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

pleasure will be perpetually interfering with another
man's devotion. And here, we would remark, that
this plea of necessity needs to be very carefully scruti-
nised. We are told that tea is a necessary, though
we know that millions are alive whOse grandfathers
never saw it. The fact is, that what men have had
for a certain period is straightway counted a necesSary
for all time coming. The Sunday excursion-train; the
Sunday delivery of letters, and hundreds of other
things which could be mentioned, are necessaries for,
no better reason. London has never had a Sunday
delivery, and, consequently, has never discovered its
necessity ; but we will venture to say that there is no
obscure country town, consisting of -a high street and
a couple of back slums, but would consider itself irre-
trievably injured if it were deprived of this privilege,
even though it had only enjoyed it for a couple of
months. Let working men have their hours of toil
shortened ; let their homes be made more com-
fortable and decent ; let them have more churches,
free to all, and clergy who will. spend
.and be spent
among them ; let them have Sunday at their own dis-
posal, and sufficient inducements to spend it reli-
giously ; and in time, with God's blessing, we shall
see good results, which not all the organs•in Christen-
dom will ever produce. This plan may cost more in
the first instance, but less, we verily believe, in the long
run ; while it will redound to the glory of God, when
the other never will, nor can do.

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

MONDAY MORNING.

THE Court continues to reside at Windsor, and, maugre
the snobbish surliness of King SMITH of Drury, our beloved
Sovereign found no difficulty in having a highly interesting
display of Court theatricals on Thursday night. The pieces
selected for the occasion were Mr. C. DANCE'S Comic Drama,
"A Wonderful Woman," and Mr. OXENFORD'S farce of "Only
a Halfpenny." The cast was a strong one in both pieces, and
the performances such as to grace the Royal halls. Public
opinion is freely expressed, in theatrical as well as other
circles, condemnatory of the tyranny which prevented three
deserving public favourites from conducing, by the exercise of
their talents, to the gratification of HER MAJESTY; and from
deriving such high honour as is implied in performing before
the QUEEN andler august family, together with their illus-
triOns and distinguished guests. In regard to CIIALLES
MATHEWS, in particular, sympathy is widely felt and
pointedly expressed; and most people venture to predict that
Mr. Manager SMITH will neither reap laurels by his contu-
macy, nor add greatly to the resources of his exchequer by the
boorish obstinacy which he has exhibited on the occasion.
Within the last few days the Royal circle at the Castle has
been augmented by the arrival of a Belgian Prince, who comes
to pass a fortnight on a visit to HER MAJESTY. This " illus-
trious stranger" is PHILIPPE, Count of Flanders, second son
of LEOPOLD, King of the Belgians, a youth now in his nine-
teenth year, having been born on the 24th of March, 1837.
The young Count is healthy and well grown, and much given
to athletic sports. Those venerable ladies, who in humble
life have been represented by the mythical impersonation of
Mrs. HARRIS, or her equally mysterious congener Mrs.
GAMP, but who have never in the highest circles received a
very pOpular idealized representative, yet who are neverthe-
less equally busy in high and low spheres of action, their pe-
culiar vocation being to "give out conjectural marriages,"
will have it, that while the visit is ostensibly to the
heads of the Royal house, it is in reality meant for one of the
juvenile branches. In other words, these profound seers in
the mysteries of connubial engagements will have it, that as.
the Prince Royal of PsussrA has been on a visit to Windsor
Castle, as rumour would have it, paying his addresses to the
PRINCESS ROYAL, so this new visitor must needs be on a
similar errand to her Royal sister, and the PRINCESS ALICE is,
among these worthies, set down as the affianced bride of the
COUNT of FLANDERS. Consequent on tliis sage conjecture,
the clubs are busy in canvassing the probabilities of his attain-
ing the' Belgian crown. The DtrxE of BRABANT, his elder
brother, say these curious inquirers, is of a more delicate con-
stitution and less robust frame than the COUNT. From these
premises the deduction is easy and obvious, to them at all
events, that the eider brother may die early and childless, and
then, of course, the ascent to the throne is unimpeded to the
handsome participant of the Royal romps and balls at Wind-
sor. True, there is a slight impediment in the way of a matri-
monial alliance with a daughter of the Royal House of Great
Britain. He is a Roman Catholic. Parties, however, who
are startled at a straw, often make no difficulty in stepping
over a bundle; and those who can see nothing but visions of
bride-cake and wedding-rings in the accidental and. ordinary
civilities of life, if exchanged between young persons of oppo-
site sexes, see no obstacle in difference of creed, and have an
easy mode of merging objections of magnitude. They have set
their minds upon match-making, and who shall say them
nay?

The dealers in court gossip find another rich treasure in the
invitation given to COUNT COLLORADO, the Austrian minister,
who arrived at the Castle on Wednesday afternoon. This is
construed into an expression of approval of the decided atti-
tude (?) taken by Austria in reference to the alleged pending
peace negociations. This source of satisfaction is almost en-
tirely confined to the retailers of court gossip and the small
knot of quid nuncs, who can see no practical virtue in any-
thing but the intricacies of diplomacy. To all other eyes the
prospect of peace, in the present juncture of affairs, assumes
more and more perceptibly the aspect of
Some fleeting good that mocks us with the view ;
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, but as we follow flies.
The proposals of Austria, if they are fairly represented by the
Independence Belge, are of a kind which can never be
brought into practical operation ; they are, if that representa-:
tion be correct, evidently drawn up with the intention of being
negotiated, talked about, explained—anything but acted on.
Nearly every point put forward in them is carefully con-
structed with the apparent view of bearing two or three con-
flicting interpretations. Impartial judges say that if they had
been contrived with a view to initiate interminable negotia-
tions, and so to enable Austria to avoid taking part with
either of the contending parties, they could not have been
more skilfully concocted ; others, with less charity, and fewer
scruples, broadly aver that such has been the only purpose
held steadfastly in view while the cooking of the proposals
has been going forward. The parties latterly alluded to
stoutly declare that the pretended ultimatum of the " brave
and resolute young Emperor" is of a piece with the Hapsburg
jugglery of 1854.
The dreary and monotonous speculations about peace pro-
posals, which are no peace prospects, and the interminable
repetition of the assurance that there is no news which for the
last week or two has met every one in every place, has
received a slight variation in the publication of a pamphlet by
Mr. COBDEN, the Russian M.P. for the West Riding of York-
shire. The pamphlet, like most of the proceedings of that
wise legislator, is remarkable on several accounts, not the
least singular of which is its entire failure to create a sensa-
tion. For a day or two after its publication people of an in-
quisitive turn of mind, with no business to do, and no aptitude
or inclination for business if they had it, made langUid
inquiries as to what the pamphlet meant ; but, being assured
of its incomprehensibility and inconclusiveness,they abandoned
the attempt to become acquainted with its contents without
the trouble of reading it, and, with these efforts to
acquire a surreptitious knowledge of its what-abouts,
the pointless riddle fell dead from the press. The booksellers
stood cautiously aloof from connexion with it, and but for the
constrained attention of the morning journals the Russianized
manifesto would not have received publicity anywhere beyond
the dominions of the CZAR. The document is, as already said,
a singular one, abounding in muddled and irrelevant statistics,
monstrous averments, and inconsequential deductions. The
title of the brochure is " What Next, and Next ?" and under
this title the ally and admirer of Russian policy proceeds to
discuss the progress of the war, and endeavours to show suo
more the probabilities of its continuance. In reference to
these latter he holds out a very dolorous prospect, for he tells
us that "the war entered into by France and England must
be carried on without intermission until peace is concluded
with Turkey." Yet a little further on he admits his bewil-
dered readers into one of his secrets : France and England, he
tells*us, cannot compel Russia to make peace with Turkey !
So, according to the West Riding oracle, the allies are con-
demned to the Sisyphian labour of carrying on war with
Russia without intermission until peace is concluded with
Turkey, which in the same breath he tells us cannot be con-
cluded. A prospect this sufficiently uncheering, it must be
admitted. The non-sequitors of Mr. COBDEN, however, are
most comfortingly numerous. An important foundation for
his argument consists in the assumed fact that the CZAR
Cannot be compelled to any terms, unless his metropolis be
occupied and his ports blockaded ; yet this cannot be done,
because "the example and fate of NAPOLEON for ever forbid
an invasion of the interior of Russia," and" Petersburg stands
twenty miles above Cronstadt on a shallow river." A little
further on he demolishes any chance of benefit from this
daring attempt, which he represents as impossible, and, after
his own fashion, proves to be useless; for he tells us the pro-
tectionist policy of Russia renders her independent of seaborne
commerce, so the blockade would be ineffectual, while the " fate
and example of NAPOLEON for ever forbid the invasion" of the
capital. Mr. COBDEN has long been notorious for the possession