The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-07-29 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

Through an inadvertance the dancing academy of Mr. Jas.
R. Palmer was announced to be opened on the 26th instead
of the 28th instant.
We are authorised by the directors of the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway to state that there is not a word of
truth in the paragraph which has gone the round of the
newspapers respecting a shocking and fatal accident said to
have occurred on their line, near Parkside.
A circular, signed Charles E. Rawlins, jun., has been sent
to us, addressed Messrs. Lace and Addison, 4, St.
George's-crescent, enclosing a copy of the inflammatory
handbill circulars, recently upon the walls of the town,
and informing us that " a person will call upon us on
Friday, the 29th, or Saturday, the 30th instant, to request
Tour names as members of the Anti-Corn-Law League."
his, of course, is pure insolence, for which " a person," if he presume to introduce his person into our office, will
stand a chance of having his head put under our water-
pipe. The object of the league, pointed out by the docu-
ment enclosed, is to screw a shilling out of such silly peo-
ple as choose to be made their dupes, under the fraudulent
pretence of advancing the repeal of the Corn-Laws. What
is the GUARDIAN SOCIETY doing that such palpable
swindling is not put down ?

,-

ebe Eiberpoot &tantiarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, JULY 29, 1842

The royal mail steamer Caledonia arrived last night
from Halifax and Boston, and we were put in posses-
sion of our files of papers at rather a late hour, but
full details of the American intelligence will be found
in another place.
We did not receive the papers until nearly twelve
o'clock, and if anything has escaped our notice in the
hasty glance which we have been able to bestow on
the papers, we will announce it in a subsequent
edition.

The whole course of remedy propounded by the
Anti-Corn-law League, for the relief of the distress of
the country, is SELFISH, FRAUDULENT, AND REVO-
LUTIONARY ! We have pledged ourselves to prove
the correctness of this position. And what is the
remedy in question ? A repeal of the corn-laws, and
the unconditional admission into consumption in
British markets of the slave sugar and coffee of Brazil.
From the passing of these measures alone are to arise
an instantaneous adjustment of the manifold entangle-
ments of British commerce. Manufactures are to
receive an incalculable stimulus; unemployed thou•
sands are to be rescued from beggary; crowded work-
houses and prisons are to be emptied of their occupants ;
deserted shops are to be filled with purchasers ; our
idle shipping is to be at once manned and employed ;
and all this—so prophesy the league-men—by the
mere enactment of laws to discourage the native agri-
culture of Great Britain, and to ruin her Colonial
Empire.

Manufacturing distress, then, is to be removed by
the production of agricultural and colonial distress ;
The theory of St. John Long is that in favour with the
free-trade quacks of the anti-corn-law lengw. The
sore upon the manufacturing portion of the body poli-
tic is to be cured by the production of a greater sore
upon the agricultural portion of the same body. S EI,-
FISHNESS is surely palpable here ! But, the working
man ? For his benefit we are told these changes are
devised. He is to have cheap bread, cheap sugar, and
cheap coffee. Yes,—but he is to have REDUCED
WAGES as well! Two million acres of British corn
lands—Cobden seipse testante—are to be put out of
cultivation, and the tillers of those acres thrown upon
the labour market ; and this when it is notorious that
machinery is rapidly enabling the manufacturer to dis-
pense more and more with adult labour ; when it
is notorious, too, that with our existing means of pro-
duction, and our present supply of hands, we could
Meet a demand far greater than any which can possibly
spring up as the result of a free trade in corn ; and when
it is notorious that manufacturing industry is entirely
unable to absorb that additional quantity which must
be thrown upon it for employment. Surely, then, the
pretence of consideration for the working man is
FRAUDULENT !

But we shall have A CHEAP LOAF ! Again, the
cuckoo cry is sounded upon our ears. CHEAP BREAD,
CHEAP SUGAR, CHEAP COFFEE ! The working man
will be able to consume more manufactured goods, be-
cause his income will not he exhausted in the purchase
of food. Aye, when the liberal millocrat begins to
forget self, and to regard a toiling fellow-being, who
has feelings, thoughts, and memories, as something
better than a machine of iron—when the leech changes
its nature, and ceases to suck blood ! The working
man have more money to buy clothing and comforts !
Aye, when the dogmas of political economy arc less
regarded by liberal philosophers than the Scriptures
which teaches that " the labourer is worthy of his
hire ;" when the value of a working man's toil is re-
gulated by the amount upon which a thinking, reason-
ing being can live in comfort, and not by the price
which it will bring—by the comparison of its cost with
the labour of a machine, or by the amount of privation
and wretchedness which broken-spirited man will endure
RATHER TIIAN STARVE !
It

Is fraudulent and false that the anti-corn-law
manufacturers or the anti-corn-law party, generally,
care One brass farthing for the working man. The
anti-Corn-law cry is not the cry of the working man
It is the cry of the gambler in cotton and calico, who
looks upon the gleam of temporary prosperity, which
may follow the concession of his demand, as his last
chance of escape from a gambler's fate. It is the cry
the
millocrat, who has sunk his allin the overgrown
fuel°,rY an d the machinery with which he deluges every
market, and who hopes to transfer his threatened losses
and ultimate ruin to other shoulders. It is the cry of
the creditor of the joint-stock bank, who is pressed to
Pay back the thousands of borrowed wealth which he
lies squandered in speculation and extravagance—of
mushroom upstarts, who are struggling to defer a little
longer the declaration of their insolvency—of beggars,
who have lorded it like princes, and for whom a gulf of
beggary and shame is yawning—of crawling, creeping
things, who have pirniit.,d and lied to feed the vanity of
pick up broken victuals an d
purseproud schemers, arld been permitted, in return, to
dripping, and to fill their
pockets with the paltry plunder which the larger free-
booters throw from them as unworthy of their sublime
notice. In a word, it is the cry of drowning, sinking, despairing ADVENTURERS, who would rush to a social
revolution, dare any ruinous odds,
wade through any
depth of dishonesty and injustice, and embrace THE
ENEMY OF MAN HIMSELF, in the selfish and desperate
hope of escaping that very fate which they are willing
to precipitate upon those around them !
Let us examine closely if this be not so ! Let us
try if we cannot track the yelping and howling which
are in our ears to the transfixed cur which is writhing
in abortive rage upon his dunghill ! The actors of the
anti-corn-law convention are at this moment venting
their blasphemies and threats, their folly and their
insolence, at the portals of both houses of parliament,
and in the very face of royalty. Let us draw aside the
curtain and inspect the wires by which the puppets are
moved ! Read first the following document, headed
4, Bank of Manchester, July 18, 1842, and signed,
EDMUND BURDEKIN WILLIAM SMITH, managing
directors ;" and bear in mind that the establishment in
question, is the bank, par excellence, of the league
party in Manchester !
" The directors of the Bank of Manchester think it proper
to acquaint the proprietors, that important changes have re-
cently been made in the admiei4tration of the affairs of the

company. Among the first consequences of these changes
has been the commencement of a more careful analysis of
the condition of the bank ; and it having been made manifest
to the board of directors that they have hitherto over esti •
mated the value of many of the outstanding balances, they
have felt it their duty to refrain from declaring a dividend
for the half year ending the 30th of June.

Significant announcement! How irrisistibly the
mention of the " important changes," the " careful
analysis," and the inquiry into " the value of many
of the outstanding balances," suggests visions of the
sweating room--the bank parlour—with the official in-
quisitors fieaing some small whig insect, whom they
dare stop, and handling tenderly some mammoth de-
faulter whom they dare not stop ! And when the
sweating is over, we see the crushed insect drag itself
to an anti-corn-law meeting to hum and twitter, whilst
the ruffled and offended mammoth is ready to bluster
and brawl, for the adoption of any policy which will
only double his returns, and snatch him from the perils
of a closed account.
But. proceed with our bank circular :

"The directors are deeply impressed with the conviction
that it is alike due to their own characters and to the propri-
etors at large, that a full and explicit statement of the affairs
of the company should be 'submitted at the approaching
annual general meeting ; but as it is impossible to foresee
what may be the actual value of the shares resulting from the
searching investigation which is now in progress, it cannot
be expected that they should here anticipate the communi-
cations to be made in the annual report."

The " full and explicit statement" here mentioned
would be an instructive document, indeed, if all the
truth could only be told. What exorbitant advances
to favorite customers—what Leviathan accounts upon
pigmy security, would such a document exhibit! But
a "full and explicit" history of the Bank of Man-
chester, we shall not be favoured with yet. That sig-
nificant allusion to " the value of shares," would, of
itself, be sufficient to assure us that a cunningly glossed
over sharebroker's statement is all that we are at present
justified in looking for. We proceed to quote—
" They would, however, beg to remind the proprietors in
the meanwhile, that the failures which have been already
announced, or may from time to time occur, among parties
who are indebted to the bank, must be taken rather as an
evidence of an altered system of management, than as afford-
ing grounds fur renewed apprehension ; and they venture to
bespeak, on behalf of those who have undertaken duties of
no ordinary difficulty, that :confidence and co-operation on
the part of the proprietors (in allaying unnecessary alarm and
mischievous excitement) which are indispensable to a calm
and careful inquiry, and to an efficient protection'of the in-
terests of all parties concerned."

An ominous hint here, gentlemen of the league !
THE SCREW is put on, and is about to be WRUNG
TIGHT. We may look, we are told, for a few failures
amongst you " from time to time." Perhaps that
may in some measure account for the late superhuman
energy, and excessive liveliness, of the league agitation !
The bank which set up its hundreds of lath and
plaster fabrics is about to pull them down again. The
gilded images of cement, which it has palmed upon
the world as solid and golden, are about to be broken
up, and the cheat displayed. We complain not of
this. The world will not grieve over it. The Bank
of Manchester, like other bodies, has a right " to do
what it will with its own"—to set up puppets, or to
pull them down--to lend its paper rags to men of
substance or to beggars; but, we ask, is the safety of
Great Britain to be perilled—is its native agriculture
to be prostrated in ruin—are her noble colonies to he
abandoned—is the whole fabric of her social policy to
be subverted, because the Bank of Manchester, and
other similar bodies, require back their own ; and the
puppets they have set up and pampered are unwilling
to be trundled back into their native insignificance and
obscnrity ?
But we are sick of this reckless, selfish, and dis-
honest faction. Let its hired emissaries, or its mem-
bers, rant and rave their fill. The world will only say
of the former, " they must earn their weekly dole,"
and of the later,
" There are more things in Heaven and earth
Than are told of in your philosophy."
HOLLOW PRETENDERS ! HYPOCRITICAL CHEATS
are they all !

By the arrival of her Majesty's mail steamer Tweed,
we are in possession of advices from Jamaica to the
2d instant, and from British Guiana to the 15th -Tune,
from Cuba to the 26th June, from Hayti to the 28th
June, from Turk's Island to the 30th June, from Nas-
sau to the 4th July, and from Bermuda to the loth
July.

The papers brought by this packet are unusually
barren of interest. The scarcity of labourers is still
the universal topic of complaint in British Guiana and
Jamaica; and in the latter place indolence, theft, and
burglary appear to have become the characteristics of
a great portion of the negro population. Up to the
last dates from Jamaica, trade continued heavy ; con-
fidence had not returned; bankruptcies were rife, and
poverty in every shape was upon the increase. The
banks had little to do ; the merchants less ; and the
most useful class of the community—the industrious
retailers and artizans—were proportionately distressed.
For relief from this embarrassing and ruinous state
of things, the colonists look up to the administration
of colonial affairs by LORD STANLEY as their only
hope. " With him," writes the Jamaica Standard,
" it now rests whether the West Indies are to be sacri-
ficed, as valuable and creditable dependencies of the
British Crown, or whether, by means of that power
which is vested in him, he will adopt steps to provide
those colonies with an immigration at once healthful
and protective, and such as shall prove, by judicious
management, as eminently beneficial to the emigrants
as a source of salvation to the colonies themselves.
Nor is this, we are fully convinced, at all Utopian in
design, or difficult of realization. All that we require
is, that, instead of attempting to civilize Africa by
means of expensive and fatally calamitous Expedi-
tions,' the present slave factories should be converted
into so many EMIGRATION DEPOTS, where each co-
lony should be allowed, under the express sanction and
co-operation of government,, to engage as many labour-
ers as they can provide suitable accommodation for,
in transitu, followed up by the necessary location and
employment, when they shall arrive at their destina-
tion."

Beyond all question, a serious burden rests at the
present moment upon his lordship's shoulders. A
prompt and vigorous effort, made in the right direction,
may avert the doom which impends over the British
West Indies. But, with a turbulent faction thundering
at the doors of Downing-street for a free trade in the
slave sugar of Brazil, and with restless demagogues in
every town directing the passions of a suffering popula-
tion to such a step as the means of escape from their
distresses, procrastination or half measures are equiva-
lent to a total denial of relief, and the doom of our
colonies will be sealed for ever.

A passenger by the Tweed states that when they
touched at Cape Haytien it presented a most desolate
and deplorable appearance, the result of the late disas-
trous earthquake. He represents the inhabitants as in
a wretched condition, and suffering the greatest priva-
tions. Scarcely a house was left standing.

The hull of the Medina was still ashore at Turk's
Island, together with the machinery of the vessel,
which had not been got out. The stores were all se-
cured. The captain and the purser were still on the
spot superintending; but it was understood that the
wreck had either been sold or was about to he disposed
of.

The Tweed brought home 200,000 dollars on mer.
chants' account.

The manufacturers of the Anti-Corn Law League
appear to have imbibed the notion that the Govern-
ment of Sir Robert Peel has nothing to do but to re-
ceive and listen to the senseless chatter of any given
number of persons who may choose to arrogate to
themselves the name of " a deputation." On Mon-
day last one of these ambulatory nuisances foisted
itself into the presence of no less than three of the
members of the administration. Sir Robert Peel
underwent the infliction of its presence for an hour or
twoi ; Lord Stanley had next a dose, and Lord Wharn-
a
patiencelir
e was marked out for another ; but his lordship's
ed
gave way under the prosy deluge which was
discharged against him, and although no less a per-
sonagethan Mr. John Brooks was about to enlighten
him upon the
very difficult subject of a remedy for
manufacturing distress,
" big with s poor John and his compa-
peech," were bowed out of the

triotig,

room,

" To waste their sweetness in the "-
streets of Westminster, or- some of the taverns thereo,

We have no wish to remark upon the variety of
trumpery uttered by the intrusive wiseacres on this
occasion. But we must be permitted to say a few
words to one or two of the party who are somewhat
old acquaintances of ourselves and our readers.

It will be seen from the report of the interview with
Sir Robert Peel, which is given elsewhere, that the
deputation was asked by the right hon. baronet whe-
ther the government had not, by the alteration of the
tariff, done something to mitigate the evils complained
of. The reply of the deputation was given through
the lips of a Quaker—our old friend HENRY ASH-
WORTH—and, of course, was disingenuous, quibbling,
and indirect. The wily Quaker fenced with the ques-
tion ; and replied—not that the tariff as a whole, but—
that " the reductions upon French boots, shoes, silk
hats, and cosmetics, were not calculated to benefit the
poorer classes." He was pressed by Sir Robert Peel,
who apparently knew the kind of animal he had to
deal with—that a Quaker's answer
" Wasn't direct, 'twas serpentine,"
or like the motion of that patient quadruped, the ass,
when a cruel urchin is urging him on with a spiked
stick inserted in his hinder quarters.—" Will the intro-
duction of animal food not be a good thing for the
poor ?" Surely a man of such extensive information
as Henry Ashworth, could, for once, give a direct
answer to so direct a question. But, not so. Henry
Ashworth replied sideways. " From what had taken
place in the House of Commons, he thought •there
was no agriculturist who would now have the boldness
to assert that he anticipated any material reduction of
price." In plain words—for a Quaker's language
generally requires to be interpreted—Mr. henry Ash-
worth meant to say, that the admission of foreign
meat by the new tariff was no boon to the working

Now, our readers cannot forget the connexion of
this same Henry Ashworth with a brother humbug—
George Thompson—touching a certain quantity of
" fine fresh and tempting beef," with fat and lean
beautifully mixed," which, at a certain anti-corn-law
meeting held at Bolton, was exhibited, as being with-
held, by monopoly, from the working classes, although
purchaseable at the trifling sum of three-halfpence a
pound. The admission of this very beef, which, fine,
fresh and tempting, as it was said to be, was, neverthe-
less, salt junk, our Quaker free trader maintained

would be a boon of incalculable value to the working
classes. And yet, now, the same humbug, Henry
Ashworth, turns up his nose and elevates the white of
his eyss at the very notion that any benefit could
possibly arise from such a source! But we have,
fortunately, a letter in our possession, which we have
as fortunately preserved, dated 3rd mo. 8, 1842 (in
civilized reckoning, the 3rd March, 1842), from the
same arrant humbug, Henry Ashworth, upon the sub.
ject of this very beef, the admission of which is to be
of no benefit to the working classes. Hear the Henry
Ashworth of that date !

" On the Ist January, I purchased from J. H.
Rayner, of Liverpool, by our brokers, Win. Bower

and Son,

4 barrels American Beef
2001bs. each,
2 do. do. Pork
at 255. each, which is l ld. per lb.
" The duty was 12s. per cwt. and five per cent over.

The quality of both was excellent : it was easily sold,
and left a profit." The main chance was all right,
friend Ashworth ! But proceed with our Quaker's

letter :
"The English taste is not trained to the use of meat
which has been so excessively salted "—a pity that is !
"but I am persuaded that our hardworking artizans
would rejoice in giving their labour for such food, if
they might be allowed to have it in an unspoilt state."
Can anything, we ask, be plainer than this ? " Our
hardworking artizans would rejoice in giving their la-
bour for suc,l if they could have it in an unspoilt
state"—if they could have it unsalted. Well, the
tariff of Sir Robert Peel allows them to have it in an
unspoilt state. The same beef which was so fize,fresh,
and tempting when salted—which could be imported
at three-halfpence per pound, and which paid three-
halfpence per pound duty—is now permitted to be
imported unspoilt at less than a penny a pound; and
yet we are told by this Quaker, that the tariff is no
howl to thv wuthiiig clasbcs: What right has SUch
humbug, who is of one opinion to-day and another
to-morrow, to foist his drab person into the presence
of Sir Robert Peel, as the carcase of a philosopher,
when his word is not worth the dust which adheres to
his drab gaiters ?
We might apologise to friend Henry Ashworth for
having quoted the awkward admissions in the letter
above ; but a postscript to the document itself says
expressly—" Thou may use this letter in any way
which may best serve the purposes of truth and the
advancement of free trade." We have used it to ad-
vance the purposes of truth. Whether it is calculated
to advance free trade, is Henry Ashworth'a affair—not
ours !
We had a few words to say to Mr. Alderman Chap-
pell, who had the entire case, as to the existing distress
and its remedy, in a nutshell. As the nutshell in ques-
tion, however, is not Mr. Alderman Chappell's hat, we
must crack the nut at some future opportunity.

Our attention has been directed to an absurd, though
intended to be witty, paragraph, which disgraced the
columns of our contemporary of Monday last.
The paragraph in question is, in itself, beneath con-
tempt, and only worthy of notice as an evidence, were
such wanting, of the low condition of that degraded
thing which, in these latitudinarian days, is miscalled
LIBERALISM.

It would appear that a Conservative member of the
Council has chosen the Socinian-radical neighbourhood
of Gateacre for the summer residence of himself and
his family. Some sneaking eaves-dropper, finding no
opportunity to attack the private character of this
gentleman, has broken down those barriers which
civilization has raised for the protection of a man's
domestic privacy, and attempted, by a vulgar carica-
ture, to ridicule the occupations of the councillor.
We know and despise the contemptible author of
this contemptible effusion, but we are not surprised
If calumny, distorted truth, low cunning, and ribald
buffoonery mark the fleeces of any of the flock of the
Unitarian Shepherd, what wonder ? Let the slander-
ous vituperation heaped upon John Gladstone, the
Rev. the junior Rector, and others of the most re-
spectable, and therefore most abused, inhabitants of
Liverpool, be the answer ! But the subject nauseates
us. We must,
_however, give the caution, to furnish
which induced these remarks. Conservatives! beware
of the spy oyetoni of G.t q.v., A enn ! In ohoocing your
country quarters, select a district in which there are
fewer WASPS and more GENTLEMEN.

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE LATE PHRENOLOGICAL DISCUSSION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD

SIR,—As I am almost daily receiving letters from Liver-
pool, urging me to take some notice of Mr. Rumball's scur-
rilities, I shall feel obliged if you will allow me shortly to
state why I have not thought it necessary to do so.
In the first place they are so coarse, and so palpably in-
correct to all acquainted with the proceedings, that they
must refute themselves. And in the second place, the course
he has adopted is altogether irregular ; and I cannot see that
because he does wrong, I should do wrong also. Mr. Rum-
ball's glossings are either intended to influence those who
were at the discussion, and whose judgments he feels were
against him ; or else unworthily to influence those who were
not present, by his ex-parte statements, which equally
offend every sense of propriety, and indeed common honesty.
Mr. Rumball challenged me, and I met him. lam quite
satisfied to leave the issue with those who heard the debate,
and who alone are competent to give an opinion npon it.
Why is not Mr. Rumball willing to let the matter rest there
also? The reason must be plain to every one, namely, be-
cause he feels he thoroughly broke down, and that the sense
of a great portion of that meeting was against him. To fol-
low him in his abuse is out of the question. Had I less
effectively answered his arguments, he would not have
abused me ; but because I completely demolished his pro-
fessional system, he is angry, and scolds. lam proud of his
abuse, although, for his own sake, I deeply regret it. I will
trouble you with only one of the many contradictions I have
received to Mr. Rumball's indecencies.
" The Committee which consented to act on behalf of Mr..
Brindley, during his late discussion on phrenology, having
been applied to by that gentleman for an opinion on the
following charge, made against him by his opponent, Mr.
Rumball—to wit, " I charge him with wilful and premedi-
tated falsehood throughout the whole of the proceedings"_
feels called on, by a due regard to truth, to state that such
charge is totally unfounded.
`.:: THoo sH
sENpolial
UEDIRIIsi N
LT AsA
Noy

" 22nd July, 1842."
I have in my possession, in addition to the above, a letter
from each member of my committee, and from the whole of
the chairmen, with the exception of Mr. Rumball's personal
friend and phrenological supporter, Dr. Thorburne.
Magna est veritas, et pravalebit.
I am Sir, &c.
JOHN BRINDLEY.
Chester', July 26th, 1812,