The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-01-15 00:00:00

LONGEVITY.—There is now living at Dyrham and Hinton
a widow, named Anne Ball, in the.99th year of her age, who
attnally tapes in washing, and does it herself.--Bails Chro-4

At the request of the Spanish government, the authorities
at Bayonne have taken the liberty of transferring to England
(after a month's imprisonment) a man who had been arrested
at Urrugue for having arms, ammunition, and Carlist letters
in his house.

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ORDERS have been issued to the commanding ()Meet's of
proVisional battalions and depots to held in readiness for im-
mediate embarkation the whole of the disciplined men belong-
ing to the service in the East. The drafts of infantry regi-
ments will proceed to the entrepot at Malta, whence they will
be conveyed as occasion may require to the aeat of war,.and
the drafts for the cavalry will join the cavalry reserve at
Scutari. About 450 rank and file, belonging to the household
infantry brigade, will proceed to Malta and join the reserve
battalion. The number of troops under orders exceeds 4,600.

FOUR TEACHERS DEVOURED BY CANNIBALS IN ONE OF
THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS.—The missionary ship John Wil-
liams, named after the heroic martyr of Eromanga, has re-
cently completed a voyage among. the New Heb:ides and
other westerly groups. Among the news she brings are someitems of encouragement, and others of great sorrow. The
journal of the voyage says :—" On reaching the Island of Fate,
the distressing news was brought on board that some of the
teachers who, with their wives, left there on the last voyage,
had been barbarously murdered. Only nineteen days after
they were landed, under the most cheering, circumstances, the
two Raratonguan teachers and their wives were murdered to
furnish materials for a horrible cannibal banquet.
THE CASE OF PALMER, THE SURGEON OF REGELEY.—
On Wednesday last, in the Birmingham District Court of
Bankruptcy, Palmer, the surgeon charged with the murder at
Rugeley, of Mr. Cooke, by the administration of slow poison,
was declared a bankrupt. The petitioning creditor upon
• whose application the fiat was issued, is Mr. Spittle, of West-
bromwieh, his claim being for money lent. Mr. Brown, of
Bilston, is the solicitor for the bankruptcy. The adjudication
will be disputed, and the bankruptcy in no way interfere with
the sale of the. bankrupt's stud, appointed to take place at
Tattersall's' yesterday. On inquiry, it is ascertained that no
attorney of
_Birmingham was ever employed as an agent for

the Midland Counties Assurance-office:
RUMOURED SECRET TREATY BETWEEN RUSSIA AND
PRUSSIA.-11 communication from the Vienna correspondent
of the Daily News contains the following :—" Within the
last few days the report of a secret understanding, confirmed
by a treaty, between Russia and Prussia, is again brought
forward, and gains some degree of credit. It is affirmed that
this secret treaty has been only very lately concldded by the
present Emperor of Russia, and that it was brought to Berlin
by Count Munster, who could never induce the Emperor Ni-
cholas to sign it. This treaty is one of offensive and defen-
sive alliance between the two states, under certain possible
contingencies ; but whether the King of Prussia will be able
to Illy on the co-operation of his army in such a case is a
question that has given rise to great doubt and discussion."
A NOVEL PROJECT. The prospectus is issued of the
" Patent Jointed Ship Company," with a capital of £50,000
in £lO shares, on which the deposit is to be dal. • The object
proposed is a novel one, being the construction and working
of vessels composed of several sections, jointed each into the
other, and admitting of being readily disconnected. One
engine, it is stated, would suffice to work three sets of sec-
tions one set loading at one port, a second discharging at
another port, while a third is performing the voyage between
the ports of loading and discharge. The promoters contend
that this system would be of peculiar value to the London
coal trade, especially if applied to jointed steam colliers, con-
structed to bring 1,000 tons of coal at a trip, in four sections,—
loading 250 tons each, and drawing only 5 feet 6 inches of
water, so as to float over bars and shallows. The company is
brought out under the new Limited Liability Act.
GOLDSMITH ON RUSSIAN AGGRESSION. Goldsmith's
"Citizen of the World" is an interesting evidence of the long-
standing apprehensions of Russia as an encroaching power :
"I cannot avoid beholding the Russian empire as the natural
enemy of the more western parts of Europe—as an enemy
already possessed of great strength, and, from the nature of
the government, every day threatening to become more
powerful. It was long the wish of Peter, their great monarch,
to have a foot in some of the western parts of Europe ; many
of his schemes and treaties were directed to this end ; but,
happily for Europe, he failed in them all. A fort in the power
of this people would be like the possession of a floodgate; and
whenever ambition entered, or necessity prompted, they might
then be able to deluge the whole western world with a bar-
barous inundation. Believe me, my friend, I cannot
sufficiently condemn the polities of Europe, who eras snake
this powerful people arbitrators in their quarrel.
RELICS or THE PAST.—A variety of relics of the past,
descending from 70 A.D. to the present century, have been
turned up in digging the foundations for the new model
lodging-houses in Copenhagen-street. One is a small copper
coin of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, who reigned from 6.D.
69 to A.D. 79. It bears on the obverse the head of the Em-
peror, with the legend—" Vespasian Aug. Cos.," the first part,
probably, " Imp. Cass.," is undecipherable ; the reverse is
obliterated. A silver penny of one of the Edwards, some small
copper and latter coins, foreign, English, and Irish, the latter
dropped here, perhaps, by Cromwell's soldiers who had served
in Ireland ; a small copper medal, bearing on one side the
bead of King George lii. and Queen Charlotte, and a ship on
the other, apparently struck in commemoration of some naval
triumph, have also been found, as well as portions of skeletons,
including the under jaw and thigh bones of a person of
gigantic proportions, a prodigious quantity of goats' horns and
other exuvice. Mr. Bowen, of Copenhagen-street, who has
preserved several of these relics, has also in his possession an
ancient Roman patera or saucer of red clay, with a greenish
mottled glaze upon it, obtained from a depth of 17 or 18 feet
below the surface.— Worcester Chronicle.
ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.—A Stockholm journal contains the
following :—ln Sweden, females never by any chance enter a
coffee-house to take refreshment ; though, singular to relate,
in nearly all such places, females are employed to wait.
Great, consequently, was the astonishment felt by the fre-
quenters of the coffee-house of the Bazaar of the Pord-Nord,
in this city, to see, in the evening of the 28th of December, a
young lady, dressed with extreme elegance, and whose bear-
ing showed that she belonged to the higher classes of society,
enter unaccompanied, and, quietly taking a seat at a table,
call for a cup of coffee. Many of the persons were so struck at
the extraordinary visit, that they could not refrain from rising
from their seats to gaze at the lady ; but she took up a news-
paper and began to read with apparent attention. After a
while, when the curiosity had somewhat subsided, she rose
hastily, and advancing towards another table, as if to take a
newspaper, pulled a pistol from her muff and prepared to dis-
charge it; but at that moment an officer who happened to be
near seized her by the arm. The pistol, a double-barreled
one, went off, and the balls striking a chandelier, broke it,
and then lodged in the ceiling. The lady was immediately
arrested, taken before a magistrate, and after being interroga-
ted, was placed imsccret confinement. She is said to be the
widow of a saperior officerin the army, but what she meant to-
do with the pistol is a profound mystery. The affair has
created,intense sensation bere.? •
SINKING OP :AN EXPERIMENTAL' 'MORTAR VESSEL.—A
serious accident occurred at Portsmouth on Friday, in the trial
of the new indiarubber mortar raft, the intention of the Rev.
Mr. Berthon, of Fareham. This raft, bed,elagen tried several
times with every success, and Friday was appointed for a final
trial, the raft being ordered out to sea, off- Seuthsea Castle,
and there to fire 150 rounds of shell. She was accordingly
towed out at an early hour by beats belonging to the Excel-
lent, gunnery-ship, the mortar being a 13-inch mortar, and
the charge of powder 201 b., the usual charge for such a piece.
A party of seamen, gunners from the Excellent, under the
command of Lieut. Lethbridge, of that ship, went out with
the raft, as did also Mr. Berthon, the inventor. Everything
went on well till the 15th shell was fired, and the concussion
at this discharge was so great as to cause the sides of the raft
to fly apart, and she sank immediately. Lieut. Lethbridge
and the seamen gunners were immersed in the sea, but all
were picked up, with the exception of ono of the men, who 4
must have sunk immediately after the disaster, as his body
was not afterwards seen. Mr. Berthon was on the raft during '
most of the practice, but he had got into a waterman's boat
to ascertain the effect of the recoil of the mortar from a short
distance. The mortar was slung on Capt. Julius Roberts's
principle, which deprives it of a large amount of recoil at its
discharge.
RAILWAY IN BRAZIL.—The prospectus has been issued of
a Brazilian railway, with a capital of £1,200,000, to bear a
guaranteed interest of 7 per cent. The line is from the city
and port of Pernambuco, which have a population of 120,000,
to the town of Agua Preta, in the interior—a distance of 78
miles. Of the 7 per cent. guarantee 5 per cent. is from the
Imperial Government, while the remaining 2 per cent. is from
the province of Pernambuco. The road will pass through the
cotton and sugar districts, and the shareholders are ultimate-
ly to have the privilege of continuing it to the river San Fran-
cisco, at the point where its waters become navigible, through
the heart of the country for nearly 1,000 miles. They are
likewise to enjoy the right to all minerals within 20 miles on
either side, and to be allowed the free importation of their
machinery and coal. This enterprise furnishes another illus-
tration of the calls on English capital which are likely to be
made under the principle of large guarantees from foreign Go-
vernments desirous of improving the condition of their terri-
tories. For States in good repute like Brazil the system is
available even in war time, and it promises to become indig-
criminate whenever peace shall be attained. Among the rea-
sons given in the present instance in mitigation of the objec-
tions against a withdrawal of capital, it is urged that Brazil is
one of the best customers of England; that a free communica-
tion with the interior is essential to the colonization plans of
the Government, with a view to supplant slave by free labour ;
that £240,000 of the required amount will be subscribed in
Brazil; that a large proportion of the remainder will be dis-
bursed in England for plant, rails, locomotives, &sc.; ands,
finally, that the expenditure will be spread over several years.
SINGULAR SCENE AT AMELESIDE.—The new church at
Ambleside has recently been warmed by means of flues lead-
ing from a coke fire. Owing to some imperfection in the flues
a deleterious gas issued into the body of the church during
the morning service last Sunday. Young children, being
nearest the floor, were first affected, and about 20'of them
followed one another out before the adults took the alarm. -
At about the middle of the sermon the congregation rose in
a body and went out, te the apparent astonishment of the
preacher, who, in his elevated pulpit, was unaware of the mis-
chief. He was left entirely alone in the church ; and it is the
opinion of the medical men, that if the congregation had re-
mained a quarter of an hour longer, no one would have been-
able to help himself or his neighbour, and many, or all, must
have perished. The scene in the churchyard was singular for
a day in January • numbers of persons were laid on the grass,
fainting, convulsed, and moaning. None altogether escaped
injury. In the lane leading from the church to the village
persons dropped as they walked, and lay quivering, or as if
dead. Some who believed themselves able to reach their homes
fell at a short distance from their own doors, and one at least
was actually unable to reach home till the next day. Fortu-
nately, one of the surgeons of the place, on his way to church,
was called to a patient, and thereby left in a condition to give
prompt 'assistance. During the afternoon the druggist's shop
was crowded with applicants for stimulant medicines—debility,
and headache prostrating the population like a plague. None
of the cases have terminated fatally, but the danger to several
must have been imminent. It may be supposed that there will
be no future carelessness as to the mode of warming the church,
which, however, had been found by experience intolerably cold
before the present experiment was tried. Repeated warnings
had been given to the authorities for weeks past by the ringers
and others who had suffered from the fumes of the coke, but
no notice was taken, and on Sundaylast the doors were shut,
and kept shut, by the churchwardens, whose practice is to
go to the inns-
during prayers to see whether any drinking is
going forward, and who will allow no admission of air during
their absence, or on their return. By the latest accounts
some of the invalids were rather worse than better, while
ethers had nearly recovered.—Express.