The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-08-08 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

If" A Shareholder" will denude his communication of the"
imputations on the directors we may insert his letter. The
directors, we imagine, can only have one interest in view—,
the general good of the company; but as there may be a
difference of opinion as to how that may be best attained, we
shall not object to publish a communication with that object
alone in view.
The complaints of " John Robinson" are well founded, but we
can seldom find room for letters received on Monday.
We have been compelled to postpone until next week an article
explanatory of a remark which we made a fortnight sines re-
lative to certain parties making the Water Question a stalk-
ing horse for political purposes. Our remarks have been con
strued in some quarters to refer to the National Confedera-
tion, but as we did not intend to allude to that important
body, we are anxious to set ourselves right, but we cannot do
so this week.

lac ittinrpont

TUESDAY MORNING. AUG. 8, 1848.

ANOTHER " Slaughter of the Innocents" took
place on Wednesday evening in the House of Com-
mons. A batch of small bills were announced as
dropped for the present session, so very simple in
their character, and some of them so obviously
necessary, that it must strike any one as marvellous
that, in such an assembly, comprising so many men
of business, one or two spare hours could not have
been spared since the 4th of February to dispose
of them. But so it ever is. The majority of our
representatives in Parliament can see nothing which
is not of imposing aspect, with the exception of
their own small speculative hobbies. Practical
measures, unless of large import, involving some
great principles, or connected with the balance of
parties, are elbowed aside from night to night, and
week after week, until at length they are allowed
to be quietly smothered.
Amongst the measures thus dismissed on Wed-
nesday night, is one which really ought to have
occupied a more prominent position than has been
assigned to it, and which ought to have been
pressed forward by the voice of public opinion as
most especially important at the present crisis. We
refer to the bill for effecting an alteration in the
law with respect to damage done to property by
riotous assemblages. By the law as it stands,—the
remedy given against the Hundred falls very far
short of the justice of the case. A riotous mob—
and we have recently, although happily not in
Liverpool, had some experience of the proceedings
of such mobs—may break into and strip a ware-
house, a house, a shop or any other building ; may
inflict ruin upon the industrious tradesman by
sweeping away the proceeds of years of patient toil
and thrift; and there is no remedy available for
the recovery of his property. The offence only
amounts to a misdemeanour; and, to enable a
party thus injured to recover from the Hundred, it
must amount to the crime of felony. There must
be a demolition or a beginning to demolish the
warehouse or the shop—an invasion of the freehold.
By the bill, introduced at the commencement of
the session, it was proposed to give a wider range
to the law, and to enable parties to recover for loss
sustained by the acts of riotous assemblages,
whether the freehold was touched or not. In fact,
it was proposed to return to the law nearly as it
had previously existed. The proposal was strictly
just. There can be no reason why the house—the
shell—should be protected, and the property which
it contains unprotected : and there is still more
claim now, in the altered state of society amongst
us, than there was when the principle that protec-
tion should be given to the individual for losses
occasioned by the neglect, or the want of power in
the authorities, to preserve order was first re-
cognised. We have seen rising up around us
within the last few years vast communities, depen-
dent upon capital, the caprices of markets, and a
variety of other contingencies for support, who
may at any hour be driven into excesses and vio-
lence, to strikes and turn-outs, during which they
may revenge themselves, or feed themselves, upon
the property of the unoffending shopkeeper, who
must submit to be plundered without redress ;
whilst, at the same time, an injury inflicted by the
very same hands, and drough the very same
agencies, upon the possessor of a mill, a barn, or
even a wall, is amply paid for. We are more liable
now than we ever before were to similar disturb-
ances as the fruit of political agitation. And it is
grossly unfair that the damage done during such
disturbances should fall almost solely upon those
the least able to sustain it, and who, in most
instances, have had the least hand in bringing
them about.

The most proper measure, however, amongst
others, is to postpone to another session, in order,
Sir George Grey informed us on Wednesday night,
that the Attorney-General may have an opportunity
of framing one upon his own pattern. He is
willing for some alteration to be made ; that a
remedy may he given against the hundred, where
the offence committed has been only a misde-
meanour instead of a felony; but he is afraid of
opening the door too wide; and the legal subtlety
of her Majesty's law officers may be able to impart
some retarding friction to its hinges. There has
been abundance of time, moreover, for those law
officers to have considered the bill; and we are not
at all certain that, by the aid of the multitude of
lawyers the house contains, it might not have been
made all that is required at an hour's, or half an
hour's sitting. The object which it had in view,
however, was one only affecting a few miserable
shopkeepers—mere canaille in the eyes ota Whig
ministry. It was thrown aside, with other similar
low-bred pieces of unfinished legislation. The
house could not waste its precious time upon it ;
and accordingly proceeded to press forward a bill
for the improvement of sundry gravel walks, and
other approaches to her Majesty's park at Windsor.

THE great Irish rebellion of 1848, like an ambi-
tious rushlight, has prematurely flared up, and
been puffed out for its impudence. The armed
millions, who were to have swallowed up her Ma-
jesty's forces, horse and foot, and artillery, have
vanished into thin air. before the moral weight of a
proclamation and the muskets of fifty or sixty
police ; and the leaders—the men who were to have
hurled her Majesty from her throne—the presi-
dents of a republic in embryo—where are they ?
Vanished also ; burrowed into some deserted rabbit
warren, or crept into some favoring coal mine, or
some illicit distillery of the genuine potteen. The
gorgeous uniforms of green and gold, which were
to have transformed drapers' shopmen into colonels
and captains, are laid up in ordinary ; the pikes,
which were to have done such terrible execution,
are destined to be transformed into more pacific
implements ; and the stock of muskets and pistols
prepared will probably never be employed in a
nobler cause than that of shooting an agent, or a
landlord, from behind the comfortable shelter of a
hedge, or a stone wall. Alas for the hopes and the
aspirations of the men of the bright sword and
physical force ! Was ever the world so befooled
by a set of actors, who promised soul-stirring
tragedy, and ended by producing farce, most miser-
ably farcifled ?
But a few days ago, we saw the opening of the
performance. And it will be admitted that the bills
promised wonders, arid that the preliminaries had
been most elaborately worked out. The piece
opened with what struck us forcibly as a sort of
Irish version of Bombastes Furioso, his Majesty,
the King of Munster, delivering with admirable
force the well known challenge,
" Whoever shall these boots diiplace,
Must meet O'Brien face to fare."
Anon we saw his majesty, with his cap of '9B
surmounting his locks, and silver-headed sceptre
in his hand, surrounded by an army of some hun-
dreds of heroes in serge, summoning seven police-
men to surrender their arms, and giving them, two
hours to consider the awful consequences of recu-
sancy. After this feat, there was the usual stage
marching and counter-marching; and at length
we find him in front of the Widow M'Cormack's
slate house, in which 50 or Go policemen were en-
sconced, ordering his heroes, in a voice of horribly
alarming loudness, to " blaze away and slaughter
them all," whilst himself, lest the light of rebellion
should go out with him, is carefully squatting be-
hind a wall, and out of shot, amongst the cabbages.
Then there is a volley from the policemen within
the house, from the effects of which several of the
besieging force are seen to fall ; and "suave qui
peat" is very volubly repeated in Irish, the King of
Munster himself setting the example by creeping
on' all fours undei a fence, his agile efforts being
aided by the persuasive effects of a couple of musket
shots. The curtain drops here, leaving us in agony
with respect to the extent of the impression made
by the volley; such agony being increased by in-
formation conveyed to us of his majesty having
been seen, somewhere after the rout, sitting in a
field, blubbering in most unkingly vein, and sub-
sequently surrendering his stick of office to an un-
armed policeman, whom he meets on the road.
There is an episode, too, in which the king is repre

sented as riding away—a la Dick Turpin—upon a
policeinspector's horse.
Thus ended the first act ; and the curtain has
risen, before a puzzled and expectant audience,
disclosing the scene of the late bloody battle,—in
which all, exceptihe few who.were killed, ran away,
—occupied by the tents of some thousand or two
of troops, without an enemy to fight with. Boin-
bastes' boots are displaced, and he has not redeemed
his challenge. The King of Munster has shewn
himself to be veritable dunghill ; and, there is, we
presume, to be no more of the piece, for the present,
at least; some say not until after harvest, and some
not until after the arrival of the Greek kalends. It
is whispered that the leading actor has been so ter-
ribly in earnest, that be has gone lunatic through
his exertions ; and that his mind will have to he
disabused of the impression that the bullets and
bayonets of the enemy are real, before he can be
induced to return and play out his part. He had
set it down that he was " never to he taken alive ;"
and he has no fancy for the previous operation re-
quired for his being taken in any other state.
We suspect, in serious earnestness, that the poor
King is a little affected in his brain; that his brags
of physical force and of dying for his country have
been only the thick-covering fancies of a madman's
brain. There is, at the least, symptoms of this in
a singular manifesto addressed by him to the Mining
Companyof Ballingarry, dated "Callan, 29th July,"
a copy of which has just been enclosed to the Lord
Lieutenant, by General Macdonald. After request-.
ing the Directors not to persecute their men for
having aided in protecting him—or, in reality, for
joining in the insurrection, he goes on to make the
following modest recommendations, viz.:—

" That for the present the whole of the proceeds arising
weekly from the sale of coal and cuim be applied in pay-
ment of men constantly employed in raising coal and
cuim."

Or, in other words, that the entire property of the
Company should be confiscated for the use of the
labourers ! The letter proceeds very pleasantly, as
follows :

"He (Mr. S. O'Brien) recommends that a brisk de-
mand be encouraged by lowering the price of coal and
culm to the public. In case he should find that the
Mining Company endeavour to distress the people by
withholding wages, and by other means, Mr. O'Brien
will instruct the colliers to occupy the mines on their
own account (!); and in case the Irish Revolution should
succeed, the property of the Mining Company will be
confiscated as national property.
On the contrary, if the Mining Company observe a
strict and honourable neutrality"—submit to be robbed—
" doing their utmost to support the people of this district
during this present time of difficulty and trial, their pro-
perty will be protected to the utmost of Mr. O'Brien's
power."
Admirable ! Most candid madman ! Here we
have foreshadowed the very end and aim of re-
bellion. Repeal of the Union ? Republican in-
stitutions ? Fudge ! There is not one in ten of
O'Brien's late followers who know the meaning of
the shibboleth. The movement is obviously a com-
munist movement. The war is to be levied, not so
much against the Saxon as for the appropriation
of the Saxon's property. It is not to seat an im-
becile and a craven, like O'Brien, on the imaginary
throne of imaginary Kings of Munster that Tippe-
rary longs to be led to the field. It is no "wild
revenge" which spurs them on, but a deep longing
for a settled property in the acres, which they have
made the scene of their squalid turbulence. Thanks
to Mr. Smith O'Brien I If his ill-acted farce of
rebellion had no value in our eyes, as tending to
prove to disaffected amongst the Irish people their
unpreparedness to cope with the power of a united
empire, and the feebleness and incapacity of their
blustering leaders, it has, at all events, drawn from
himself this confession, that its object is not the
regeneration of Ireland, and the motives of those
engaged in it pure patriotism ; but that,. from first
to last, it is a scheme of plunder. There may be a
little of "wild revenge" as an accessory; but
plunder and confiscation are at the root of the
rebellion.
After we had written thus far, we received intel-
ligence of the arrest of the chief actor in this farce,
and of several of his leading subordinates, the par-
ticulars of which we detail elsewhere.

THE advocates of the Rivington Pike scheme
have got hold of another stalking horse. The cho-
lera is coming. Already it has reached the shores of
the Baltic. It is raging in St. Petersburg; and
any day we may expect to hear of its having reached
our own shores. Ergo, exclaim the water doctors,
—" Press forward at once the Rivington schema ;
procure water from the Yarrow, the Roddlesworth
and the Douglas, to flush your sewers and cleanse
your streets; you have not a moment to lose!"
We are not at all disposed to treat lightly the
threatened advent of that dreadful scourge, or. to
deny the advantages which would result to the
public health from the possession of an ample
supply of water. We rather pride ourselves upon
the fact, indeed, that the necessity of taking prompt
measures for procuring such a supply had our
humble advocacy long Wore it excited much notice
from some of the gentlemen, who are now so zealous
in the cause; when Mr. Earle and Mr. Rathbone
were thinking more about beautifying the town
than improving its sanatory state, and had centred
their affections more in St. George's Hall than in
the sewers of Vauxhall-road or Marybone. But we
must object to the near approach of the cholera, or
even its actual presence, being any argument in.
favor of rushing headlong into the Rivington, or
any other scheme, without full consideration. Push
on our engineer as we will ; expedite the required
works as we will ; be lavish of expenditure as we
will; a supply of water from Rivington is only in
futuro, whilst the cholera is almost a present fact.
We cannot drive it away by merely exhibiting plans
and specifications, chymical analyses or Mr. Spen-
cer's sealed bottles of the delightful fluid itself. A
more common-sense policy would be to set about
enquiring, whether it is not possible to make more
than we do of the protective means, which we have
in our :Possession. We are assured by practical
men that, if not an abundant, or at least such an
abundant supply as some people contemplate, an
increased supply can easily be had. Let the Health
Committee take steps to procure us this. It may
be made available in, comparatively speaking a,
very short period, probably before one half of the
working survey of Rivington is completed, and for
less money than the engineer will have to spend
before his working drawings are ready to he laid
before the Council.

We are not about to enter at all into a discussion
upon this long mooted plan of water supply.
Like the public, we are weary of it. But we can-
not omit once more to reprobate the uncalled-for
imputations which are levelled by the advocates
of the Rivington scheme, in the Council and else-
where, against every gentleman who presumes to
differ from them. They are "a set of selfish rate-
payers" forsooth, who are to have "a lesson read
to them on their selfishness and short-sightedness ;"
they regard "pocket interests" to the neglect of
all thought of "the lives and habits and morals of
the town." We are not disposed to retaliate such
unworthy imputations, or we might perhaps ask
Mr. Rathbone, Mr. Earle, and some of their friends,
whether this great scheme is altogether to be under-
taken on sanatory grounds. The pocket is perhaps
quite as sensitive on one side as the other.

Rom FERRY COMPANY.—The annual meeting of this
company was held yesterday at the Clarendon-rooms, but
reporters were not admitted.
FIRE LIGHTS.—The speedy and cleanly ignition of fires
is always desirable, and we believe that the patent fire
lights for that purpose advertised in another column, pos-
sess all the advantages that can be desired and tend to
save much time and expense.
ALLEGED CRUELTY OF A CAPTAIN.—III another column
it will be found that the captain of a Quebec ship, who
had charged some of his men with mutiny, failed to sub-_
stantiate his charge, and that he was summoned by the
accused for cruel treatment. The case was called upon
yesterday at the police-court, but none of the parties
appeared.

GRAND CONCERT.—In addition to the extraordinary
attraction of Jenny Lind at the splendid concert at the
Collegiate-hall, in this town, next month, we perceive that
Signor Rogers has been engaged, who is decidedly the
next finest tenor singer to Mario, end has never been heard
here. He made a marvellous sensation at the Royal Ita-
lian Opera this season.
THE WEATHER.—Since our last publication, the
weather has been extremely unsettled, with very heavy
rains, particularly on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,
which may have done some injury to the grain crops, by
laying them, as they are now heavy and approaching to
ripeness. We have not, however, as yet heard of any
particular damage, and, if the weather should take up, all
will be well. The other crops are rapidly advancing.
ANOTHER TRIAL.—It appears that the hangers-on of
Conciliation-hall are already boasting of their in tention to re-
open that nursery of treason the moment the country is
permitted to enjoy even temporary tranquillity by the
suppression of the " King of Munster's" abortive effort
to overthrow British supremacy in Ireland. Mr. John
O'Connell, it seems, actually contemplates his restoration
to the dictatorship, which, when matters grew serious, he
was but too happy to surrender.