The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-12-05 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL DECEMBER SESSIONS

The sessions of the peace for the trial of prisoners con-
fined in the Boreggh House of Correction, commenced
yesterday, before Gilbert Henderson, Esq., the Recorder.
The calendar contained the names of 106 prisoners charged
with felony, and 12 charged with misdemeanour. Of the
whole number (118) it appears 18 can read imperfectly ;
41 can read and write imperfectly ; 52 can neither read
nor write ; and 7 only can read and write well.
The following gentlemen were sworn to constitute

THE GRAND JURY :
Henry Jenkins, merchant, Goree-piazzas, Foreman,
Robert Coleman Crosbie, merchant, Cook-street,
Charles Fairclough, cotton broker, Lower Castle-street,
John Finch, jun., iron merchant, Rumford-place,
Charles Groves, merchant, 8, Goree-piazzas,
Wm: Lindsay, merchant, New-quay,
Thos. Marshall Myers, accountant, Exchange-alley, East,
Charles Wm. Newman, cotton broker, Hackin's-hey,
Wm. Rotherham, merchant, Exchange-street East,
Samuel F. Symonds, wine merchantrLower Castle-street,
Richard Withers, share broker, Royal Bank Buildings,
Henry Curry, broker, Rumford-place,
L. R. Baily, 21, Exchange Buildings,
T. B. Blythe, merchant, Rumford-street,
J. B. Cooper, broker, Rumford-street,
Robert Higgin, merchant, Rumford-place,
Wm. Moore, merchant, Chapel-street,
R. A. McFie, sugar refiner, Bacheior-street,
James Livesey, cotton broker, Rumford-place,
J. T. W. Leyland, merchant, Exchange-street East,
S. Taylor Hobson, gentleman, Catherine-street.
The proclamation against vice and immorality having
been read,

The RECORDER addressed the Grand Jury. He said
that, though six weeks had not quite elapsed since the
last sitting of the court, the juries of the borough were
called upon again to discharge heavy duties. I find in
my. calendar (which is more complete than the printed
list) the names of 128 prisoners for trial. He remarked
that there was an enormous increase in the number of
female offenders. Out of 103 names in the present list,
49, or nearly one half, were women,, the number being
nearly double the usual average. The evil was increasing
in this town, and he found, by a careful examination of
the prison returns, that there was no town in the kingdom
where the sex was more degraded, and so steeped in
crime. This was the more painful, inasmuch as it was an
evil to a great extent beyond the controal of the court ;
for, what improvement could be hoped for in such cha-
racters by imprisonment in a gaol in which there was no
means of separate confinement. And what amendment
could be hoped for in the punishment of such persons,
when it was known that their places were filled up by new
comers from Ireland ? This,was an evil which would, he
feared, continue in the town, until as was probable, some
experiment were made to arrest it. He thought some
controal should be put upon that class of women; that
they should be so restrained that their number would be
reduced ; and that some degree of punishment should be
inflicted upon those who harboured them. With regard
to the other cases in the calendar—he might remark that
the offences of picking pockets, stealing lead, &c., from
warehouses, carters carting away stolen property—he had
latterly punished such offenders with severity, including
corporal punishment. The Grand Jury would find, by the
calendar, that the severity of the court had been followed
by good results, as there were few or any of these classes
of crime. It was certainly something, if they could not
reduce the number of crimes, that they could decerase
their atrocity. The cases were generally of a light de-
scription ; but there was one case of o'ataining money
from a burial society, on pretence of the death of a child.
On reading the depositions, he was struck with the great
facilities with which the names of children could be en-
tered in such societies' books ; and knowing, as he did,
what had recently transpired in a court of justice, and
what had taken place elsewhere, he did hope that parlia-
ment would interfere, and would take such measures as
would prevent the strong temptations offered to parents
by these societies, which gave them a pecuniary interest in
the death of their children. The system had, in some
instances, led to the greatest crimes. He thought that it
would be well if some plan were adopted by which the
parents would receive no share of the money, or by which
the societies only would attend to the burial of the chil-
dren. He made these remarks generally, without in the
slightest degree impugning the conduct of those whom he
brought before them in the case alluded to. He con-
cluded by saying that the Grand Jury were perfectly
competent to the law affecting the cases that would be
laid before them, and also to judge of the facts. With
these sentiments he dismissed them to the discharge of
their duties.

Several true bills having been found, the trials pro-
ceeded.

A FEW MORE NUTS FOR THE BULLIONISTS

TO CRACK.

No. I.

•" The
_Construction of Railways has been the

cause of the present national sykerin.o."
Yet we have in reality been increasing the national ca-
pital by creating a mass of property, which will pay, on
the average, from five to ten per cent. annual interest,
whilst it contributes incalculably to the developement of
the resources of the country and to the convenience and
cheapness of locomotion., both for passengers, merchan-
dise, and produce.
This plea is urged against railway investments, whilst
we have been converting land, much of which is scarcely
worth the cost of cultivation, into highly remunerative
lines of road ;

And whilst some hundreds of thousands of tons of iron
have been extracted from the bowels of the earth, to pay
from five to ten per cent. interest on the cost of the labour
employed in getting it, and converting it into rails, &c.
No. 2.—" The conversion, by means of the railways, of
floating into fixed capital, is the cause of the present
national distress."

What is " floating capital" but money currency ; which
is either deposited at your bankers, bringing in a small per
centage of interest, locked up in your till, or employed in
your ordinary business ?

You don't bury this " floating capital," in the shape of
bank notes or gold, in tunnels or embankments.
It is not abstracted from circulation ; but pays the
" navvy" to-day, goes to the baker, or the beer shop-
keeper to-morrow, and into the bank at the end of the
week. It is " floating capital" all the while.

The same sort of conversion of floating into fixed capi.
tal takes place when a man buys a house, a mill, an es-
tate, a horse, or a new hat ; but we never heard of any
amount of such conversions creating national distress !
No. 3.—Anomalous results of the causes of national
distress above pleaded.
_ _

From three to five hundred agricultural labourers earn-
ing 9s. per week, or supported, with their families, in the
union workhouses, converted into "navvies" earning 20s,
a week, spending that sum with the butcher, the baker,
the grocer, &c., and yet causing national distress!

- -
Miners, smiths, artizans, &c., receiving a similar ac-
cession to the amount of their employment and its pay,
and yet causing national distress !
Money in more active circulation, and a large portion
of the community with increased means of consuming ;
and yet the manufacturer and the merchant selling their
produce at ruinous prices, and bankruptcy impending over
their heads !
A an East India merchant, B a grocer, who has had the
increased custom of the well-paid navvies ; and C the
landowner, who has got a hundred pounds an acre from
the railway proprietors for a slip of land intrinsically
worth only one pound,—none of whom ever held a share
in any line, suffering because D, E, and F have been en-

gaged in converting capital at their bankers, paving only
24 per cent., or consols paying 3 per cent., into railway
property, which will pay ten per cent. !
G, in temporary want of currency, selling the ten thou-
sand pounds, which he has lent on bond to a solvent rail-
way company at 44 per cent. interest, to Samuel Jones
Loyd, or some other bullionist, for seven thousand five
hundred pounds !
A depreciation of ten per
property of the nation, c

the value of the entire
at say £5,000,000,000

staling, because £30,000,000 in cur.,_:,(Y haN%e to be Paid
within the year in the shape of railway calls, which will
be expended in labour and commodities, to create addi-
tional property, and returned to the banker within a
week after it has been so paid !
No. 4.—What ought to have Leon the effect of the ex-
tension of our railway system.
Increased prosperity of the labourer, the shopkeeper,

manufacturer, and the merchant,
arising from the increased power of consumption given to
the former.

the agricult

ist,- th,

A large increase of the realized capital of the country,
by the conversion of capital producing only from two to
three per cent. into railway property—still capital—pay-
ing from five to ten per cent.

No. s.—The real cause of the depreciation, not only of
railways but of every description of property, includ-
_ _

ing laboui

Because, precisely at the time when, from the increased
activity of the industry and the enterprise of the country,
an increased amount of money, or currency, was required
to conduct its transactions, a large portion of the medium
of exchanges—currency—was withdrawn, in accordance
with the provisions of the act of 1844, because the com-
modity, Gold, had gone out of the country temporarily to
pay for corn. We had thus—to use a parallel case--to
measure 1000 yards of cloth per hour with a less number
of yard sticks than we usually require to measure 100
yards; to weigh in a given time 1000ths. of tea with the
same pair of scales with which we usually weigh 100 lbs. ;
and, as, the natural result, every body bidding against his
neighbour for the loan of the yard stick and the scales,
the holder of either could exact his own terms. And the
mischief was increased by the anomalous provision of the
act in question, which makes the yard stick and the scales
—or the pound of gold—themselves actual values, as
compared with those of commodities, instead of being,
what they ought to be, only measures of value.

We believe that Mr. Councillor Poole will be proposed
at the Council meeting to-morrow as a member of the
Dock Committee in the room of Mr. J. Bramley Moore.

TOMB OF THE REV. J. H. FORSYTH.—Over the grave
in which, in the month of July last, were deposited the
remains of the Rev. John Hamilton Forsyth, in the
north-west corner of the parish churchyard of this town,
an altar-tomb has just been raised. It bears the follow-
ing inscription :—" Sacred to the memory of the Rev.
John Hamilton Forsyth, second son of Thomas Forsyth,
Esq., of Liverpool, for six years curate of this parish.
He fell asleep in Jesus, June 25, 1848, aged 32 years."
" He exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they
would cleave unto the Lord, for he was a good man, and
full of the Holy Ghost and of faith."—Acts xi., 23, 24,
The style is a gothic of chaste design, and every part of the
work is strictly in keeping. The material of the tomb is
Painswick stone. It rests on a moulded plinth, having
a base of freestone. The four sides of the tomb are
ornamented with sculptured paneling of proportionate
dimensions, containing effectively disposed quatrefoils,--
Bristol parr.