day after
the accident, when mortification ensued, and he died. It'appear-
ad that several bar,.7larions attempts had been made on the rev-
erend gentleman's-house within a very short period. The jury
returned a ve edict —" Shot by mistake for a robber;" at the
same time unanimously expressing their belief that they should
have acted in a similar manner under shriller circumstances.