The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-02-22 00:00:00

LONDON MONEY MARKET, &c.

SATURDAY EVENING.—The funds to-day were a little
flat, but more on account of the want of business than a de-
sire to press sales. Consols for money and the account
closed 894- to ; Three per Cents. Reduced, 894 ; Three and
a Half per Cents. Reduced, 994; New Three and a Half per
Cents, 984 ; Long Annuities (expiring January 5, 1860),
124 ; Bank Stock, 1691 to 170 ; India Stock, 247 to 249 ;
anti Exchequer-hills,- 235. to 255: premium.
A slight depression took place_ jp Spanish stock, uhich
was the only alteration worth notice in the foreign market.
The Actives closed 241 to 4; Portuguese Five per Cents., 32
tol • Ditto, Three per Cents., 19 to ; Dutch Two and a
Half per Cents., 52 to I ; Ditto Five per Cents., 102 to ;
Danish, 811 to 821 ;- Brazilian, 65 to 66 ; Belgian, 1021 to
1031 ! and Chilian, 70 to 72.
The share market is inactive. Bolanos Mining were done
at 4 ; Brazilian Imperial, at 7 ; Birmingham and Gloucester
Railway, at 601; atto, New, at 41; Great Western, at 84 ;
Ditto, New, at GO; Brighton, at 351 ex Loan Notes rDitto,
Loan Notes, at 54; Birmingham, New, 281; Manchester
and Leeds. quarter shares, 34; North Midland, 691 ; 'Ditto,
Thirds, 151 ; Paris and Rouen, 141 ; British North Ameri-
can Banking; 334 ; London Joinst Stock, 124 ; and Union of
Acstralia, 291 ex div.
The Gazette of last night contained the return under the
new act of the averages of the whole circulation for the four
weeks preceding the sth of February.
The total circulation of England for the month ending the
sth instant, as compared with the four weeks ending the Bth
of January, presents an increase of £1,190,039, which is
made up in the following manner :—By an increase in the
circulation of the Bank of England of £1,109,000, an increase
in the circulation of the private banks of £54,335, and an
increase in the circulation of the joint-stock banks of £26,704.
The returns from Scotland shbw a slight decrease, and
from Ireland a small increase.

As compared with the four weeks ending the 21st of
August, 1841. there is a decrease of the circulation in Eng-
land of £984,128 ; of which sum the decresse in the circula-
tion of the Bank of England is £526,000, the decrease in the
circulation of the private banks £311,776, and the decrease
in the circulation of the joint-stock banks £146,352.
The stock of bullion for the four weeks preceding the sth
of February is £5,602,000, which shows a slight decrease, as
compared with the preceding four weeks, of 27,000.

EXPLOSION OF A POWDER-MILL NEAR HOUNS-

LOW.—TWO MEN KILLED.
(From Yesterday's Times.)
One of the extensive powder mills belonging to Messrs.
C. B. Curtis and Harvey, gunpowder manufacturers, situate
on Hounslow-heath, exploded on Saturday forenoon, and
occasioned the loss of two lives, and the infliction of serious
injuries to three other persons. The explosion took place
a few minutes after ten o'clock, and the tremendous report
caused thereby was beard for many miles round the neigh-
bourhood, and occasioned the greatest consternation and
alarm, particularly at Hounslow, Twickenham, and the ad-
jacent villages, the inhabitants of which, rushed from their
houses, fearing it was an earthquake. Immediately on the
cause of the report being ascertained, hundreds of persons
hastened to the spot anxious to learn the extent of damage,
when it was found that one only of the mills had exploded,
and that the remaining portion of the extensive premises
had escaped uninjured. The mill in question, which vas
called a corning mill, was situate on the banks of the river
Colne, and; as are all the erections forming the works, was a
detached building. Two men were employed in it, of the
names of Henry Finch, and William Woolman, whose
custom it was to commence at 7 o'clock in the morning,
having first had their breakfasts, and work until 11 o'clock,
when they broke off for dinner. On Saturday morning they
went to their work at the usual time, at which period the
mill contained about a dozen barrels of dry powder, each bar-
rel consisting of 1001 h., making a total of about 1,2001 b.
weight. Of the cause of the accident nothing positive can
ever be known, neither of the unfortunate men surviving to
tell the tale, and the building itself is levelled with the
ground. Three other men, named Alfred Malthouse, Wil-
liam Calvin, and Peter Thomas, employed on other parts of
the works, who were accidentally in the close vicinage of the
mill, have sustained most serious injuries from the effects of
the explosion. Mr. Frogley, surgeon, 'of Hounslow was
most promptly in attendance, with Mr. Stannemann, his as-
sistant, and immediately attended to the unfortunate suffer-
ers, two of whom, (Thomas and Calvin) were subsequently
conveyed to their own residences, where they are lying in a
most precarious state. Malthouse, however, was more se-
riously injured, so that it was found impossible to remove
him. The bodies of Finch and Woolman were found at a
short distance from the mill in a frightfully disfigured and
mutilated condition, and were removed to one of the sheds to
await the coroner's inquest, which it is understood will be
held on Tuesday next. Both men have left widows and fa-
milies. During yesterday large numbers of persons from
the surrounding country visited the premises, anxious to see
the effects of the explosion, but no person was admitted within
the gatei except those who were known to the members of
the firm. Malthouse, after lingering in great agony until
Saturday evening, began to sink, and death put an end to his
sufferings in the course of the night. Thomas and Calvin
were, when our reporter left last evening, considered in im-
minent danger, and scarcely any hopes were entertained of
their recovery.

THE ANATOMY OF PARLIAMENT

(From the Britannia.)
LORD ASHLEY.

One of the most valuable features of our constitution is
that principle by which the sons of peers are regarded as
commoners, and are eligible to sit in the lower house of par-
liament as representatives of the people, until they succeed
to the family title. In other states where this safety valve
is not provided fur the expanding intellectual energy of the
young nobility, their only resource against inanition is the
pursuit of pleasure. They become dissolute thereby, and
unfitted to assume in after life the higher and more responsi-
ble'station to which they are called. But in England we are
happily free from such dangers. Here, the sons and repre-
sentatives of the privileged classes take their place among the
commoners, thus perpetually remjpded of the rank from which
almost all have originally sprunAnd the probability there is
that many of those commoners may thereafter rise to the high
station by right of merit.

It is now become natural for the sons of peers to be leaders
of the commons. Take Lords Russell, Stanley, Morpeth,
for instances on the one side of the house and on the other.
Then- position is not the result of birth merely,- but princi-
pally of talent—another feature almost peculiar to this coun-
try, and which goes to neutralise the usual evil attending an
hereditary nobility. The very habif of contest in skill be-
tween the expectant peers and the commoners proper, is of
itself a link in the chain, and a softener of obnoxious distinc-
tions. The steep that has been climbed by talent before way
climbed by it again.

The foregoing. remarks have resulted from a view of the
position which Lord Ashley holds as a public man. He has
already drawn upon himself a considerable degree of atten-
tion, and exercises a great degree of influence over a large
portion of the public. It has arisen from his unpretending
talents and unostentatious virtues. When one observes how
quickly and with how little apparent effort he has risen to a
very high place in the esteem of his countrymen, by simply
discharging, without unnecessary display, a self-chosen duty,
the wonder is, that no man similarly situated should have
taken the same course before. The solution lies, however,
in the natural disposition of man to regard himself and the
advancement of his own interests and views to the exclusion
of those of others. Lord Ashley, being happily endowed
with a different temperament, has kept aloof from the party
contests of the hour, and has devoted time, influence, and
considerable ability to the advocacy of the interests of those
who have no natural advocates in Parliament—an advocacy
which implies the self-denial of the fame and honour to be
derived from pre-eminence in the gladiatorial contests of de-
bate, and of all that keen relish of authority which the pos-
session of political influence over men imparts. The office
chosen by Lord Ashley is not one in which there is any scope
for brilliant display, or for the gratification of personal vanity ;
it is a laborious and unthankful one, and productive of much
personal suspicion and dislike.
Load Ashley has solved a problem which might smooth
away many impending political difficulties. He has shewn
that it is possible for a public man to be the avowed friend of
the poor without being a demagogue. He has shewn also
that a man may openly befriend the unbefriended without
exposing himself even to the suspicion of sinister motives.
He has shown that a politician may advocate the practical
social rights of the poor without rashly urging on the State
their supposed political rights. He seems to think that their
social and political ights are identical—that, in fact, they are
entitled to what they have so seldom received of late, the
watchful care and guardianship of the rich. By some such
views as these must Lord Ashley be actuated, or he would
not have laboured so hard on behalf of the factory children,
or have invariably been found in the van of all attempts to
ameliorate the social condition of the people. I can readily
imagine the case of an artful man, plotting to rise, who should
should assume this virtue as a cloak to the advancement of
ulterior designs. But Lord Ashley is no such character. He
is not a vain man, nor is he ambitious or ostentatious; on
the contrary, he is of the most mild and unassuming man-
ners, domesticated and religious in his habits—constituted,
in short, of that stuff out of which disinterested friends,
either of individuals or of nations, are made. He is a fair
model of what a young peer should be—one using the for-
tune, and talents, and abilities conferred on him by the Al-
mighty for the legitimate purposes to which such otherwise
undeserved gifts are given, and occupying an unfettered leisure
and an independent intellect in devising schemes, not for
personal aggrandisement, or for the invention of political or
religious problems wherewith to set men together by the
ears, but for the furtherance of a practical Christianity, in
• bettering the condition and promoting the sound and solid
advaneement of the
.poor. Would that other young nobles
and men of fortUrie would follow so excellent an example!
They would take many a dangerous lie out of the mouths of
demagogues ; they would raise up for themselves a staff of
self-approval ; they would build a citadel that would with-
stand all the assaults of democracy, and every step they took
would afford an additional security for their own rank and
fortune. May Lord Ashley not stop where he is • may he
take 4,5611 moie.enlarged apd
_extended view of tlie.srkliere
of usefuli.e.s laid bpeu before him-; may what now springs
from goodness of heart, and perhaps, also, from farseeing
views, be regulated by the more enlarged hopes and plans of
the Christian statesman, and be cemented into a system that
shall have supporters and disciples. So may he confer ines-
timable benefits on his country ; so may he become the
leader of those of our aristocracy, politic if not political, who
wish to fulfil their highest and most sacred duties to the
State, and go hand-in-hand with those whose preference or
whose position leads them into party contests ; so may he
compel the future historian to remove from the name of
Shaftesbury any stigma which the intriguing spirit of the
founder of the family may have attached to it in the eyes of
posterity. . . . . .

Of Lord Ashley's merits and position, as a speaker in the
House of Commons, it is needless to say much. He has no
pretension whatever about him, being particularly quiet and
unassuming, and seldom or never speaking except when abso-
lutely necessary in furtherence of any measure which he may
:have in hand. But although laying no claim to praise or
admiration as an orator, he is, nevertheless, a very fair
speaker, clear, impressive, and unhesitating. His voice is
manly and sonorous ; his manner and delivery simple and
dignified; and his matter plain, convincing, and unambitious.
In fact, his style of speaking is exactly suited to his position
as a public man—good enough to enable him to produce the
effect required on the feelings of the house, and not laboured
enough to lead to the suspicion of display. As a speaker at
public meetings, Lord Ashley is more effective than at the
house. On questions of philanthropy, particularly where an
earnest religious feeling is involved, his whole nature seems
fired by enthusiasm; and what is at other times somewhat
measured and stately in his style, becomes fervid and
abandoned to strong impulse. He is constantly selected as
chairman of such meetings, because under his usual quiet de-
meanour there lies much moral firmness and determination
of purpose ; and because there is a something about his
unobtrusive decision of character which quells at once all
attempts at disorder.
In person he is tall and well made; his walk erect and
manly. In face he is handsome, but the features are some-
what too large; the front face is better than the profile. His
eye is large, full, and thoughtful. The expression of the
countenance is grave, but benevolent.
Lord Ashley is the eldest son of the Earl of Shaftesbury,
who is Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords. He
was born in 1801, and has represented Dorsetshire since
1831. Ile sat for Woodstock in 1826, and afterwards for
Dorchester in 1830.
In Sir Robert Peel's former Administration he held the
office of one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and was offered
an office in the present Governinent, which he declined, as
the Government could not then pledge itself to adopt his
views with respect to the faCtory children. He is, however,
a firm Conservative.

A. ROW AMONG THE LADIES OF THE LEAGUE

(From the Manchester Courier.)

A correspondent has forwarded us the following interest-
ing and edifying narrative for insertion :—On Thursday
morning a meeting was held in the Boroughreeve's room, at
the Town Hail, and which was convened by circulars, signed
" Elizabeth Woolley," calling upon the ladies, members of
the " League Bazaar Committee," to give their attendance
on particular business. Accordingly, soon after the ap-
pointed hour (eleven o'clock), the room was tolerably well
filled ; Miss Gifford was voted into the chair, and the busi-
ness of the meeting commenced. It had been thought pro-
per to call the ladies together, to urge upon them the neces-
sity of embarrassing her Majesty's government ; and this it
was thought could not be more easily accomplished than by
every lady present signing a pledge not to eat or drink, or
otherwise use after the 28th March next, any article paying
a duty to government ; and it was hoped that, as seventy-
odd signatures had been obtained to the petition against the
corn laws, as many would be obtained to the pledge. The
merits and demerits of this proposal were in the course of
discussion, when in stalked Mr. Geo. Thompson, lecturer,
&c. in ordinary to the League, fresh and blooming from the
metropolis. A general murmur of welcome was the conse-
quence of his entrance—he walked up to the chairwoman
and coldly shook her by the hand. After looking about him
for some time, and answering various tokens of recognition,
he begged leave from the chairwoman to say a few words ;
the request was of course granted. He had (he said) seen it
reported in the London papers that a vote of thanks had
been moved to Mr. Cobden for his offer to deliver to the
ladies of Manchester a lecture on the corn laws, but which
offer, from motives of convenience to Mr. Cobden, had been
respectfully declined. He did not believe the London paper
report, and had indeed forgotten the circumstance, when a
copy of the Manchester Times was shown him by a friend,
and there the precise words of the motion of thanks were set
forth. It was pointed out to-him that the sincerity of Mr.
Cobden was highly extolled, and an insinuation appeared to be
implied against his and his friend's near him (Mr. Counsellor
Moore). He must confess that such was his interpretation
of the motion, but he should not have mentioned the mat-
ter had not his friends urged him to do so. He certainly.-
' was surprised that the intentions of one party were more
acceptable than the actions of another. He begged to ask
the chairwoman, who had proposed the motion, if the same
was correctly reported in the Times?—The chairwoman said
she believed it was.—Mr. G. TbompSon begged leave to say
that it conveyed a direct insult, and impugned his and Mr.
Moore's sincerity.— The chairwoman would appeal to the
ladies present, whether such were their intentions.—Several
tidies here exclaimed " No."—A lady : " Indeed, Mr.
Thompson, we do not impugn your sincerity ; you know we
adore you."—Omnes : "Yes, he knows we love him."—
Here the chairwoman could no longer brook the insult which
she considered had been offered her, but majestically strode
out of the room, and begged, leave to vacate the chair.
Murmurs and sobs were the.coasequence of -this:,Movement.
Mr. Thompson was appealed to, to withdraw any offensive
expression he might have used. Before his answer could be
obtained, the ex-chairwoman again made her appearance.
On consideration, she thought it was beneath her to vacate
the chair. (Here there was a pause.) She then offered her
hand to Mr. Thompson, who not advancing to accept it, she
was led to him by Mr. Counsellor Moore, and by him sup-
ported during the trying scene of shaking hands. This done,
amidst cheers, she'begged Mr. Thompson to take the vacant
chair. He, however, declined, and Miss G was once
more installed therein. Order being again restored, Mrs.
Woolley begged to move a vote of thanks to Mr. Thompson
and Mr. Moore for the various lectures delivered to the
ladies of Manchester ; this was seconded by about half a
dozen, and after mutual explanations passed unanimously.
The subject of taking the pledge was again renewed, and
Mr. Thompson's co-operation solicited. He said he could
not sincerely advise the ladies present to take the pledge, for
he himself should not do so. Mr. Moore said he had taken
it a week ago, and could assure the ladies that he found milk
and water very hard diet. In the end the pledge was sent
round, and received several signatures, one lady tragically
declaring that she had signed it for the sake of Ireland. The
meeting then broke up. The total abstinence system,
it is to be observed, does not commence before the 28th of
March, so that there is every opportunity for these martyrs
to grow fat in the mean time, and so enable them to live on
the excess for the ensuing three months, the time to which
they are limited to observe it.