The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-02-01 00:00:00

is really high time that this oppressive county tax should
be reduced ; the burthen increases, and is becoming a very

serious matt

The
,Guardians of the West Derby and

other Unions have on more than one occasion memorialised
the county magistrates on the subjeet ; but the evil has

greater

ment of the county constabulary force, and there appears

no prospect of its amelioration

IRISH

MENDICANCY IN LONDON,

burthens induced by the invasion of wretched Irish pau-
pers, and vicious and filthy Irish beggars. For their
maintenance we exhausted our parish funds ; and the rate-.

which was the result. Our dock quays and streets were
crowded with a famishing peasantry, driven from their
homes to prey upon our own industrious people ; and with

sturdy beggars who were told that we were able to sup-
port every vagrant, who, unwilling to work, found the
sources of charity in his own country, for a time, closed.
Our complaints with respect to the preference with which
we were favoured (?) met with little sympathy from her
majec

;y's ministers, or from the community at large. We

were gravely told that Ireland sent us a large quantity of
her corn, her pork, her butter, and her poultry, and that
it was little wonder that her people followed to eat it ;
and that the least we could do was to find them knives
and forks, clean table cloths, and the other necessary ap-
purtenances. Our port was the entrance gate by which
Irish produce found its way into the stomach of John

paid for his dinners Wand suppers SO received ; and it was
urged as not unreasonable—and by a cabinet minister, if
we remember right, that our port ought to be happy to
keep a people who had thus extensively traded with us,
although that people had at the time our money in their
pockets. We were unreasonable enough, too, to com-
plain that Ireland was converting Liverpool into her fever
hospital. We appealed to the valuable lives of our towns-
men—in addition to our funds—sacrificed in the effort to
cure the sickness of the filthy lazars disembarked upon
our dock quays. We asked for the aid of government
and the nation in this dreadful emergency. We asked in

vole. All Unit, we received wee the loon of a foam Loans.*
for floating hospitals ; and we had to pay even for their
transport here and their fitting up. •
The tables seem to be turning, as they generally do in
the long run, however imperfectly some people may sup-
pose the affairs of this world of ours to be governed. The
plague has penetrated to the manufacturing districts long
ago ; and at length, and in most seasonable time, it has
reached the metropolis itself. We quote a very graphic
description of the invasion—and we can vouch, from its
likeness to the picture presented here, for its perfect faith-
fulness—from the columns of the London Times :

"Everybody must have observed the increase of mendi-
cancy in the metropolis. It is not a very agreeable topic
to talk about, but cannot be easily forgotten while the liv-
ing subjects obtrude themselves so numerously and so ener-
getically on one's notice. The great thoroughfares " are
alive" with beggars. To be sure the poor creatures are in
motion, like mites in a cheese ; for the policeman's "move
on" just prevents them from absolutely blockading the
pavement. But it is only a hideous mockery of life and
business. You see an ill-clad wretch before you, walking
on, as if work. engagements, a home, a family, hope and
comfort, were in prospect. The instant you come up to
him, he turns round with some form of entreaty or com-
plaint; and then you see he is a homeless, friendless,
placeless outcast, without aim or hope in existence. Then
there are wretched women with infants in their arms; or
children at their sides, the lame, the maimed, diseased,
young women, little girls, and every class of suffering, ex-
cent, to the best of our observation, the aged. No small
proportion betray the Celtic origin in their accent, their
costume, and, it must be added, their winning address.
Some affect to sell picture books, or flowers, real or arti-
ficial, according to the season, or anything that may dis-
guise their vocation; or they swarm around you asking for
tickets to some benevolent association, the tickets being as
much a pretence as the flowers. The most miserable fea-
ture of the case is, that many look as if they had seen
better days. Others, indeed, to all appearance, have never
been anything better than they are. One sad thought,
however, embraces the whole class ; and that is, how
quickly such poor creatures must pass to the grave.
" Of their numbers we can form no idea, but it must be
something enormous. In one particular quarter mile of
pavement sheltered from the wind, and blessed with the
sun, if any there be, there cannot be less than fifty some-
times, of all ages and sexes. Ladies turning out after
lunch to do a little shopping, or get a little health, have to
run the gauntlet past, or rather through, whole files of
mendicants, many of whom, whenever an opportunity oc-
curs, will appeal to fear as well as to pity. Again, three
or four groups will perform the circuit of a square at equal
distances, all day long, and thus keep up the continual
appearance of progress. They do not cease with the day ;
indeed, whither they go at night we cannot tell. There
are, however, beggars in the street all night long. There
are miserable creatures too old, too ailing, and too ugly,
either for work or for vice, who glean the last vestige of
alms till two or three in the morning, when, we presume,
they finish the night on a door-step, if they cannot do
better. Where the day-beggars stow themselves at night
one is almost afraid to conjecture. It would take barracks
to hold them with the most moderate regard to decency
and health. Their numbers we cannot estimate.; but were
we told there are 50,000 professed beggars, who do nothing
but beg, we should not be surprised.'

The mendicancy in our streets is such as must convey
to foreigners a very unfavourable opinion of our charitable
institutions. Moreover, the nuisance to passengers and
injury to shopkeepers is enormous. Many people will
not enter a pastry cook's shop, for fear that some poor

should take a stand at the door, watch them eat
heir bun, and attempt to make a prize out of the half-
There are also whole rows of

gi,;.en in chanie.

shops the custom of which is considerably injured by the
cordon of beggars occupying the pavement. Few ladies
like to encounter twenty squalid supplicants before they
can purchase a pair of kid gloves or a few yards of
riband."

Our readers will recognise the features of the picture.
They will recall to mind the half dozen men, women, and
children who were wont to beset every pastry cook's door,
and to hover about our eating-houses. But in one respect
the resemblance fails. There was no "pretence" offered
here for the mendicancy—no requests for tickets for soup ;
no flowers, or tracts. The beggars at present afflicting
the London people must have learned a little policy since
they were first imported. When they landed here, they
came direct from the quays to the parish-office ; and,
when relieved there, into our streets and to our doors.

lie commodity as to their disincl nation to be sent luimre
ey prefer even an English prison to Ireland ; and not a
as we find from the London police reports, are just
nv resorting to the plan of committing petty thefts, or
windows, in order to be enabled to sojourn'
his inclement weather, in domiciles which, how-
..;ver distasteful to our own poor, are something like Para-
dise in the estimation of the vagrant Irish.
We do most cordially congratulate the country, and the
people of Liverpool in particular, upon this movement of
our Celtic brethren southwards. We may now expect the
sympathy, on any future occasion of such a visitation to
Liverpool, which the experience of fellow suffering creates.
Chesham Place, we trust, will not be without its daily
visitation, in order that its noble occupant,
.Lord John
Russell, may learn what it is to be pestered with a crowd
of wretched beings, whose very contact is contagion,

reakir

MtaaaZ

I THE WEST INDIES-THEIR IMPROVEMENT,

We have repeatedly called attention to the ruinous con-
dition of our West Indian colonies owing to the disastrous
policy pursued towards them during the last few years. It
has been truly said that " those who have marked the
progress of the late commercial crisis, and have witnessed
the prostration of the most splendid commercial fortunes,
are well aware that one of the chief elements of these dis-
asters is to be found in the working of that fearful experi-
ment by which, in 1846, slave-grown sugars were admit-
ted into competition with the sugars of British colonists,
not yet fully inured to the free-labour system!'

We have been much instructed by the perusal of a very
sensible pamphlet*, in which the whole question connected
with our West Indian possessions is discussed with unu-
sual ability. It is proved from parliamentary returns
that prior to the abolition of slavery our colonists there
were able to produce sugar almost as cheap as the slave-
countries. The average price of British sugar during the
nine years between 1825 and 1833 was 30s. ld. per cwt.,
and Brazil 245. Ild. Previous to 1807 the West Indies
could compete without protection with the whole world.
After the emancipation of the negroes a great proportion
of them refused to labour, and the author of the pamphlet
before us declares his solemn conviction that " instead of
the £17,000,000 (granted as compensation to the planters
of the West Indies, the Mauritius, and the Cape, for the
freedom of the slaves) being equivalent to their loss, it has
probably amounted to twice that sum." The planters
could not allow their estates to be uncultivated, or the
loss would have been excessive—they could not sell the
estates, for no buyer was to be found. Thus they were
left until 1846, when the cry for cheap sugar was raised,
and in that year the Sugar Duties Bill of 1846 completed
the catastrophe, and the writer we have alluded to thus
graphically describes our inconsistency in passing that
measure :

" In 1832, slavery was depicted as a sin and a crime : it
was denounced as a stain upon the national honour ; as a
blot on the conscience of the people of this country ; from
which, at all hazards, and at whatever cost, they must be
freed. We did not even ask the planters what were their
feelings upon the subject. Nor would it have satisfied our
scruples to have declined for ourselves the receipt of this
slave-polluted produce; leaving to the planters the re-
sponsibility, if they thought fit, of continuing the use of
slave-labour, and resorting with their produce to the mar-
kets of other countries where no such objections might
have existed. No : the abolition of slavery was declared
to be a matter of principle ; to which all considerations of
cost, or time, or aught else, must be altogether postponed.
" Who could have dreamt that before eight years
should elapse from the final completion of that memorable
measure—as if to humble our national pride, and tarnish
the fame of this boasted Act (of which hitherto we had re-
ceived all the praise, whilst the much-abused planters
were left to sustain almost all the loss),—another Act
should be passed by the British Parliament, at the instance
of the Ministers of the Crown, for the purpose of admit-
ting into the markets of the country the slave-grown su—
gars of other nations ! Slavery and the slave-trade being
active in Cuba and Brazil, it was discovered that their
sugars might be bought at a penny the pound cheaper
than those of our own free-labour colonies ; and it was
calculated, moreover, that we might derive some addition
to the national exchequer by the transaction !
" If it were right to have denounced slavery and the
slave trade as sins and crimes in 1833, what is to be said
of setting ourselves to work in 1846 to derive a profit from
the commission at second-hand of these very crimes ! If
it be right to pursue the slave-dealer on the coast of Af-
rica, and bring him to trial as a pirate and a robber, what
is to be said of sharing the profit of his cheap and polluted
gains across the ocean ! * * * *

" Those of the planters who had means or credit, have
hitherto persevered in the struggle to maintain their es-
tates : they persevered against fearful odds, and. despite
of difficulties the most distressing and perplexing. But
who can tell the bitter sorrows of those who were doomed
to fall in that unequal struggle ! From a condition of
easy independence plunged into distress and ruin ; their
families beggars on the world ; and they themselves left
without even the consolation that, although deprived of
their property, their character would at all events be al-
lowed to remain. But instead of this, to find themselves
classed as reckless bankrupts !—who would not be warned
of the folly and imprudence of overtrading !—Bankrupts,
without any fault or imprudence of their own ! No : one
unpardonable folly, it appears, they must acknowledge.
Must it be owned that they trusted the good faith of their
country !"

The following reasonable remedies are submitted by the
author, as calculated to restore the prosperity of our West
Indian colonies; and the sooner they are resorted to,
the better for the mother country and those valuable

possessions

" 1. A fixed differential duty, of adequate amount, be-
tween slave-grown sugars and those of our own colonies,
to be determined either by reducing the present duty on
colonial sugar, or by increasing that on foreign.
" 2. Advances of money to be made to the planters, on
the security of their estates, for the purpose of promoting
improvements in drainage, irrigation, or otherwise, as
may be deemed most expedient.
"3. 1„ st enermrgamant. a_ nf wAlL,esulated
tion of free labourers from the coast of Africa.
" 4. Such means, as a proper consideration of the con-
dition of our West India colonies and of the legitimate

bjects of emancipation may suggest, for reclaiming to in-
dustrious habits the multitudes among the emancipated
classes who have withdrawn from labour; and for secur-
ing their own gradual moral improvement, as well as for
the instruction of their children."

* Remarks on the present state of the West Indian Colonies,
with suggestions for their improvement. London : Smith,
Elder, and Co.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVISION FOR THE

PARISH OF MANCHESTER

When the Rev. Canon Parkinson was appointed to the
Presidency of Saint Bees College, with the incumbency of
that parish, and announced his intention of holding in ad-
dition the rectory of Manchester, we drew the attention
of our readers to a memorandum entered on the parish
journal by the churchwardens of Manchester, expressive of
their opinion that the parish would suffer from the length-
ened absence (for the greater part of the year) of Mr.
Parkinson, however earnestly the rev. gentleman: might
strive to prevent it. During the agitation of the question,
Lord Stanley made some strong representations in the
House of Lords, in which he stated that " it was intended
that the Dean and Chapter of Manchester should reside
within the parish; that they did not reside, and that they
violated not only the intention of the founder, but also the
moral duty which dovolved upon them, with reference to
the population of Manchester. They had avoided the le-
gal responsibility, and they had not fulfilled the moral
obligation which had devolved upon them." These were
serious charges, but Lord Stanley was not the man to
make them lightly.

Within the last few days, we have had sent to us a copy
in the original latin, together with a translation by J.
Wheeler, Esq., banister at law, of the " Foundation
charter of Christ's College, Manchester, granted by King
Charles the First, and dated 2nd October, 1635," from
which we make the following extracts :
" And forasmuch as under the foundation as well of the
Lord Philip and the Lady Mary King and Queen of Eng.
land, as of the Lady Elizabeth late Queen of England (of
blessed memory,) the college bath sustained most grievous
prejudice by reason of the absence of the keeper, warden
or wardens, who, though absent and performing none of
the duty of warden, have drawn from it a large portion of
the revenues of the said college ; we therefore decree, or-
dain, and will, that the warden and fellows, and their suc-
cessors, do constantly reside and eat and drink in the
town or parish of Manchester, or in house or houses col-
legiate, so soon as the same shall have been provided. _

" We also decree and ordain and will, that on each.a.or
on which the warden and fellows shall be altogether absent
from the town or parish of Manchester, so as to be unable,
when called upon, to visit any sick person, or perform any
other works of piety and charity in the said parish, the
warden, as often as it so happens, shall forfeit of his own
proper annual stipend two shillings and eightpence, and
the fellows shall forfeit, &c."*

How far Mr. Parkinson can comply with these provi-
sions, and at the same time effectually discharge the du-
ties devolving upon him at St. Bees, we leave to his own
conscience to determine; but knowing as we do that the
400,000 parishioners of Manchester require an increase of
clerical superintendence—knowing that the time of Mr
Parkinson will chiefly be occupied at St. Bees-

—we feel

bound to say that we sympathise with the efforts now
making in Manchester, by many warm friends of the
Church of England, to procure an appropriation of the
parish funds, more in accordance than at present with the
labours and duties of the working clergy.

* Of course the value of money has, amazingly increased
since the period when the charter was granted.

THE SPIRIT OF ltdNik.--Bishoji Sant, the new Romish
Bishop of Malta, has, like his predecessor, Caruana, re-
fused to take the oath that he will not attempt to disturb
the Protestant faith; required before he can be admitted
'as a member of the Maltese-cam-lei' of government.
On Saturdays printer named Bathe recovered £35 4s. Bd.
the cost of printing dye "prOspeetus of the Liverpool and
Derby Direct Railway • Campany, from the Hungarian
Count Bathiany, who was one of thb provisional commit-
tee-men of the unfortunate 1106i:taking.
EARLY CLoscsu.-The anniversary dinner of the mem-
bers of the association, which has for its object the early
closing of shops inlhiS foWn;,-Wu's. held on Thursday, at
the Queen's Hotel,'Lime-street.. In the absence of Mr.
B. Flower, the president of the association, the chair was
filled by Mr. Miram, and the vice-chaii by Mr. Rayne;.
Several excellent toasts and speeches were made in. the
course of the eyetiing,

THE LIVERPOOL STINDARII.