The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-12-12 00:00:00

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the "inner mysierdy" at the Egyptian-hall. Though the
scene and leading features of this exhibition remain the
same, a new route has been selected for the journey, and
new incidents have been seized on to embellish it. New
whims are exposed, new anecdotes related, and new
places and people are described—the old spirit is revived,

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and new humour as well as new beauty is thrown into
the display. At the Haymarket Theatre the flexile limbs
and artificial graces of the unwearying Spanish dancers
have resumed their sway, dividing attention, yet combin-
ing their attractions with a smart new comedy named
the " Balance of Comfort," and between them leading to
nightly bumpers in more senses than the theatrical. In

the Lyceum, CHARLES MATHEWS is again radiant in
success, and wreathed in joyous smiles. He has just
treated the public to a new farce-comedy, under the title
of "Aggravating Sam," himself assuming the name and
sustaining the character which gives animation as well as
title to the play. In the character of Aggravating Sam,
he discovers and acts upon the weak points and sore
places of those with whom he comes in contact. In the
acting of this part, MATHEWS is at once picquant, pleas-
ing and telling; his representation is polished and artistic,
and he is well supported by Mr. BAKER, Mr. R. ROM,
Miss H. R. Goßnorr, and the other members of his corps
dramatique.

THE MEN OF PEACE

IT is a well-known fact in bucolics that one
jackass setting himself to bray, is apt to elicit the
note responsive from the sonorous throats of sun-
dry brother donkeys. It is in obedience to this
law of nature, no doubt, that Mr. JOSEPH STURGE
has placarded the walls of Birmingham with a
peace address. The martyrdom in effigy of bro-
ther BRIGHT has mightily stirred the bile of the
Brummagem sage ; and lie freely empties the vials
of his pacific wrath upon the heads of all who ven-
ture to think that there are cases in which war is
both necessary and lawful. There is something
ludicrous in the fruitless attempts made by the
fraternity of anti-war agitators, to force their ab-
surd notions upon the public ear, and in their
puny endeavours to lay, by their lugubrious dia-
tribes, the spirit of a nation roused to action. And
if the folly of their conduct were its only feature,
we might, after enjoying a good laugh at their
expense, leave the simpletons to their fate.
But the Apostles of Peace are not content to
talk most wondrous nonsense ; they must needs
have recourse to slander to season the interminable
broth of their platitudes. To assert simply that
war is a calamity to be by all means averted, if
possible, and peace a blessing to be carefully pre-
served, would be tame. There would be an immi-
nent danger of the generality of mankind yielding
their assent to the sentiment. The halo of singu-
larity with which the heroes of the Peace Society
take pleasure in investing their insignificant head-
pieces, would vanish in thin air. Wherefore, to
give sharpness to their pointless arguments, they
throw in a spice of calumny.
To hear Mr. BRIGHT and Mr. STURGE speak,
one would suppose that the 'English people were
a sanguinary and cruel race, loving war for its
own sake, and the press, which represents the
national sentiment, the production of a band of
assassins, whose chief delight is in the shedding of
human blood. Need we say that this is as black
and foul a lie as ever came from lips inspired by
the Father of Lies ? The British press is not only
divided between the great political and religious
parties into which the nation itself is broken up ;
subject to those leading divisions, it represents an
infinite variety of tendencies and shades of opinion ;
yet, on the question of the war with Russia it is
altogether unanimous. The very journals devoted
to the interest of the Earl of ABERDEEN'S Govern-
ment speak of the war as inevitable, and echo in
strong accents his lordship's feeble and vain assu-
rances, that it must be pushed on with vigour and
perseverance until victory be ours. Even the Cob-
denite organ knows not upon this question its
master's crib. Yet, although there is such
unanimity of warlike feeling, amounting to enthu-
siasm, we will be bound to say, that among all the
writers who are denounced by Mr. STURGE as
hounding on the nation upon a scent of blood,
there is not one who would not go the utmost
length with that gentleman in deprecating war as
a dire calamity, who would not from his very heart
rejoice, if peace could be restored to-morrow, pro-
vided always that it were done on safe and honour-
able conditions.

In this proviso lies in fact the whole gist of the
question ; it is upon this point that the national
mind and its representative, the British press, is
at issue with the craven spirits of which Messrs.
BRIGHT and STURGE are the mouthpieces. In
the minds of these worthies the notion of national
honour has no existence ; no such sentiment ani-
mates their hearts. They treat the idea of a sacri-
fice to be made for national honour and dignity,
for right and justice, for freedom and civilization,
as an empty chimaera. To make money, and to
make it fast and freely, is the only aim which they
recognize in human life, whether the life of nations
or of individuals. Whatever curtails their facili-
ties and abridges their opportunities of making
money, is in their eyes an unmixed and intolerable
evil. Their irritation under the keen sense of
diminished profits and increased burdens knows no
bounds, and the only relief they can think of is to
pour forth measureless abuse upon those whose
code of ethics recognizes higher duties, for which
lower interests must, both in public and private
life, be sacrificed upon certain emergencies.
The wickedness of the slanderous imputations
which they cast about them with so much freedom,
is not a little aggravated by their endeavours to
varnish over their base and cowardly sentiments
with a semblance of religion. With a heart dead
to the sentiment of national honour, dead to the
dictates of justice, dead to the cause of freedom
and civilization, alive only, and keenly alive to the

considerations suggested by his devotion to
MAMMON, to denounce war as a system of whole-
sale murder, is bad enough; but to do so, as Mr.
JOSEPH STURGE has ventured to do, in the sacred
name of the PRINCE OF PEACE, is profane and
offensive in the extreme.

By the way, what has become of RICHARD
COBDEN P Why is not his voice heard among the
charmers who would fain degrade the spirit of the
English people to their own base level P What
has become of the crumpler-up of Russia, of the
Chief Apostle of Peace ? Under what potent spell
is his tongue, that neither the atrocities of the
CZAR, nor the horrors of war, can induce him to
break the silence in which he has ensconced him-
self ? Is RICHARD himself no longer P Are the
streams of his eloquence altogether dried up, and
is his spirit withered within him ? POOR
RICHARD !—John Bull.