The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-04-01 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

We are compelled to postpone a mass of correspondence,
together with much original and interesting matter. The
crowded appearance of our columns will at once suggest
the reason.

rbr Ziturpool tani:garb.

FRIDAT

MORNING, APRIL 1, 184

To that class of persons, to be found in every com-
munity, who, in the words of the poet, are

" Pleased with a feather—ticked with a straw,"
the recent exhibitions of Mr. William Earle, in the
Council, have, doubtless, afforded infinite amusement.

The same persons, with the same object in view, would
flock to see a cockchafer spin upon the point of a
needle, a mountebank balance a tobacco-pipe, a rustic
attempt the capture of a soaped pig, a monkey eating
roasted chesnuts, or any other wondrous or dexterous
performance ; and would, perhaps, be rewarded with
equal delight. We quarrel not with their tastes ; we
envy not the fame achieved by the performers, towards
all of whom we entertain pretty much the same feel-
ing. We would just as soon stand in the shoes of the
mountebank or the rustic, and almost as soon have a
pin stuck in our back, or burn our fingers with the hot
chesnuts, as possess the unhappy infirmity of temper
which prompts the diablerie of Mr. William Earle.
We regard with perfect unanimity the ordinary tom-
fooleries of this eccentric gentleman; but we must
confess that we cannot view, with the same unconcern,
the factious course which he has pursued with respect
to the recent election of the Board of Guardians for
this town. We cannot think, either, that the gentle-
men, who are ready enough to laugh when Mr. William
Earle plays the cynic philosopher or the Merry An-
drew of the council chamber, will be similarly disposed
upon this occasion. The one performance is made at no
other cost than that of his own character for sanity,
winch is of doubtful value,—of the decency and order
of the assembly in which it is indulged, which ought to
be of somewhat more worth,—and of those unfortu-
nate gentlemen, the reporters, who are condemned to
collect all the shrieks and sputterings of which it is
composed, and render them into an intelligible shape,
for the amusement of the risible portion of the com-
munity. The other, it will be found, has been indulged
in at a rather serious cost of money to the public—a
matter, however, of which Mr. Earle has declared al-
ready that he was perfectly reckless.

We noticed at the time the circumstances under which
the election of the Board of Guardians of the Poor was '
about to be contested by Mr. Earle, in order to foist
upon the list of parties, agreed upon as candidates, a
protegee of that gentleman—Mr. R. A. Mould. Since
the introduction of the new poor law into this town-
ship, its administration has been studiously rendered,
by the conservative board originally chosen, as little
oppressive to the poor, and as little costly to the inha-
bitante, as the commissioners would allow. In the list
which was made out by the consent of both parties in
the borough, it was endeavoured to fix upon gentlemen
who would carry out with unanimity this humane, and,
at the same time, economic principle ; and the board
was to consist, in a fair proportion, of gentlemen of con-
servative and liberal principles. Mr. William Earle,
however, has no fondness for the administration of this
harsh and stringent enactment upon any other than its
strictest interpretation. This eminent liberal and stick-
ler for local representation would gladly take every
vestige of controul out of the hands of the guardians
chosen by the ratepayers, and, rendering them the
mere tools of the Somerset-house triumvirate, yield up
at once the poor of the township, and the purse of its
inhabitants, to the tender mercies of this unconstitu-
tional and arbitrary body. This was evidently the
object of Mr. Earle, and to promote it he has foolishly
inflicted upon the parish a great expenditure of money,
in the hope of seeing his nominee elected ;—a hope
which the ratepayers have, very properly and triumph-
antly, resisted, as calculated to destroy the guardians'
unanimity of action, and to impede them in their ef-
forts to administer the law with a just regard to the
interests of the poor and of the parishioners.
In this insolent attempt at dictation—insisted upon
when success was perfectly hopeless, and in defiance
of every remonstrance—Mr. Earle has wantonly sacri-
ficed, to the indulgence of his obstinate temper, the
money of the ratepayers to a heavy amount, for which
they will doubtless be infinitely obliged to him. The

THREE OR FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS, however, thus
spent, and which would have been so much better em-
ployed in administering more liberally to the necessities
of the unfortunate recipients of parish bounty, has at
least served two very valuable purposes. It has proved
to the public, and to Mr. Earle himself,—if a mind so
hopelessly impenetrable as his is to conviction, where it
stands in the way of his own inordinate vanity, would re-
ceive the instruction conveyed,—how small is the influ-
ence which his flighty character has won for him over the
judgments of his fellow-townsmen ; but, more impor-
tant still than this, it has clearly established the abhor-
rence with which the stringent carrying out of the
Somerset-house tyranny in Liverpool, is viewed by the
great majority of the inhabitants of the borough. The
lowest number of the votes on the side of a humane
administration of the law, exceeded 2000, and could
have been doubled and trebled if required, whilst-the
Mr. Alderman Earle could mos-

ler only 890 rotes 1

A second time the ruffian
sympathisers of the United
States have been permitted to insult
the dignity of the
British crown. Another Canadian subject of her Ma-
jesty, upon the plea of participation an act which
:hich e
rngovernmentwere
pre-
pared as a nation to abide, has been violently seized
the
upon whilst visiting upon peaceable business
United States territory; and, but for Ms having escaped
from his captors during the night, would, long before
this, have been a prisoner waiting his sentence at the
hands of the prejudiced authorities of the state in
which he was taken, or, far more probably, would
have been butchered without a trial by the infuriated

border population.
We know nothing and care nothing whether the
individual in question, Hogan, was or was not con-
cerned in the attack upon and destruction of the Ca-
roline. If it were so, he was engaged, under legal au-
thority, ir. a noble and gallant undertaking, of a par-
ticipation in which he may be justly proud. The Bri-
tish government, however, has taken upon itself the
responsibility of that affair ; and the federal govern-
ment of the United States, if we are not mistaken,
has recognised the question which it involves as one
to be settled by negociation or otherwise between the
cabinets of Washington and London. How long
then, we ask, will it be permitted that the state of feel-
ing out of which that act arose should be displayed in
violent and savage outbreaks of hostility, unrepressed
by y the American government, whenever a British sub-
ject suspected even of having participated in it may be
Ampello, by business necessity or in search of arnuse;.