The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-08-28 00:00:00

GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.

THE NILE has risen two fathoms higher this year than last.
This is considered an augury of an abundant harvest.
Fon the last twelve months not a single expedition has
taken place, nor a single gun been fired in Algeria. This is
the first time since 1830 that such has been the case.
THE contract for 500 tons of copper coin has been com-
pleted by Mr. Ralph Heaton, of Bath-street, Birmingham,
who commemorated the event by inviting his workpeople to
dine with him.
ON a post-office official, arrested the other day in the duchy
of Brunswick, the enormous quantity of 1,400 stolen letters
were found. He had only been attached to the post-office for

one year.
GREAT excitement was caused the other day amongst the
bathers of Ramsgate by two great elephants belonging to
Cooke's troupe. coming down on the sands to bathe amidst
the crowd.
A Lint IN Ayn recently received I. box, which, when
opened, was found to contain a young tortoise, from the banks
of the Bosphorus, where he had been enjoying himself but
three weeks before. The box was padded, and though no
rations were enclosed, the tortoise arrived alive and well,
after having been eighteen days confined.
THE NORTH YORK RIFLES deposited in the parish church
of Richmond, Yorkshire, on Friday, their pair of colours,
which had been presented to the regiment by the late Prin-
cess Amelia, daughter of George 111., and embroidered with
her own hands. The regiment having been constituted a
rifle corps, does not carry colours.
THE Stationery Court at the Crystal Palace has been
turned into a Crimean Court. The chief contents at present
are fifty large views of the country now the seat of war,
painted in body colour by an artist named Bossoli, who lived
some time in the country, and was employed by Prince Wo-
ronzoff. The original sketches by Simpson, the lithographer,
are also hung up in the court, and the centre is occupied by
the raised plan of Sebastopol.
GENERAL WASHINGTON must have had an uncommonly
strong and healthy gang of negroes, for another of them has
just turned up at Urbana, Ohio, frosty with the snows of 108
winters. The slave of the father of his country, this venerable
antique would be invaluable to exhibit at Union-safety meet-
ings, but unfortunately he has his " freedom papers" in his
pocket, in the handwriting of the general. Strange to relate,
this ebony fossil has had six wives, which fart renders his
longevity not only a startling but actually a bewildering thing.
—Boston Atlas.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL has purchased Hill House, Rod-
borough, near Stroud, until lately the seat of Sir John Dean
Paul, Bart., and intends making it his country residence.
"By some," says the Gloucester Journal, "political motives
are attributed to the noble lord in fixing his residence at
Stroud. It will be remembered that he sat in parliament for
the borough from 1835 till 1841."
ADULTERATING BITTER BEER.—On Tuesday John Glover,
landlord of the Londonderry Arms, North Shields, was brought
before the Tynemouth magistrates by the officers of the Inland
Revenue, charged with having a noxious drug in his brewery ;
also with adulterating some 'beer found in his house with the
same drug. He was fined £2OO. The Excise have taken pos-
session of his premises.
A LETTER FROM CONSTANTINOPLE, of the 6th instant, says
that the proposition to construct a suspension bridge from the
heights of Pera to Scutari—that is to say, from Europe to
Asia—which was made to the Porte some time since by an
English engineer (Mr. Kennard, of London,) has been approved.
The funds for the undertaking will be subscribed by an Eng-
lish company. The cost is estimated at between £600,000 and
£700,000.
PROPOSED BABY Suow IN ENGLAND.—Are English
mothers to follow the example of their Transatlantic sisters,
and exhibit their offspring as a farmer would his cattle ? Read
the following extract of an advertisement which has appeared
in the Lincolnshire Times :—" The Boston Royal Harmonian
Society respectfully inform their friends and the public, that
they are making extensive arrangements for a grand Baby Ex-
hibition, to be held at the Vauxhall Pleasure-gardens, Boston,
open to all England."
HALF-HOLIDAY MOVEMENT.—On Wednesday, the promo-
ters of the half-holiday movement had a meeting at Guildhall,
London, Sir James Duke in the chair. Mr. J. G. Hubbard,
late Governor of the Bank, moved the first resolution in favour
of a half-holiday; and afterwards it was unanimously carried
to present a memorial to the proper authorities, praying the
closing the Courts of Law and all public offices at two o'clock
on Saturdays. In proposing the latter resolution, Mr. J. R.
Taylor said that two hundred and thirty-six firms of London
had petitioned the judges in favour of the half-holiday, but one
of them would not consent to it, and the others would not act
without him.
STEALING NEWEPAPERS.—Henry Pascoe, a driver in the
employment of Messrs. Smith and Son, news-agents, with
William Russell, an accomplice, were found guilty at the Cen-
tral Criminal Court, on Monday, of robbing his employers of
one hundred and eighty sheets of The Times, Pascoe stopping
in Earl-street, Blackfriars, while Russell took a quantity out
of the back of his cart. During the trial it was shown that
Messrs. Smith, who take 26,000 copies of The Times each day,
are the only persons who are served with the paper up to
seven o'clock in the morning. The prisoners were found
guilty, and sentenced—Pascoe to twelve months, and Russell
to six months' imprisonment.
CURIOUS ACCIDENT.— A curious accident occurred the
other day to Chevalier d'Akeglio, at the baths of Pesio. It
seems that M. d'Azeglio, to amuse the visitors at the baths,-
caused the lights of the room in which they were assembled to
be suddenly extinguished, and at the same moment a boy,
mounted on stilts, covered with a long sheet, and carrying in
his hand a vessel containing spirits of wine, in a flame, stalked
solemnly in. The ladies fled in dismay, and in the confusion
thus caused the pretended ghost was brushed against, and he
nearly fell. In staggering the vase was jerked from his hand,
and all its burning contents were cast in the face of M.
d'Azeglio, injuring him sadly.
ANCIENT PLAGIARISM.--The Athenceum tells us that, in a
treatise of Dottore Alessandro Forri, recently published at
Florence, mention is made of an old L. of Thomas .a Kempis's
book, De Imitativne Chriiti, discovered lately at Vercelli,
which, if the reports connected with it be true, will overthrow
the literary honours enjoyed so long by the Rhenish ecclesi-
astic ; it is said to bear the date of 1349, and to name a cer-
tain Joannes Gersenius, a Benedictine monk of Vercelli, as the
' author of the work. The claims of Thomas it Kempis, it is
well known, are founded on a MS., hitherto the oldest, which
bears his name and the date 1439. A MS. of 1349, therefore,
if the date be really correct, and not a clerical error, as seems
very possible, would be decisive as to the title of the Italian
pretender, who, it is said besides, had been named in connec-
tion with the book, as early as the end of the fourteenth cen-
tury. The matter, however, cannot be settled before a further
strict investigation has taken place, if then.
TUE NEW EXCISE DUTIES ACT.—The new act (18th and
19th of Victoria, chap. 94) has just been published to im-
pose increased rates of duty of Excise on spirits distilled in the
united kingdom; to allow malt, sugar, and molasses to be
used, duty free, in the distilling of spirits in lieu of allowances
and drawbacks, and to amend the law relating to the duties of
Excise. The act contains 37 sections. On and after the Ist Oct.
next the duties on spirits distilled will be—in Great Britain, Bs.
per gallon; and in Ireland, Os. 2d. The new duties are to be
under the management of the Commissioners of the Inland
Revenue. From the passing of the act (the 14th August
inst.) malt may be made and used free from duty in distilling
spirits. There are several provisions against frauds in respect
to the making and using of malt duty free. Eve*, person
other than a distiller making malt duty free is to give secu-
rity. Allowances are to be made to distillers on stock, or on
spirits in warehouse made before the Ist of October next. The
allowances are to be Bd. per gallon on spirits distilled from'
malt only, and on spirits distilled from any other material
than malt only an allowance of 2d. per gallon. On and after
the Ist of October the allowances in respect of malt and on
sugar used in distilling are to cease. The act received the
Royal assent on the day of the prorogation.

BARNU.I63 ELEPIIANT.—Lient.-Gov. Brown, of the New
England Farmer, having made some inquiries respecting the
diet of the elephant whose exploits in ploughing have been
mentioned in many of the American papers, the great show-
man replies in a way not likely to encourage the general in-
troduction of that kind of labour :—" He (the elephant) eats
on an average one bushel of oats and one hundred pounds per
day, Sundays and all. His weight is 4,700 pounds. He will
accomplish any kind of work set before him, and uses ten times
better Judgmenfthan three-fourths of the `help' which I am
obliged to employ on my farm. Above all things, he is not an
eye-servant. Once set him to work piling wood, picking up
stones, or anything else, and you can leave him without fear
of his playing old soldier' in your absence. Another capital
negative quality is, that he don't pick up his duds and start for
home exactly at six o'clock in the afternoon, as many other
farmers' 'assistants' do. He is willing to work to sundown,
and even later, if work is pressing. On the whole, he is a
very honourable, industrious, intelligent, and well-behaved
farmer. Nevertheless, I cannot conscientiously recommend
elephants as the cheapest workers on a farm. They cannot
work in cold weather, and, of course, would eat themselves up,
trunk and all, in a single winter."
LIBERTY OF RELIGIOUS WOBSRIP.—By the new act en-
titled "Au Act for securing the Liberty of Religious Wor-
ship," it is declared that the penalties incurred by the as-
sembling of more than twenty persons for religious worship
in an unregistered building, under the acts 1 Will. and Mary,
sess. 1, c. 18, and the 52 Geo. 111., or in the 15 and 16 Vict.,
c. 36, shall not apply to any congregation or assembly for re-
ligious worship held in any parish, or any ecclesiastical dis-
trict, and conducted by the incumbent; or, in case the in-
cumbent is not resident, by the curate of such parish or dis-
trict; or by any person authorised by them. The recited acts
are not to apply to any congregation or assembly for religious
worship meeting in a private dwelling-hsuse, or on the
premises belonging thereto, nor to any congregation or as-
sembly for religious worship meeting occasionally in any
building or buildings not usually appropriated to purposes of
religious worship; and no person permitting any such con-
gregation to meet in any place occupied by him shall be liable
to any penalty for so doing. The construction of certain parts
of the 2 and 3 Will. IV., c. 115, and the 9 and 10 Vict., c. 59,
as relate to places of worship of Romanists and Jews, is de-
fined. Such places are henceforth to be subject to the same
laws as Protestant Dissenters are subject to, and the laws
shall be respectively read as applicable .to the laws to which
Protestant Dissenters in England are subject for the time
being after the passing of this act. The act came into ope-
ration on receiving the royal assent on the 14th instant.
LIMITED LIABILITY.—With regard to the Limited Liability
Act, says The Times, the bearing of its main clauses appears
to be as follows :—Any company, excepting assurance com-
panies, formed under the Joint Stock Companies' Act of the
Bth of Victoria, chap. 110, may obtain a certificate of complete
registration with limited liability. The conditions are, that
the capital must be in shares not less than £lO each, that the
word " limited" shall be the last word in the name of the com-
pany, that the number of shareholders shall not be less than
twenty-five, holding at least three-fourths of the nominal capi-
tal, and that twenty per cent. of the capital shall be paid up.
Other companies, not framed under the Joint Stock Com-
panies' Act, may obtain limited liability, provided three-fourths
of the proprietary in number and value sanction the application,
but their affairs must be previously audited at their own ex-
pense by some person appointed by the Board of Trade, who
must certify the solvency of the concern, and that twenty per
cent. of the capital has been paid up. In no case is any sub-
sequent increase of nominal capital to be made by a company,
unless the consent of three-fourths of the proprietaryAall have
, certified. The word "limited" in the title is .tobe
.made
Dee.- "s on all occasions, under heavy penalties. Pir:ectora
conspicuy- - for the amount of every dividend they ,niay de-
are to he Habib -- is insolvent, except such of them as may
Clare when a compan, 4, it at the time. No note of any
have filed a protest again, -ment of shares, and no loan is
shareholder is to be held in pk: '-rt companies coming under
to be made to shareholders. Exists:.` -ions liabilities. Corn-
11e act are not to be protected from- pre.. e their capital being
1,„a,71es are 4-0 wind up, upon three-fenrthi to have one
or rendered unavnilable and each, eoW9
z'lditor 'Moved by the Board. of Trade. •