The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-03-26 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A. stamped supplement accompanies the S:ANDARD of to-day.
Nothing but the extremely crowded state of our columns would
have prevented the appearance of the letter of Ebenezer Jones,
Esq., promised in our las,t. The same reason must plead for
us, for apparent inattention to other correspondents.

Our country sithscribers will, we hope, when they see the late
intelligence in our Co:unins of to-day, excuse the late arnyal
of the.r papers.

CIRCULATION OF THE STANDARD.

The issuing of the Government Newspaper Stamp
Returns for the six months ending December 1843,
affords us an opportunity of saying a few words
with respect to our own position. We commenced
our present plan of weekly publication at the com-
mencement of Ju!y last, up to which period our
circulation had averaged little more than 1,000
per publication. In the first three months after
such change, our circulation, according to these
returns, rose to 1,500 per week. In the next three
months, ending December 1843, we had reached,
as the same returns testify, 2,000 per week, which
makes up the number set down to us for the six
months in the return. Our circulation for the first
three months of 1844 will show a considerable fur-
ther increase.

As it is, according to this return, we stand in circu-
lation above our Tuesday's contemporary, the Li-
verpool Times, upwards of a thousand copies each
publication ; and above Gore's Advertiser 350,
above the Mercantile Gazette 650, above the
Journal 500, and the Chronicle* 700 copies, each
Publication.
This result, which is a change of our position from
the occupation of nearly the lowest place amongst
our contemporaries, is one highly flattering to us,
and for which we feel most grateful to our friends
and the public, and will encourage us in our exer-
tions for the attainment of a still greater measure
of their approval.

* One of the proprietors of the Chronicle has called upon us
and stated that the actual average weekly consumption of the
Chronicle during the half year has been 1940.

Elie lkibirpool &tan Darb.

TUESDAY MORNING, MARCH 26, 1814.

On Monday evening the House of Com-
mons came to a decision, upon the subject of
factory labour, worthy of a Christian legislature and
a Christian nation. It declared that there should be
a point beyond which manufacturing avarice should
not barter the health, the morals, and the lives of
the children of our poor, for gold. It limited in
fine, the hours of labour in factories for children,
male and female, between the ages of nine and thir-
teen, and for adult women, to ten working hours a
day. Yet—alas !—scarcely has the news of this
deed of humanity and justice reached the ears of
the oppressed working people of Great Britain,—
scarcely has time been afforded for the universal
outpouring of gratitude which it had excited ;
scarcely have the toilworn factory children had time
to indulge in grateful anticipations of the boon so
unexpectedly offered to it, than by the same House
of Commons, the cup of promised happiness is
dashed from their lips, and the poor factory workers
are doomed once more to their old slavery—to the
slow torture of those long and dreary hours of toil,
which wither the youthful frame, and crush even
the adult to premature senility and an early grave.
And this—we blush as we record the fact—at the
request, nay at the entreaty of a Conservative Ad-
ministration !

Yes, we blush to record the fact, that to the ob-
stinate perseverance of her Majesty's Conservative
Ministry is entirely to be attributed the temporary
failure of a wise and benificient effort to alleviate
the toil of the children of our working population,
and to restore woman in those districts to the duties
and the comforts of the domestic hearth. We de-
plore this unfortunate course of action, for Sir
Robert Peel's sake, and for that of the great in-
terests and institutions committed to his keeping,
far more than for the sake of the measure which
has been temporarily obstructed; for no power on
earth can prevent the ultimate success of that mea-
sure. The people of England—the right-hearted
and just people of England—have willed that the
fetters shall be struck from the limbs of infancy ;
that distorted frames, emaciated and rayless features,
and minds barren of good, if not deeply impregnated
with evil, shall no longer be characteristic of the
producers of England's wealth. The voice of the
church had nobly seconded the voice of an aroused
people. A majority of the legislature had yielded
with deference to demands so authoritatively urged
—had laid aside for a time the jargon of the political
economist and philosopher, and listened to the
voice of the poor pleading for health and for life.
Here there was an opportunity for a minister to win
the love, the veneration of a grateful people ! Here
was an opportunity of cementing together the
affections of rich and poor, and of shewing
that the interests and the prayers of the meanest
are not beneath the notice of the legislature ! Here
was an opportunity of leading the masses of the
manufacturing districts, from the wilds of chartism
and the mazes of imposture and infidel republican-
ism, to the foot of the throne, and teaching them to
look up for protection to the legislature, and not the
incendiary agitator, and for advice and solace in
affliction to the church of their fatherland, and not
to the novelties of fanaticism and the ever-varying
doctrines of the conventicle. _ _

Yet such an opportunity Sir Robert Peel and Sir
James Graham have resolutely and blindly thrown
away; for we take it forgranted, after the virtual defeat
which they sustained on Friday last, and their con-
tinued opposition to the counter proposition of Lord
Ashley, that legislation upon the question will be
abandoned by them altogether. They have crushed
the excited hopes, and rejected the proffered affec-
tions and reverence, of hundreds of thousands of
the most toilworn and the most oppressed of the
working population of Great Britain; and to conci-
liate whom ? The " liberal" millocrats of the Anti-
. Corn-law League—the Cobdens and the Brights
of the House of Commons—the Marshalls, the
Brookses, and the Potters of the manufacturing
districts ;—to gain a hollow support from a party
who fear far less the consequences to themselves of
the adoption by Sir Robert Peel of a just policy
towards the labouring classes, than they chuckle to
see that statesman assume a policy towards those
classes which is calculated to sink him fearfully
from the lofty position Which he has hitherto occu-
pied, and to strike from around his Government
the strongest supports which a Government can
have—the confidence and love of a grateful people.
We will not insult our readers by noticing the
arguments with which Sir Robert Peel and Sir
James Graham attempt to justify their refusal to
concede the boon sought by Lord Ashley and so
vast a portion of the most influential supporters of
Ministers, on behalf of the factory population. We
know those arguments to be unsound—the fears put
forward absurdly exaggerated ; but we shall not be
guilty of the mockery of refuting either. The
question involved is no longer one of mere political
economy—not one to he decided by the sophistries
of Malthus or ICl‘Culloch—not one with respect to
which Chambers of Commerce or Anti-Corn-law
Leagues are entitled to dictate oracularly. It is

V

one affecting the lives, the health, the physical and
moral welfare, of more than half-a-million of our
population, and, along with these, the security and
peace of the nation itself ; and Sir Robert Peel and
Sir James Graham may depend upon it, that any
attempt of theirs to arrest its progress towards a
settlement favourable to the cause of humanity and
justice to the working classes, will be vain, if it may
not even be dangerous.
It is with sincere pleasure that we are able to con-
gratulate our fellow-townsmen upon the noble and
manly course which has been taken upon this occa-
sion by the members for the borough of Liverpool.
It is with pleasure that we accord to those members
our full concurrence in the vote of thanks, which it
will be seen by a reference to another column, they
have already received from a numerous body of their
constituents. Such a testimony of the feeling exist-
ing in this important seat of commerce ought as-
suredly not to be without its weight with the go-
vernment itself.

It will be remembered by many of our readers,
that in the course of the past year there was held a
meeting of gentlemen who had long watched with
interest the varied and indefatigable exertions of the
Rev. Hugh WNeile in promoting the cause of true
religion and the best interests of the country, espe-
cially in connexion with Scriptural education,—at
which it was resolved, " that the time had arrived
when some public testimonial should be given ex-
pressive of the high esteem in which he is held, and
of the value attached to his eminent services."

Having thus resolved, it became the duty of the
committee appointed to carry the resolution into
effect, to ascertain in what manner they could best
do so in consonance with the feelings of the rev.
gentleman. The result has been the foundation and
endowment of one university exhibition for the
Upper School of the Collegiate Institution, of this
town, at a cost of £1,000; of two scholarships in the
Middle School of the same Institution, at a cost of
£5OO ; and of two in the Lower School, at a cost
of £l5O. The Rev. H. M`Neile has thus manifested
the strong feeling which he entertains towards the
Collegiate schools, and furnished a noble example
to the affluent, which we trust may be followed by
many amongst them.

The university exhibition in connexion with the
Upper School will, no doubt, have the effect of
drawing the attention of the rich towards that school;
but we maintain that the scholarships so munifi-
cently founded for the Middle and Lower Schools
are the best calculated to promote the true intentions
of the founders of the Institution, viz., the educa-
tion of the children of the middle and lower classes;
and we should be glad to see a few more endow-
ments therewith connected. We learn with great
pleasure that a generous and philanthropic alderman
has intimated his intention of permanently endow-
ing four scholarships in the Lower School. There
will be thus six scholarships to be contended for by
the pupils of that school. We hear froM all quar-
ters the most decided encomiums lavished upon the
head master of this school for his judicious manage-
ment of it; and we have no doubt that in a very
short time, when the advantages which it possesses
become more generally known, its numbers—at
present 320—will extend to at least 1,000, and the
expectations of the founders of the Institution be
realized.

The directors, we learn, have been for some time
turning their attention to the evening schoOlS,—a
portion of the institution deserving of the greatest
consideration,—with a view to render them as effi-
cient as possible for the instruction of the humbler
classes. Several public spirited gentlemen have li-
berally subscribed towards the endowment of prizes
for their encouragement, and there is every expec-
tation that the sum so raised will be materially in-
creased ; and when the preparations now making
for the establishment of a lending library are com-
plete, we are confident that this department of the
Institution will keep pace with the rest, and be
the means of elevating the character of our working
population not only in a literary and scientific,
but also in a religious point of view.
The masters of the Institution, with a laudable
desire to increase the utility of the Institution, have
founded another university exhibition in connexion
with•the Upper School, the value of which will be
£5O a-year, so that when the promised Gladstone
and Canning exhibitions are added, which we be-
lieve will shortly be the case, there will be one uni-
versity exhibition to be annually competed for.

The people of Liverpool may with reason begin to
ask themselves the questions—" of what utiiity is a
Select Vestry ? what else but sheer mockery is the
pretence, that the ratepayers of the parish have now
any real share in the management of their own
affairs ?" We have, it is true, a local act, which we
flattered ourselves conferred upon the ratepayers
the right of choosing their own officers, and admi-
nistering their own funds. We imagined that we
were thus placed, in some degree, independent of

the unconstitutional dictation of the triumvirate of
Somerset House. But in all this we were mistaken.
Our independence was a mere shadow; and at this
moment, although we have the machinery for inde-
pendent action in our own hands, and wish to ad-
minister our affairs in a Conservative and Christian
spirit, we are as effectually and as slavishly under the
control of the Poor Law Commissioners as any
unionised parish in England, and must submit to
whatever they may dictate.
A. signal instance of this degrading subjection is
before us, in the case of Mr. Nightingall, upon
which we commented last week. The mandate has I
come down from the Commissioners that this gen-
tleman must resign, or that they —the Commissioners
—will discharge him ! The very case which was
got up against him has broken down of itself ; he
stands purged of his imputed neglect in the eyes of
the majority o' the vestry, the representatives of the
ratepayers ; and yet he must resign or be dis-
charged, with a damaged character, and a constitu-
tion broken by the arduous character of his past
services, at the dictation of an irresponsible body,
who cannot be presumed to have any knowledge of
the facts of the case beyond what they could gather
at the one-sided enquiry which they instituted, or
such as may, from time to time, be conveyed to them
privily by the enemies of their victim. The Vestry
—certainly the best judges—are obviously satisfied
that nothing has been done or neglected on the part
of Mr. Nightingall to call for so severe a sentence
as dismissal. That gentleman has with him, too,
the sympathies of the bulk of his professional bre-
thren. But the Vestry are powerless. Public opi-
nion is powerless. A valuable servant of the public
has offended one who regards himself as the proto-
gee of the Poor Law Commissioners.
We invite the serious consideration of our readers
to this state of things. Talk of the independence
afforded by a local act ! We possess no such inde-
pendence. Talk of a liberal and Christian treat-
ment of our local poor by a Conservative vestry !
We are not at liberty to offer such treatment. Our
poor are virtually in the hands of the Governor and
the Somerset House trio ; liable to be dragooned,
classified, dieted, and dosed at their arbitrary plea-
sure; whilst the Vestry—the representatives of the
people of Liverpool—have only the privilege af-