The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-10-01 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Had the " Chairman of the Afternoon Tee-total Meeting" refrained
from slandering " A Member of St. Thomas's Church," we would
have given insertion to his letter. Why does "the Chairman"
say "I unhesitatingly say his statements are altogether false, in
reference to several fruit stalls being erected," when our corre-
spondent never said that there were such fruit stalls erected. If,
as our correspondent seems to imply, each person is to set up his
own standard of what is " good " as that which is to be the crite-
rion of what is allowable on the sabbath, then can the Repeaters
justify their monster meetings, and the Socialists their balls and
revellings, on that holy day. Our temperance friend should bear
in mind, that he who said "It is lawful to do good on the sabbath
day," said, also, " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy
neighbour," and said, moreover, by his apostle, " Whatsoever is
not of faith is.sin."

QLlg W...iberpool. gPtaiirlarb,

TUESDAY 2110RNING, OCT. 1, 1844.

We called public attention recently to the neglect
of the comfort and convenience of the poorer classes
of travellers, evinced in the regulations of the Grand
Junction Railway. The return made to us has

been our exclusion from the advertising favours (!)
of this powerful company—several of which have
since gone the round of the Liverpool papers, with
the marked exception of the STANDARD—and the
ill-will of some of its directors, whom we had a right
to class amongst the number of our friends. The
pecuniary portion of thi sacrifice we did not care
for, although we regretted to observe the littleness
of mind which could prompt its infliction upon us.
We were consoled, however, by the reflection that,
in the altered regulations which immediately fol-
lowed our remarks, we had secured for a portion of
our fellow-townsmen and fellow-countrymen, whose
interests are too little regarded by railway projectors
and managers, that accommodation, which they had
a right to expect, and which it was no less the inte-
rest than the duty of the Grand Junction Company
to afford. There is no longer thrown in the way of
the poor travellers by this line those inconveniences
and slights which, previously, rendered the journey
from Liverpool to London by anything less expen-
sive than the first-class trains,,an undertaking which
no one, except in the utmost emergency, would
venture upon.
Since this submission of the Grand Junction
Directors to the pressure of public opinion, another
company (the Liverpool and Manchester) to whom
we had also addressed remonstrances which we felt
were called for, with respect to the extravagant rate
of their fares, have consented to provide, for the
poorer description of their travellers, the accommo-
dation of a third-class train, the charge for which,
for the distance between Liverpool and Manchester,
is to be 3s. for each passenger. So far, we are quite
ready to say " well done," although we must wait
to see that the promised boon is not one which is
encumbered and in part neutralised by accompany.
ing inconveniencies. There still remains, however,
the extravagant and extortionate charge of 7s. for
the first-class carriages, which we have on former
occasions denounced, and of which, we contend, the
public are entitled to demand the reduction. This
charge is, within a fraction, at the rate of 3d. a
mile ; and, in the present flourishing condition of
the company, its exaction ought not to be permitted,
neither will it be permitted, by the public.
A mere glance at the prices of the Liverpool and
Manchester stock will suffice to shew the reasona-
bleness of our demand for reduced rates, putting
the good policy of according it entirely out of the
question.
The £lOO shares, £lOO paid, are worth £206.
„ £5O do. £5O „ IP £lO2.
„ £25 do. £25 „ IP £5l.
„ £4O do. to be called up to pay
debt.. £36.
Here then we have a nominal capital of £215 per
share, of which only £175 is paid-up capital, worth
in the market no less than £39s—or a clear profit
of £220 upon each share of £175 ! Surely a body
of proprietors, so favoured by circumstances—so
eminently successful—are entitled to be called upon
to pay some little deference to, and even to submit
to some small sacrifice of their exorbitant profits for,
the public convenience.
But it may be well worth enquiry whether any
sacrifice at all is involved in the reasonable reduc-
tion of the fares by this line. It is incontestably
certain that, with the increased comfort to be given
to the second-class passengers, by the new arrange-
ment, a large number of those previously using the
first class only will be induced to travel by the se-
cond class, and save the 25., the difference between
the two ; whilst there is nothing, or very little, to
induce those previously travelling by the blue car-
riages to leave them, where two shillings can be
saved by using the same carriages under the name of
the third class. The prospect at present is, that the
first class, with all its cushioned carriages, and even
added luxuries, will be comparatively deserted,
whilst the hulk of the passengers will travel by the
second and third classes (perhaps most by the
last) at the reduced fares of ss. and 3s.
We are convinced that the company might, pro-
fitably for themselves, have adopted a still lower and
better-proportioned rate of fares than the one now
resolved upon. Five shilling bears still the same
ratio to seven shillings that they did a month ago; and
if two-fifths were all the difference in value between
the first-class and the blue train then, there can he
no greater difference now, the carriages in each
train being the same. An intermediate price might
have been fixed upon for the second. class carriages,
which would not have been complained of. The
Company would have found the benefit of their mo-
deration and desire to consult the public conve-
nience, the increasing traffic between the two ter-
mini being quite sufficient, independently of the in-
crease of travelling caused by low fares (of which
the recent cheap trips are a strong proof), to warrant
the ultimate success, in a pecuniary view, of such a
submission, gracefully made, to the requirements
and the advantage of the public.
We leave the subject with these remarks, merely
reminding the directors that the demand now made
upon their consideration may, if slighted, assume a
less reasonable and moderate form. There are
other routes by which a line may be brought
from Manchester to Liverpool than the existing
one; and if we are not wrongly informed, there
is a company, whose power the directors of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway have already
felt, who are only waiting for the time to arrive for
attempting the construction of such a line. In the
present improved condition of the science of railway
construction, such a competing project is not to be
lightly hazarded.

The recent proposal of Dr. Maunsell, to hold a
triennial session of the British Parliament in Dub-
lin, is, with all its absurdity, important, as indicat-
ing a feeling amongst the Conservative party in Ire-
land, which is anything but a pleasing object of
contemplation. The time is not yet ripe for a step,
by Irish loyalists, the whole length of repeal. The
milder measure of a federal union has not, as yet,
many
.adherents amongst the educated and Protes-
tant portion of the Irish people. It is plain, how-
ever, that there is a growing disposition to advance
in the direction of the vaunted specifics for Ire-
land's maladies —a disposition to attribute a portion
of those maladies to the want of legislation upon the
spot, and to claim for Ireland a greater influence in
the Constitution than she possesses or is entitled to
receive; and if that feeling continues to progress,
with as great rapidity as it has done of late, the time
is perhaps not so far distant as some
politicians
imagine, when the cry for Repeal of the Union,
in-
stead of being an exclusivelyPopisht
watchword—
the cry of a faction aiming at religious domination

over their Protestant fellow-countrymen:--will be-
come the cry of a nation.
We regret the policy on the part 'of our brother
Conservatives in Ireland, which is operating to
bring about a consummation so much to be feared.
We regret, more than all, the temper which ap-
pears to have dictated such policy, and which, if
encouraged, will throw the loyal Protestants of that
country into the hands of O'Connell and of Rome,

to serve as blind instruments for working out their
insidious designs. It is quite true that such men as
Dr. Maunsell, Alderman Butt, and their associates
in this new movement, have had infinite reason of
late years to be dissatisfied with the acts of the legis-
lature as it exists. It is true,. and lamentable, that
the prospects of
,the Irish Protestants are well nigh
as dark as the former gentleman has painted them ;
and that, of the only two of their cherished institu-
tions—their University ani their Established
Church—no reflecting man will engage that the
first " will not within a year he thrown as a sop to
the monster of agitation," or that, this being
effected, " their Church as a national establishment
can survive." But it is weak and unworthy of these
men, who have fought so nobly through long years
of menace and persecution for the mainteuance of
their Protestant institutions and of the British con •
nexion, to rush now, in a moment of passion and
resentment—the result of expectations disappointed
and trust abused—into a course so rash and unad-
vised as this proposal of a migratory Parliament,
which can only tend to encourage the ulterior hopes
of repealers and rebels, without conferring one ad-
vantage upon the great mass of their fellow coun-
trymen. It is to be deeply deplored that, by such
men, a step should be taken which is already
weakening the confidence and sympathy ever ex-
tended to them by Protestants of England, and, if
followed up, must produce distrust and total aliena-
tion.

We cannot bring ourselves to believe that Dr.
Maunsell is himself seriously persuaded of the
fesabtlity of his plan, or its real advantages to Ire-
land. He says that it is fesable, because it has been
tried before—because Parliaments have been held
" at Oxford, York, Trim, and even at the Borough
of Swords." No doubt such things have been,
and the members of such Parliaments have debated

in the steel cap and morion, breast plates and thigh
plates, with sword in belt, and spur on heel; but a
practice, the prompting solely or mainly of the
necessity of the times, can scarcely be urged as a
presedent for its adoption now. The machinery of
legislaiion now is too cumbrous to become ambula-
tory. A Prime Minister cannot carry about with
him, either Whitehall or the. Treasury; the Chan-
cellor cannot remove either the Bank or the Ex-
chequer ; the Board of Trade, the Horse Guards,
the Admiralty, Somerset House, and the India
House, are fixtures too inseparably connected with
the daily working of Government to be dispensed
with. Feasibility in the plan, therefore, there is
none.

And, with respect to its real advantages to the
great mass of the people of Ireland, we must con-
fess that we are not at all satisfied ; and especially
we are sceptical with respect to its advantages to
Protestant interests in that country. Dr. Maunsell,
indeed, tells us that the plan "could not render the
condition of Irish Protestants worse than it is ;" that
"it would enable Englishmen to learn, what they do
not now know, the actual position of Protestants in
Ireland"—assertions all of very questionable truth
or probability. But the conclusion that with British
parliament sitting in Dublin, without hearing of the
fulminations which weekly issue from the Concilia-
tion Hall, and within reach of the violence and in-
timidation of the mobs which form the staff of the
great agitator, a greater weight "would be given"
by a government which has conceded so much to
the pressure from without, we cannot believe at all.
It is totally beyond the range of our powers of
digestion.

It may be very convenient to the lawyers of Dub-
lin to have, as Dr. Maunsell remarks, " the field of
imperial parliamentary practice thrown open to
them," to the physicians to have " the squares of
Dublin filled with wealthy patients," and to the
tiadesmen of Dublin " to have their profits and their
business quadrupled." A few of these anticipated
benefits might even stay beyond the liberties—in
about the proportion of the half-pennyworth of
bread to the two gallons of sack in Sir John Fal-
staff's Tavern Bill ;—an increased amount of the
capital of Great Britain might even find its way into
Ireland, as the result of this mensure—if it would
allay that agitation which alone prevents the intro-
duction of such capital ;—but, with such slender
prospects of advantage to the empire, depending too
upon so many ifs," it is not at all likely that Great
Britain can ever submit to a concession, fraught
with such vast inconveniences to herself, and which
Ireland has not the shadow of a title to esk for.

Upon every ground, then, we deprecate this pro-
posal, and the temper in which we fear it is made.
Hower ingenuity may gloss it over, it is a move-
ment in the direction of repeal, perilous to Ireland
herself, and doubly so to the little that is left of her
Protestant charactt.r. Let our loyal fellow-country-
men throw from them such idle crotchets ; let them
rally once more aroued those institutions, which in
times past they have so nobly defended; and they
will not ultimately be deserted of help. Or should
the worst even come : should the light of Protestant
liberty for the brief period be permitted to be
obscured in their native land, let it not be said that
to protestant rashness and passion an issue so dis-
astrous must be attributable ! Let it not be sung
of our bleeding and prostrate constitution by the
Protestant Poet of an after day :
" so the struck Eagle, stretched upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
Niewed his own feather in the fatal dart,
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart;

Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel;

While the same plamage that had warmed his nest,
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast I"
Let the rain fall, it is the divine will ; but, how-
ever deeply implicated may he those of timid and
time-serving statesmen, let our hands be clean !

We are compelled, much against our inclination,
to return to the que tion now agitated between the
Watch Committee and the Magistrates of our bo-
rough, which since our last has assumed a slightly
changed aspect ; but we must first set ourselves
right with respect to an alleged misstatement in our
last. We there stated, because we understood such
to be the act, thar, the opinion of Mr. Crompton
was upon a case submitted by the Magistrates, and
therefore one which must have been satisfactory to
Mr. Rushton. This representation was contradicted
by our contemporaries the Mercury and the Journal;
and by the former in these very polite terms, redo-
lent of anything but kid gloves and lavender water:

"It is not true. We have already answered the
question decidedly. The magistrates have neither pre-
pared, directed, nor seen any case intended to be submitted
to counsel. The assertion is utterly false ; it is a-, in
plain speech : that is, it is an assertion of the Orange
Standard; this will be understood at once."

After this emphatic and very "plain" contradiction,
given in so gentlemanly a spirit, we were hound to
conclude that we had been in error, and were fully
prepared to retract our statement. It occurred to
us, however, yesterday, after perusing the opinions
of Messrs. Erle and Crompton, (which, with those
of Messrs. Jervis and Vaughan Williams, the Li-
verpool Journal had been " enabled by the kind
courtesy of the Mayor" to give at length to the
world,) that by an application to the proper quarter
we might possibly be able to see the case upon which
these new opinions, and especially a subsidiary one
by Mr. Erle, which for the first time we noticed in
the columns of the Journal, had been given. We
applied, therefore, to a member of the Watch Com-
mittee ; and, to our great surprise, learned that we
had been nearer the truth than we imagined with
respect to the mode in which these opinions had
been procured. Up to the moment of our applica-
tion, the Watch Committee had never seen the
opinions, except in the columns of the Journal;
and at the hour of writing this, they have never
had submitted to them the cases upon which they
were taken, and which we are enabled to state dis-
' tinctly were submitted with the Committee's consent,
but no further implication, in part to satisfy some
doubts of the Town-Clerk himself, and an objection
of Mr. Rushton that, in the former cases, the clause
in the act No. 77, upon which he mainly relied, had
not been brought prominently enough before the
notice of counsel. So far, then, there was prima
facie ground for believing that the opinions were
taken on behalf of the Magistrates ; and certainly
something very like a right of ownership on the
part of the Magistrates was exercised over them by
the Mayor, in handing them over to the Journal
for publication before they had been submitted to
the Committee by whom it is alleged they were
taken, and who, it seems, will have to pay for them.
We leave to the Watch Committee to consider

how far documents belonging to them have been,
in this instance, legitimately used; and proceed to
offer a few remarks upon the opinions themselveg.
In the first place, we cannot discover in any one of
these opinions sufficient to lead us to entertain a
serious doubt of the correctness of those previously
taken. Mr. Earle's opinion is point blank in favor
of the position taken by the Watch Committee; and
it is even strengthened by the replies to the subse-
quent queries put to him, and for the first time
communicated to the Watch Committee through
the columns of the Journal. The opinion of Mr.
Crompton, with all its evident balancing and hesi-
tation, is not conclusively in favor of the point
really. at issue between the two bodies, the most
material part of which was :—whether or not the
Magistrates were correct in the course which they
took, or would li,ve been legally justified in dismis-
sing upon the mere refusal of the Policemen to leave
the Orang • order. Mr. Crompton says that " the
Justices, acting in the regular course and in due
form, might have lawfully proceeded to adjudicate
that the Constables in question were unfit for the
duty of Constables by reason of their belonging to
the societies in question ;" and again—" I think
that the clause (79) gives a jurisdiction to he exer-
cised by two Justices sitting in the case of alledged
unfitness, and inquiring into such case in a legal
manner.' But was this course pursued, or is this
the right contended for by the Justices or their ad-
vocates ? No; to cbnstituts a legal adjudication
there must be an information on oath, an inquiry
in a strict and legal substantiated by evidence of
unfitness; whereas, Mr. Rushton and his colleagues
contend for the right to dismiss on their caprice.
The same remarks will apply to the opinions of
Messrs. Jervis and Williams—(by what strange
test, by the bye, the Town-clerk arrived at the de-
termination of consulting these gentlemen, we can-
not make out)—the former of whose opinion our
contemporary the Journal, somewhat unfairly, cuts
into two disjointed fragments to strengthen his view
of the case.

It is urged that if ,Mr. Ruston's view of the in-
terpretation of the 79th clause (in opposition to
better lawyers who construe it in conjunction with
the 80th, by which the powers of the magistrates are
strictly confined to "conviction" of " any neglect of
duty or of ang disobedience of any lawful order") be
not correct—if their power to dismiss be not a ca-
pricious power—the power of the Watch Committee
must be equally restricted. Fortunately, however,
it occurs that the Watch Committee claim no such
unreasonable power, as conferred by the Act of
Parliament; but take it under a portion of Article
No. 12 of the " Conditions of Service," signed by
every policeman on entering the force, which is as
follows:

" Each police constable is liable to immediate dismis-
sal for unfitness, negligence, or misconduct, without any
cause being assigned.",

Here is the Watch Committee's position. They
lose no useful power by the strictly legal and con-
stitutional interpretation of the act of Parliament.
We trust we are now done with this question.
In whatever way, or before whatever tribunal it
may be decided, we are content to leaue it to the
osdinary and only proper tribunals.

The Albion of yesterday contains an article upon
proceeding alleged to have been taken by Mr.
Parker, in order to secure his election for St.
Anne's Ward, which, coming from a liberal journal-
ist, is really a gem in its way. It seems that it has
been thought right by the conservative party in the
ward to object to some twenty or thirty (the exact
number is not stated) of the liberal Burgesses; and
our very pure journalist, wiping out from his me-
mory the proceedings of his league and anti-mono-
poly friends, who are at this moment objecting to
nine tenths of the Conservative Electors of the
county, and a preponderating majority of the Con-
servative Burgesses of the town, holds up his hands
in reprobation of this very improper practice when
pursued, in self-defence, by any opponent par! y.
Shocking of conservatives to do that upon good
grounds, which a liberal may do with impunity
upon no grounds at all

Upon one or two points of this astonding charge
against Mr. Parker, a little more care on the part
of our contemporary in ascertaining facts, would
have saved him from the perpetration of some need-
less importinenceP. So far from Mr. Parker being
so vastly anxious, as he is represented, to retain the
dignity of a councillor, it was only after consider-
able urging that he consented again to offer him-
self, and then only upon the assurance that he %yes
to be freed from all expence in the contest. Neither
has Mr. Parker had anything to do personally with
the objections, as is also stated by our contem-
porary, that gentleman having only returned to
Liverpool on Saturday, from a fortnight's visit to
the country. So much, therefore, for the veracity
of the Albion's prompters on this occasion.
We are confidently informed that Mr. Parker has
not interfered in any manner with the proceedings
preparatory to the election, he has not canvassed an
elector, and, if re-elected, will be returned by as
independent a constituency as any represented in
the council chamber, and he certainly has done his
duty to that constituency by sedulously watching
over their interests, both in committees and at the
meetings of the council.

THE FUNDS : SATURDAY NIGHT.—The public secu-
rities were good to-day at advancing prices, Consols for
money reaching 1004 to 1, and for the account, 100 k to 5.
A purchase of £150,000 stock for the account by a leading
broker gave much impulse to business. Bank stock left
off 2084 to 2094; Exchequer-bills 745. to 765. pm.; and
India stack 289 to 290. In the foreign morket the deal-
ings were limited, but prices were nevertheless vet), fism.
Spanish Five per Cents. closed 235 to 245; the Three
per Cents. 35 to 8 ; Portuguese 474 to 481 ; Peruvian 254
to 263; Mexican, 37$ tol; the Deferred 155 to 4; Dutch
Two-and-a-Half per Cents., 624 to 3; the Five per Cents.
1001 to 101 ; Danish 89 to 90; Chilian 104 to 106; Co-
lumbian 145 to 5 ; Buenos Ayres 364 to 374 ; Brazilian
894 to 904 ; and Belgian 1033 to 1044.

STRANGE AND OPPRESSIVE PRACTICE OF A" DE-
TECTIVE POLICE" FORCE.—That your " Liberal" or
Radical in politics is almost invariably tyrannical when
invested with power, we have had opportunities of ob-
serving in our own locality ; but we never remembered a
case more strongly evincing the rigid character of Radical
despotism, than has just been attempted to be perpe-
trated by the Radical and Popish authorities of Dublin.
At the usual meeting of the North Dublin Poor-law
Union, a wretched looking man was introduced to solicit
admission into the Workhouse as a pauper. From his
own statement, corroborated by two of the " detective "
police, who were in attendance, he had been two years ago
convicted of a felony, and had been four times since im-
prisoned for being found out after sunset I This body of
detective police, it transpired, have the orders of their
worthy and liberal masters, to meet and watch offenders
on their coming out of prison at the expiration of their
sentences; and if they find them out after sunset, they
are to arrest them, upon which a month's imprisonment
is awarded. Thus the poor fellow in question, who
stated that his brothers, who were respectable, were wil-
ling to do for him, had been so constantly dogged by the
police, that he dared not disgrace them by approaching
their door. He was; he said, the first of his family who
had been an outcast ; and, " gentlemen," he continued,
piteously, "is it not cruel that an unfortunate man who
once commits a crime should be thus hunted down like a
wild beast ?" The Board censured strongly the system
pursued ; and the man was admitted into the Workhouse
as the only asylum left him save a felon's cell, the Nov
Poor-law thus proving more humane than a Radical
Municipal Corporation !
THANKSGIVING FOR THE LATE ABUNDANT HAR-
VEST.—On Thursday next, as may be seen from an ad-
vertisement, the Rev. J. H. Stewart will have a special
service at St. Bride's Church, for the purpose of return.
ing thanks to Almighty God for the late abundant har-
vest, after which, a collection Kill be made for the Female
Orphan Asylum. The reverend gentleman has issued a
very interesting address on the subject, in which, after
noticing that during the Levitical dispensation, the feast
of the ingathering of the harvest was to be observed every
year, he says, "although these Levitical feasts were, as to
their form, abolished, with the other parts of the legal ce-
remonies, their spirit is preserved in the Gospel." The
New Testament deslares that the Lord "Left not himself
without witness, in that he did gcod, and gave us rain
from Heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with
food and gladness." There also, we are directed by Him,
that is, by our Lord Jesus Christ, "to offer up the sacrifice
of praise to God, continually giving thanks to his name."
In the northern part of our island, and in some other
Christian countries a day of thanksgiving is kept at the
close of every harvest. Similar acknowledgments have
been frequently made in our land. At this time such a
day of public thanksgiving appears peculiarly appropriate.
It will be in your remembrance, that during the spring
season there was an unusually long period of dry weather,
a period, indeed, so long, that a drought, and a conse-
quent failure of our crops was apprehended. But, the
Lord in his tender mercy sent a gracious rain, softening
the furrows, and blessing the springing corn; then follow-
ing these grateful showers with balmy zephyrs and "clear
sunshine after rain," thus making "the earth blossom and
bud," " filling our barns with plenty," and " crowning
the year with his goodness." Nor has the Lord's boun-
teous hand stopped here. But whilst he has favoured us
with an abundant harvest, he has in his gracious provi-
dence caused so happy a change in our commercial affairs ;
that instead of that depression in trade, which, not long
since threw out of employment such numbers of our ope-
ratives; now, our ports are crowded with ships
industri-
ous ves-
sels, our manufactories are in full work, and our
poor find for the most part a ready demand for their
labor."