The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-10-28 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1851.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

JUSTITIA draws our attention to the charge made by Mr.
Town Councillor Fernihough, at the Vauxhall meeting, on
Monday nielit last, against the reporters of the press of
Liverpool. The charge was, that the reporters invariably
neglected to communicate to the public the important
speeches made at the meetings Mr. Fernihough attended, and
only recorded the unimportant ones. It is obvious that Mr.
Fernihough means that his own speeches, which he considers
the most important made, wherever he is, have not in general
been chronicled in the journals at full length, with all their
delicacies of expression, and all their fl wers of oratory. But
other people may have a different opinion of the importance
of Mr. Fernihough's remarks from that entertained by that
gentleman himself; and we believe that newspaper reporters,
who are the very best judges of really sensible, useful, or eff e-
tive speeches, differ from Mr. Fernihough in the estimate of his
oratory. We believe, too, that the public think they hear

quite enough of his 'sayings and doings; and that if his
speeches could be curtailed to about one-half of their present
length in the journals, common sense and common patience
would not thereby be damnified. We have every reason to
be satisfied with the general faithfulness of the reports
furnished to us by the gentlemen we employ; and we can
only beseech Mr. Fernihough to moderate a little his opinion
of himself as a public man. We recommend him to read a
little poem by Barns, in which he will find this most sensible
wish :--

"0 wad some power the giftie gie us
To see ourselves as others see us.

It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
And foolish notion."
A PROTESTANT, who complains of the small attendance at St.
Martin's Church, in comparison to the full congregation that
used to be there when the Rev. Nicholas Robinson ministered,
attributes the falling off to the Puseyite practices and
doctrines of the present minister. He says that he himself
left off frequenting St. Martin's Church on account of the
innovations introduced ; and thus observes—" Surely the
fact of so thin a congregation is an argument for the sound-
ness of the Protestantism professed by the once z'•alous
attendants of St. Martin's, who, evidently, would rather
leave the said 'church, notwithstanding their attachment to
it, than permit their orthodoxy to he tampered with by new-
fangled doctrines calculated to weaken their faith and lead
their 'minds to think more of forms tharp substance of human
ceremonies than of Christ."

W.
,G., NEW ( YELEANS.—We shall be-glad to hear from him

whenever convenient.
J. M. J.—We believe the Queen uever visited Liverpool,
publicly or privately, before the 9th instant.
A Subscriber.,—We shall answer It ,s'question next week.
trP. 'We shall be happy, at all times, to receive communications
on subjects of local or general4nterest ; and if our friends
will be good enough to authenticate the same by their signa-
tures, for our own satisfaction, we shall feel ohliTert.

Kiberpoot taiibarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, OCT. 28, 1851

THE :KAFFIR DISASTERS-WHO ARE THE
AUTHORS ?

OvR affairs in South Africa are assuming a most
critical and alarming position. Every mail
brings us intelligence of new disasters and fresh
failures. The lives of our soldiers, the property of
our colonists, the money from our treasury, are
frittered away in an inglorious and protracted war
Of miserable skirmishes with savages who vanish

the moment they are attacked, and who reappear,

. . -
in every undefended quarter, in swarms, ravaging,
plundering, and, destroying, as barbarians only can.
In vain do our brave troops march and counter-

march, and storm the mountain fastnesses, and
drive the enemy from their hiding places. No

sooner is the work done, and the foeare apparently
dispersed, than news is brought that they have re-
taliated with tenfold effect upon the colonial terri-

tory, and carried off spoil much more than sufficient
to indemnify them for the loss they may have sus-
tained. -In consequence of the extended line of
frontier, and the insufficiency of troops to defend
it, the Kaffir chiefs are able to outmanoeuvre our
general, and to render all his military operations of
no practical effect. To add to the,-mischief, defec-
tions of the hitherto neutral coloured population
are occurring, and the chiefs of the " sovereignty"
are in open rebellion against us. These will be, in-
deed, most 'formidable foes. Sir H.Smith has, as is
reported, • demanded ten thousand soldiers from
England, •declaring that they will be required to
save the- colony. He still, however, maintains his
ground, and holds fast to the policy of occupying
Kaffraria. The Board of Defence of Graham's
Town have presented to him a memorial demanding
the enrolment of every able-bodied man. They
state that within six weeks the enemy had swept
off from the district of Somerset alone upwards of
20,000 sheep, 3,000 head of cattle, and 300 horses;
that since the commencement of the war 200
farm-houses in the north-east border had been re-
duced to ashes ; and that a large amount of bread,
corn, •and other property, had been wantonly de-
stroyed. The Governor, in reply, reminded the
memorialists that they had been called on before to
•enrol,'hut that they had not responded.; and added,
that had they armed en masse at the proper time,
and when he had required them, their country
would not have been in the desperate condition in
which it stood. These are the leach nglacts brought
by the last mail, Hearing such disastrous tidings,
it is natural that we at home should charge either
the Government here, or the GovernorAt the Cape,
with shameful want of foresight in not•having made
adequate
„provision for the safety of the colony, or
with gross incapacity in ap plying th e means provided.
As usual, -an .attempt is made to shift the blame off
the real authors of these melancholy events, and to
throw it on the wrong shoulders. Sir Harry
Smith, whose military genius and skill at Aliwal all
will remember, is hunted down and decried as a
general, in order to spare Lord Grey's wilful mis-
deeds, and uphold him as a minister. But this
old Downing-street trick must not be allowed to be
successfully performed. Whatever may have been
the tactics of Sir B. Smith in dealing with the
enemy, Lord Grey and his coadjutors and advisers,
the colonial reformers and the false economists, are
the men who have brought our settlements in South
Africa to their present deplorable state. Theoretic
constitution tinkering, the introduction of political

much more formidable enemies to deal with in the
Hottentots. They unite all the cunning of the
Kaffirs with the skill in using fire-arms and choos-
ing positions of the white men. When we have
settled them, we will have peace proclaimed very
soon." Of course we will, when we have settled
them. But when will that he ? Echo answers—
when ?

At the moment we write, the fact has transpired
that Mr. Hawes has retired from the colonial-
office, and that Mr. Frederick Peel has accepted
the under-secretaryship. But this ungenerous
sacrifice of an underling will not satisfy public
indignation ; the head and front of our whole
colonial mismanagement, Earl Grey himself, must
he removed. As to Mr. Frederick Peel, we sincerely
lay him. Chained to the crotchetty Earl, his
official life will be a wretched one; he will have to
bear all the blame, and be sacrificed in the end,
like his predecessor.