The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-11-01 00:00:00

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Ills -speech about the erection of a new gaol. We can
bear testimony to the good feeling displayed by this
gentleman ; and although we cannot entirely concur in
his remarks, yet we believe the worthy alderman, in the
exuberance of his zeal, only meant to express his
anxiety to administer first to the temporal and spiritual
Wants of our brethren at home, before we undertake,
at great cost, to dispense these blessings in distant and
unknown regions; and surely there is ground for such
anxiety when we see the awful destitution and want of
spiritual instruction in our good town of Liverpool,—
borne out by the astounding and alarming fact, that
Juvenile crime in Liverpool amounts to 66 per cent.,
Whilst in Manchester (where children are more numer-
ous from the circumstance of the factories drawing
them together from distant parts) it only amounts to
48 per cent. Glad, indeed, should we be to see any
feasible plan proposed, calculated to diminish this
frightful and daily increasing evil. Is it not matter of
Wonder, blessed as Liverpool is with so many excellent
and pious clergymen, churchmen, and dissenters,
rivalling each other in works of love and charity,
that we should stand notoriously above every other
town in the kingdom as regards the amount of juvenile
delinquency ? Would that the recording angel could
drop a tear and blot out this stain from our annals
We certainly think it a duty that both foreign and
home missions should be liberally and freely supported,
but we must not forget—charity begins at home ; and
that so long as our cellars, alleys, and back streets are
flooded with crime, and such a lack of spiritual in-
struction exists, we may express our doubts whether
our countrymen, who are perishing on our threshold,
Possess that .portion of our temporal and spiritual
solicitude to which they may fairly lay claim and are
justly entitled.

We might illustrate this by the sympathy which was
so warmly called forth on the occasion of the recent
calamitous fire in Hamburg ; not only were our feelings
excited, but our purse-strings were unstrung, and
something like £60,000 for the sufferers were the fruits.
This certainly redounds to the honour and credit of
the nation. But here let us ask, what has there been
done on account of the sufferers in the recent con-
flagration in Liverpool ? Literally nothing ! A few
Pounds, shillings, and pence have been subscribed, and
nothing more; yet, surely our townsmen are as worthy
of our benevolence as foreigners, whose first and great
desire is England's downfall !

This is what we apprehend the worthy alderman
Complains of, that our sympathies should be so easily
tXcited and our hands stretched out to dispense to
strangers what our neighbours are destitute of and
Perishing for at home.
We are inclined ourselves to trace, in a great mea-
sure,_ the awful increase of juvenile crime in Liverpool
to the false system of education introduced and carried
out irr our Corporation Schools since the municipal
act came into operation ; for it is a curious coincidence
and fact, that juvenile crime has increased in an un-
precedented degree since the year 1836, and that as
the system of teaching adopted began to develope
itself and its fruits became known, crime rapidly aug-
17i:tented ; the trials at the quarter sessions were actually
doubled from 1838 to 1842 ! Six sessions are now
,held in lieu of four in each year, and the necessity of
na!ing a sessions every six weeks is under discussion.

There is another reason connected with the increase
of crime in our police-courts which we cannot go into
at present ; we must defer this to a future occasion,
and meanwhile express our thankfulness if the recent
debate should lead to such remedial measures as to
lessen crime, and wipe out so foul a stain as is the
fact, that juvenile crime is greater in Liverpool than
any other town in the United Kingdom !

Before these remarks meet the eyes of any large
Portion of the Conservative burgesses of the town, we
trust that in the majority of the contested wards they
will have made the return of their candidates secure
even against the most desperate trickery to which the
degraded Radical faction can resort. Nothing like a
good lead when you are opposed to an enemy as craven
as he is tricky and malignant ! In some wards, how-
ever, we have a real and perhaps a hard struggle to
fight, which will require all the energies and all the
Watchfulness which we can exert; and to the struggle
lu these wards we now briefly address ourselves.

And first with respect to West Derby Ward, we ob-
serve that the walls of the town have been extensively
Placarded with the name of a third candidate—a pro-
fessing Conservative. " A weak invention of the
enemy," Gentlemen of West Derby ! The Conserva-
tive Committee of the Ward recognise no Conservative
Candidate except Mr. Plimpton. Support him with
all your strength, and you will do a dyed worthy of
Yourselves and of the ward of West Derby !
In Castle-street the Conservatives have, in Mr. Hugh
llornby, " A foeman worthy of their steel." By energy
and perseverance they can beat him we are confident;
and we trust that we need scarcely call upon the Bur-
gesses of that oft contested ward to do their duty.
Saint Peter's—GlßßALTAß—must also be energeti-
cally fought. The Burgesses have a Candidate of
Whom any ward might be proud ; and if they will
stand by him until the stroke of four by St. Peter's
clock, they will be rewarded by a Conservative shout,
such as was never heard since a fishing coble first an-
chored in the port of Liverpool.

Pitt-street, too, must not rest satisfied wtth less than
such a victory as that which sent a Rathbone wailing
to Green Bank, or that which brought an Aspinall
°nee more into the Council. We have no fear, how-
ever, for Pitt-street, meanly as the Whig battle is
f°tlght in that ward.
'auxhall, St. Anne's, and Rodney-street are all con-
tested, and must all be won ! Doctor Blackburne must
be sent to his gallipots, Mr. R. E. Harvey to his
brewery, and Mr. James Mulleneux to rack his brains
and his gin casks in his own distillery.
ENERGY, ENERGY, and VICTORY IS OUR OWN