The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-06-16 00:00:00

)te numt
Roman government.

from their forr

r which the partisans of free trade in
grain have ever attempted to these considerations is, that
the ruin of the agriculture in the central provinces of the

,Illy an

Roman empire was owing, not to t

importation of fo-
reign corn as a mercantile commodity, but to its distribu-
tion gratuitously to the poorer citizens of Rome, Con-
stantinople, and some of the larger cities in the empire
They ad:

_ mit, in its fullest extent, the decay of domestic
agriculture, and consequent ruin of the state, but allege it
was owing to this gratuitous distribution, which was in
fact a poor.law, and not to the free trade in grain. But a
very little consideration must be sufficient to show that
this is an elusory distinction; and that is what the unre-
stricted admission of foreign wheat by purchase, which in
reality, coupled with the contraction of the currency, de-
stroyed the dominion of the legions.

1. In the first place, the number who received these
gratuitous distributions was, as already shown, so small,
when compared to the whole body of the grain-consuming
population, that they could not materially have affected
the market for agricultural produce in Italy. Not more
than 150,000 persons receired rations in Rome daily, and
perhaps as many in the other cities of Italy. What was

this in a peninsula containing at tn..
eighteen millions of souls, and with 2,300,000* in its capi-
tal alone ? It is evident that the gratuitous distributions
of grain, taking those at their greatest extent, could not
have embraced a fiftieth part of the population
What ruined the agriculturists, who urea
maining forty-nine fiftieths ? The unlimited importation

ixteen or

to feed the re-

of cheap grain from Spain, Egypt,

Sicily, and Lybia, and

nothing- else

2. In the next place, even if the gratuitous distributions
of grain► had embraced twenty times the number which
they did, nothing can be clearer than that the effect on

whether cheap forei

agriculture is the same, .gn grain is
imported by the private importer, or bought and distri-
buted by the government. If the home-grower loses his
market, it is the same thing to him whether he does so
from the effect of private importation or public distribu-
tion; whether his formidable competitor is the merchant,
who brings the Lybian grain to the Tiber ; or the govern-
ment, which extracts it as a tribute from. Sicily or Egypt.
The difference is very great to the urban population,
whether they receive their foreign grain in return for their
own labour, or get it doled out to them from the govern-
ment store as the price of keeping quiet. But to the ru-
ral cultivator it is immaterial. whether destruction comes

upon him in the one way or the other. It is the impor-
tation offoreign grain which ruins him ; and the effect
is the same, whether the price paid for it is the gold of the
capitalist, or the blood of the legions.

* There are now 20,009,000 inhabitants in Ral
certainly as populous in the time of Augustus, when Rome
alone, which now has 180,090, contained 2,385,900 souls.

and it was

---..,_......._

" I see you are on the watch,
guard chain.
YoaxsnutE REBECCAITES.—There were Rebeccaites
in England in the last century, and bold enough were
their proceedings, most certainly. On Friday, the Bth of
May, 1752, (says a Manchester paper of that date,)
" Benjamin Woodsworth, the bent-um or common cryer
of Selby, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, made procla-
mation, by ring of bell, in the public street of the said
town of Selby, for the inhabitants thereof to bring their
axes and hatchets, at twelve o'clock that night, in order
to cut down the turnpike erected at that place by act of
parliament; and on the 7th, Bth, 9th, and 11th instant,
divers persons assembled in an outrageous manner, and
cut down and totally destroyed the great gate of the said
turnpike."

' as the thief said to the

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE RADICALS.—The im-
mediate passing of this important measure (the Corn Bill)
may now be considered as assured ; the majority consist-
ing not only of proxies but of peers present, so that no
serious attempt to mutilate the bill in committee, where
proxies do not count, could be made with a hope of suc-
cess. It is given out, however, that the Whigs now hold
themselves at liberty to defeat the government, with the
Protectionists as allies, and that the present cabinet is to
be overthrown before the end of the session, by an under-
standing between the two parties. We think their power
to do so is calculated upon a very doubtful data. The
bill passed, the Protectionists will find that they have no-
thing to gain by a change, and their present bitterness will
subside by degrees. Moreover, the sympathies of the
country at this moment are unquestionably with Sir R.
Peel, and it will be his opponents, rather than himself,
who will be damaged with the public by factious votes.
Among the Conservative members of the House of Com-
mons the irreconcileable enemies of the Premier do not
exceed sixty, and the last vote of Lord John Russell on
the factory question has alienated at least that number of
free-traders from the Whig leader.— Westminster Review.
APPEARANCE OF A YANKEE REGIMENT. These
troops turn out on all public or gala days ; their gay dress
—their strange variety of costume, tending to inspirit and
enliven the scene ; indeed they would seem as if organised
and drawn together for no other possible or earthly pur-
pose, their military skill and capabilities being strictly
coefined to marching and countermarching in subdivisions
and sections, through the streets and principal thorough-
fares of their towns and cities, for the edification of the
boys and young children of the neighbourhood, and the
delight of their female friends and acquaintances, to the
discordant sound of some three or four wind instruments,
and a half-strung bass drum, discoursing boisterous mu-
sic—bedizened in their many-coloured dresses, that form
a strange medley of the national military costumes of al-
most every European nation ;—of the armies of republi-
can and monarchical France—of the Prussian, Russian,
German, the Irish, and even the Scotch Highland garb
all that unrestrained fancy may suggest, except the Bri-
tish, to which they still preserve a most unconquerable
dislike : whilst every other colour, or shade of colour is
admitted, scarlet is still, and pertinaciously, proscribed
amongst them.— Wyse's America.
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CELEBRATED
PREACHER, ROBERT HALL.—After we had waited for
about a quarter of an hour, Mr. Hall made his appearance.
He was rather below the average height, stout, and in-
clined to corpulency. His chest was very broad and ca-
pacious—the face large, and the features massive. His
eyes were large, dark, and full, and his forehead high and
broad. The head, which was bald, except at the back,
and over the temples, had an indescribable grandeur about
it. The worst part of the face was the mouth, which was
very large, and the under lip somewhat protruded ; the

a was large and projecting,

This gave an appearance

heaviness to his general aspect

No one with an ob

servant eye could for a moment gaze on Mr. Hall's ma-
jestic countenance without being at once struck with the

expression of almost torture which was evident in it. He
seemed to be constantly endeavouring to conceal bodily
suffering—and it was so, for he was in reality a martyr to
one of the most painful disorders that can affect humanity
—calculi in the kidneys. After he had divested himself
of his great coat, he had a pipe and some tobacco brought
him, and having puffed away for a little time, he pulled off
his dress coat, lay down on his back on the health rug,
and was soon enveloped in a cloud of smoke. This was

endured compelled him to