The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-08-29 00:00:00

.te friendships, but the fact

generally looked on as very damaging to his elm

discretion as a public officer

vassed at present ,aso declared to involve a public
scandal, is the effort made by Lord Jonx RUSSELL to still
farther vitiate the character of the Parliamentary Consti-
tuency, by the introduction of a £6, instead of a £lO
franchise in boroughs. The effect of this widening of the
constituency would be the introduction of such a deluge
of the lower standard of feeling, as would completely
obliterate even the pretence of political virtue. It is known
that among the lower class of voters are chiefly to be
found those brazen-throated patriots who value a sove-
reign or a scene of gluttony more than they do Whig or
Tory, and who care more for a glut of wassail and a pro-
fusion of debauchery, than for the claims of Churchman or
Dissenter : yet this class it is proposed to extend and rein-
force by still farther reducing the qualification for the
franchise. This accession, it must be borne in mind, would
be derived exclusively from classes lower in social position
than any at present represented. What its effect might
be will be easily perceptible, if Liverpool were taken as an
example. Its present constituency is about 17,100, but
the number of houses rated at £8 and upwards is some-
where about 63,000; so that your good town alone would
give an additional constituency, whose rate of qualification
would range from £0 to £lO, considerably more than
double the whole of the present voters. All moderate
and prudent men concur in viewing such a proposal, made
by one of the chief advisers of the Crown, as an inexplica-
ble and extraordinary public scandal.
The prevailing scandal, indeed the scandalum magnum
of the day, is one to which I have frequently alluded, and
from which it would be well for the national character if
we were safely delivered. That is the shocking moral
condition of the officers in our army, as that has been re-
vealed by the protracted ingairies.ads!_ng out of the court

martial held at Windso.
As has been

e against Lieutenant

'ell said in the Times

PERRT
longer the case of a mess-room against a friem

It is no

[less subal-

tern ; but, if need be, a determined contest between the
public opinion of this country on the one hand, and the
administration of the army on the other." By a peculiar

process of management, it may be possible to conduct this
inquiry in such a manner as to huddle up the studied
offences against common decency and good behaviour,
which prevailed in the officers' barracks of the 46th Regi-
ment. By the arrangements of a court-martial it may be
easy to prevent a full exposure of the nefarious combina-
tion which has been set on foot to drive an unfriended
young man from the service of his country. The clever

organization of regimental memory may overcome the
forms of inquiry allowed by such a tribunal for ascertain-

ing the conduct, estimating the behaviour, and weighing
the demeanour of a superior officer in his intercourse with
juniors and subalterns. It may even for a time be pos-
sible to evade or stifle all investigation into such matters,

so loudly and indignantly called for by an anxiously in.
terested public ; but the facts already established, and the
practices demonstrated to have prevailed in the regiment
referred to, cannot be obliterated from public memory,
but will be treasured up for use, in the farther examina-
tion which sooner or later must be made into the matter.
It affects too deeply the character of an important branch
of the public service to be allowed to drop, and on the re-

mbling of Parliament, if not before then, the inquiry

will be resumed by parties less interested in throwing a
friendly shadow over the more glaring portions of the

picture, than that tribunal in whose eyes the military
dignity of the accuser had obviously more weight than

behests of jus

the " unvarnished t

le" of the

'the acqt

oppressed.

The curtain

which shrouded the mysteries of the mess-table and ti

barrack•room has bi

een so far and so untenderly lifted at

the Windsor inquiry, that it will no long,
poses of concealment. We have had placed before n

serve the pur-

e melo-dramatic masquerade,whieh ev

en our fathers

fondlyimagined to have been long b-"

etore their day disnaissed

from decent society, as effectively as the highwayman
has been banished from Hmmslow or Blackheath. From

that inquiry we have learned that the reckless dissipation

and extravagance of speech and behaviour which have
been discarded from every other class of society, still
nestle under the regimental mess-table, and find shelter

and defence among the higher classes of the British Army,

The public interest excited in behalf of Lieutenant
PERRY has been very great, so great indeed as in some
degree hitherto to prevent its own utterance, but it is at

length making itself known by deed and declaration.
Subscriptions have been set on foot to replenish his ex-
hausted exchequer, and from the influential character of
the parties moving in it, little room exists for doubting
that he will receive substantial indications of general

sympathy,

While a sense of public duty induces the public to
battle nobly in defence of law, decency, and justice, it is
often curious to observe how quietly all three are per-
mitted to be outraged in another. A brief period only
has elapsed since, on the occasion of an action being
heard against Cardinal WISEMAN, his eminence, if one
may decently denominate him so; was accommodated with
a seat beside the Judge, thus exhibiting the unseemly
display of a suitor for alleged justice occupying a promi-
nent position on the judgment-seat—nay more, the un-
seemly spectacle was presented of a contemner of the
Quesx's authority being promoted to a place of honour
in one of her tribunals. Short, however, as has been the
period since this abuse of legal courtesy and outrage
upon good taste, the CARDINAL has not rested on his oars,
but has pushed the advantage which his factitious position
has afforded him, still farther to assert the power of his
contraband influence. He has, under the auspices of the

Coancil of the Society of Arts, been lecturing at St.
Martin's Hall, on the " Home Education of the Poor."
Could no dignitary of our own Church be found with
talent, intelligence, and inclination sufficient to induce
him to undertake so legitimate and praiseworthy an
object as directing the " Home Education of the Poor ?"
Or does the Council of the Society of Arts deem it a fit-
ting mode to testify their affection for the poor, to
employ for their instruction the acquirements of a man
who openly defies their country's laws, treats their
Sovereign with contumely, and parades his

allegiance

to a foreign Potentate ? Alas ! I know not. The
fact is as recorded. The council of this Art Society,
unfortunately, are not singular in their adulation of this
Popish prince ; nor is the merit (?) of this questionable
deference shared with them only by Her MA:JESTICS Lord
Chief Baron ; another set of competitors for favour in the
eyes of the Romish Propaganda has appeared in the direc-
tors of the Crystal Palace Company. This latter body
has gone farther than the others, and have allotted a
place in their sculpture gallery to the bust of " Cardinal
WISEMAN," chief of the Romish Church in England.
The council of the Society of Arts elevated him to the
position of educational tutelary of the English poor ; one
of the supreme judges of England invited him to occupy
a chair on the judgment-seat ; the directors of the Crystal
Palace go farther still, and elevate his effigy to a place
beside that assigned to Queen VICTORIA, and give it rank
among the sovereiens of England ! Who, after this, will
venture to assert that " the POPE of ROME has no power
nor influence in this land of England ?"

Our transatlantic cousins are indeed a wondrous people,
and competent to do "a thing or two ;" one accomplish-
ment, however, appears to be sadly omitted in their

national as

a their individual training.

tirely deficient in the quality of self•

control,

exceedingly hazy notions of political honesty

The good old rule sufficeth them,