The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-01-22 00:00:00

ALL ships• preparing at Plymouth for service in the Baltic
are ordered to be ready by the Ist of March.
THE London, 90, from the Mediterranean, arrived at Ply-
mouth on Saturday. She is tc, be fitted with all speed to con-
vey shot and shell to the Baltic.
THE railway between Cairo and Alexandria is now open to
general traffic, and passengers come down in seven hours, the
only break on the line being on the Rosetta branch of the
Nile, where the ferry is not yet completed.
THE Lord Chancellor has been solicited to sanction the half-
holiday movement on Saturday, and the interests of 10,000
persons in the law have been urged on his lordship, who has
promised to give the subject his anxious consideration.
THE first sod of the Fife and Kinross Railway was cut on
Monday. This line will leave the Edinburgh, Perth, and
Dundee Railway at the Ladybauk station, and will pass
through the towns of Auchtermuchty and Strathmiglo.

MEETING OP PAELIAMENT.—An official announcement
that Parliament will meet on Thursday, the 31st instant, and
that "public business of great importance will be brought
forward without delay," has been forwarded to the ministerial
members of the House of Commons.

THE SUEZ CANAL.—The commission for the piercing of
the Isthmus of Suez has arrived at Alexandria from its ex-
ploring journey. The results hitherto ascertained are
favourable. The commission considers that it will be easy to
pierce the isthmus from Suez to Peluse direct.
A LADY is likely to succeed Count Ouveroff as President of
the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburgh. Two male can-
didates are in the field,—M. Noraff, Minister of Public In-
struction, and Baron Modeste de Korff. But the chances
are said to be in favour of the Grand Duchess Helen.
A NEW PLANET was discovered on Saturday 12th inst., by
M. Chacornac, at the Observatory of Paris. Its brilliancy is
equal to that of a star of the ninth or tenth magnitude. It is
situate in the constellation of Cancer, some few degrees to
the south-east of the nebulous Praesepe.
ABOUT thirty years ago a new city gaol was built at
Norwich. A gallows was made by a man of the name of
Stratford, to be used when required, over the gateway.
Within a few years this Stratford was hung on it for poison-
ing, and there has never been any occasion to use it since. He
thus became his own first and last victim.
ON Wednesday morning the West India steamer arrived in
Southampton Water in the midst of a thick fog. Although
she continually fired guns and sent up rockets, none of the
boats which went off to her could find her, and the persons in
them were obliged to return to land for compasses to enable
them to steer their course to the West India moorings.

AT the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Toronto, on the 27th Dec.,
the youngest daughter of Mr. Cooke, musical director, met
with a painful and untimely death. The deceased was attired
in a fancy costume, when the light fabric forming the skirt
of her dress caught fire, and the injuries she suffered in con-
sequence were so severe that she died nest morning.

THE MILITARY SPIRIT.—A few days ago a crowd of ragged
schools-boys gathered round an empty house in Greenock,
and, having resolved to recognise it as the Redan battery,
boldly penetrated it. They set to work tearing down fire-
places, smashing all the windows, and otherwise sacking their
prize. Two of them were brought before the police-court, but
were dismissed with an admonition not to allow their patriot-
ism to run to such extremes in future.
ENGLAND'S DECLINE.—Those who talk about England's
decline, and fix her position as a third or fourth-rate power,
because she has lost 30,000 men before Sebastopol, talk
twaddle. The loss of ten such armies would only serve to un-
veil her resources, and bring out the indomitable energy of
her people. She is a maritime power. Her commerce estab-
lishes her rank among nations, and her navy is strong enough
to foster, guard, and watch over that commerce in every quar-
ter of the globe. When the first shows symptoms of decay,
or the latter is powerless to protect, then, and not till then,
will Great Britain lose her prestige, and fall from the lofty po-
sition she has for centuries occupied. Her successor, as mis-
tress of the seas, is even now at her side, moving along with
rapid strides ; but that successor is neither France nor Russia,
nor any of the worn-out nations of the Old World.—New
York Times.

FEARFUL BOILER EXPLOSION.—An occurrence of a fright-
ful character took place between seven and eight o'clock on
Monday morning, last week, at the New Inn Works, in the
occupation of Messrs. George and Alfred Hickman, at Lea-
brook, near Wednesbury. At these extensive works there are
five boilers in operation. Two of these (oblong-shaped) were
under the charge of a mail, named Thomas Stackhouse, and it
was through the explosion of one of them that the catastrophe
occurred. It appears that the puddlers were about to make
their first " draw" in the morning, when without any pre-
liminary alarm, the boiler exploded with a terrific crash which
was heard for a considerable distance. The effects were most
destructive. The roofs of the mill and other buildings belong-
ing to the works were shattered by pieces of the exploded
boiler, which were sent with irresistible force in all directions ;
a high-pressure engine of 20-horse power was broken ; broken
pieces of iron and bricks were projected into the adjoining
premises of Messrs. Bagnall, showering down upon the roofs,
which were thereby damaged, and the roof of the Bush Inn,
at some distance, was driven in. The damage done to the
works and machinery is estimated at upwards of £5OO. But,
great as is the loss of property, a serious destruction of human
life attended the explosion. Three men at work ou the spot
at the time were instantaneously killed, and it was found that
no fewer than eight of the workmen had been injured. They
were lying about the works, prostrated in all directions. The
cause of this sad affair is involved in some mystery.

WASN'T SHE DROP'T ox.—A report (the whole truth of
which we do not warrant) has been widely circulated in this
neighbourhood for the last few days, and which we give as
follows :—A certain woman, living in a village on the summit
of the hill between Halifax and Bradford, who, it is stated,
felt somewhat desirous of getting rid of what she thought to
be a clog to her joys—viz., her husband—hit upon the following
plan, in order to quit, in a quiet way, the incumbrance. She
applied, one day this week, to the druggist of the village for
six pennyworth of "poison," (arsenic), and on being questioned
as to what purpose she intended to apply it, she refused to give
an answer,and so the "poison" was not supplied. The druggist
having hag his curiosity a little excited, sent for the woman's
husband, and informed him of the fact, asking him if he
knew want she could want with it, after which the man made
an answer by very jocosely saying he could not tell, unless .she
wanted to poison him. At last it was agreed that if she went
a second time something harmless should be sold to her, and
the man informed of the fact. This was done, and a small por-
tion of magnesia was exchanged for the sixpence. The husband
was informed how the " bull was running," and went home at
noon to a meat pie for dinner, but, unfortunately for the " wo-
man trap-layer," he had lost his appetite, and so he freely
invited his " better half " (?) to partake of the good pie she
had made. Seeing, howeyer, that she also was without an
appetite, he found himself an appetite, and, as the phrase goes,
he set to and "pitched" into it. The vgude wife" would, doubt-
less, then imagine that everything was going on nicely, and so
all was. After dinner, of course a little rest, and during rest
came on sickness, then thirst, the kind wife furnishing water
to drink. After water the man became still worse, when the
" sharer of his sorrows " pretended to be much alarmed indeed.
Ultimately the poisoned man died. The woman's fears and
cares, now that he was dead, all left her, and she went up
stairs and put a strong cord through a hole in the floor, going
down again to adjust it nicely round the dead man's neck ;
after which she again went up the stair and began to pull
away at the rope. In the mean time the cord was put round
the table leg, and that useful domestic article was suspended
in place of the other one. John, having now seen the " move,"
stole up quietly to see the rope rightly fastened. On the feel-
ings of the perfidious woman, on seeing her dead husband so
suddenly come to life again, we cannot enlarge. Suffice it to
say, that, in addition to her internal feelings of dismay, she
very shortly had her external feelings also, for we are told that
the tragic scene ended in the man giving her "a right good
walloping."—Leeds Intelligencer.
THE AMERICANS AS PAINTED DT TREMSELVES.—There
is not much doubt that in point of morals at the north and
east we are retrograding. We build great clippers and astonish-
ing bridges, but in the arts we are behind the old Greeks; in
the graces we sadly need missionaries; a wild Indian is more
polite, more generous, more civilized than many a New York
politician; in morals we have examples of deformity almost
as gross as those of the lowest South Sea Islanders ; and
future historians will write that we are more superstitious
and bigotted than the most insane worshipper of Brahma,
the most profound devotee of Johanna Southcote, or the most
ardent disciple of witch-hanging, Quaker-whipping Cotton
Mather. The criminal calendar of 1855 will substantiate a
great deal of what we have said. The Mormons at Utah—the
Free Lovers in New York and Winconsin—the insane asylums
filled with maniacs on the subject of spiritualism—the general
tendency on the part of a large portion of our infatuated
people to run after anything that is new, however absurd it
may be, and the readiness of certain papers to sustain novel
doctrines without any regard to their foundation or tendency,
is further evidence that, although we may be " smart people"
in the making of revolvers and patent pitchforks, we are in
some respects the greatest mass of fools that ever lived in any
age of the world. There is not so much talk now-a-days
about the spiritual humbug, but we hear of it frequently
through its effects. (Some incidents are here given.) We
have thrown together these facts to show that, while we are
boasting of our elightenment and our greatness and our learn-
ing, we are still, in some respects, little better than savages.
The spiritual delusion has spread into all ranks of society,
from the highest to the lowest ; the free love and affinity
humbug has grown out of it, and the tone of public morals
has been much lowered. The home circle has been dese-
crated wives have left their husbands children have
disowned their parents. The victims of all these delusions
have been swindled and humbugged and murdered right and
left. And the end is not yet.—New York Herald.
VALUE OP IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA.—We have estimated
in a previous article the moneyed loss sustained by the country
in this year's decrease of immigration. We drew the estimate
merely from two palpable sources of profit which would be
cut off by cessation of immigration, leaving others less appa-
rent, though equally real ; these two, namely, the direct per-
sonal property imported by each immigrant, and the value of
his labour. The first we estimated at $13,600,000, that is,.
the amount which would have been imported by the 170,000
immigrants who this year have stayed at home. The second,
reckoning the value of the labour as at least equal to the cost
of living—namely, $2 per week to each person, we made
$17,000,000. The total loss, then, for the coming year to the
country would be, on this estimate, $30,000,000. Such esti-
mates are, of course, only approximate. We designedly un-
derstand them. The value of labour is its profit. In a new
country like this there can be very little doubt that wages-
would double without immigration—that is, the mechanic
would receive $3 instead of $1 50 per day for his work; the
farm-labourer $2 instead of $1; the laundress $1 50 instead
of 75c. This amount is now in effect gained by the producers
of the country who employ hired labour, and would be lost
by the withdrawal of this labour. On a broad statement each
immigrant is worth—is a profit—to the nation of at least $2
per week, or what he consumes over and above the expenses
of his labour ; some, of course, will be worth more, some
less ; but this would be an average and moderate valuation.
It should be remembered in this are included two sources of
individual profit—the gain to the employer in the labour and
the gain to the producer in the articles consumed. These to-
gether would swell up the profits of the foreign labour, now
lost, we believe, considerably above our estimate. The first
gain mentioned, the import of personal property, is, of course,
a pure gain, even more than the same amount drawn from
some gold or silver mine in America. No labour, even, is
given in exchange for it. Foreign capital lent us on interest
is, of course, no such permanent value. Its worth is the pre-
sent profit of using it. The interest we pay for it goes to
other countries, and the principal must eventually be with-
drawn. Such moneyed estimates of the value of men as these
seem low and selfish, and yet there are some who can be
affected by nothing else. It is desirable to show to them that
in this case humanity and property lie in the same patb.—
New York Daily Times,