The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-12-26 00:00:00

the same time be a great convenience to the pablic. At
the risk of being charged with looking only to my own
itifeiest, T will take, for instance, the communication
betufeeff Lodge-lane and the West Derby-road, and for
which notice lu I,.teu given in Parliament. I think
no man, who will talce, the trouble of examining
the plans carefully.— and I Iteye our chairman
will do this will then venture' to assert that
such a direct communication between the parlous dis-
-1 of West Derby and Toxteth-park, now so' rich
*Alfa, read leading straight to the railway station as
Edge-bib, Wilk not be a vast convenience to the public.
I say nothing of the obvious advantage which the News-
ham House Estate will derive from it. If we are not
to contemplate such improvements from the dog in the
manger principle, that we shall benefit the owners of
the land through which the roads may pass, the evils we
are now suffering in the borough front narrow', tortuous,
AO inconvenient thoroughfares, will be perpetrated in
the real districts, evils which past experience tells us
will have td he removed at some future period at an
enormous additicinat expense to those who come after us.
In the meantime, the public may be deprived of direct
lines of communication of a highly advantageous
nature, and small patches of land intercepting such
lines may be purchased by jobbers and covered with
disreputable buildings. We have a case in point in
the line to which I have alluded, between Lodge-lane
and the West Derby-road. The whole of it may be said
to be vacant land, with the exception of one spot where
a cluster of small dwellings have been built within the
last six months, and which have raised the estimate for
the contemplated improvement upwards of £3,000 since
that which was made a few months ago and the one now
prepared to lay before Parliament. I maintain that the
formation of judicious roads through vacant land must
of necessity be of immediate' benefit to the public at
large. To the owners of the property through which
aey run they will be more or less so according to cir-
cumstances. To some the benefit will also be imme-
diate, to others more distant. All parties, therefore,
being interested in effecting the improvements I am
advocating, ought to bear a fair share of the cost in
carrying them oat.
The bill for which the necessary parliamentary
notices have been given will shortly be laid -before the
Town Council for its consideration. It is a step in the
right direction, embracing a few very desirable improve-
ments. I hope it will be proceeded with, and lead to
others of a more extensive character. Let the opening
of the new year be the signal for the improvement
committee entering upon the consideration of this most
important subject. No man is better acquainted with
the nature of the property in the borough and its neigh-
bourhood than Mr. Stewart. If he, in conjunction with
the surveyor and the borough engineer, would give a
few hours occasional attention to this matter, I am
confident that, with the knowledge of the subject
which they possess, they would have no difficulty
whatever in sketching out a plan for the guidance
of the Improvement Committee in their proceed-
ings, which would enable them to produce in the
course of the year a well-digested bill for town improve-
ments upon a scale commensurate with our wants,
which would in all probability give general satisfaction.
The state of the approaches to the river is a great dis-
credit to our public authorities, and cannot fail to be so
regarded by the multitude of strangers coming from all
quarters of the globe who enter the town from the Mersey.
An improvement in them so loudly called for can only be
effected by an amicable arrangement between the Town
Council and the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. I
cannot believe that this might not be accomplished if
these parties were resolved to enter into the discussion
of the subject in an honest, straightforward manner ;
but they seem to have a disinclination to pursue any such
course, each party appearing to have a dread of being
over-reached by the other. If this feeling exists, the
matter should be referred for decision to some impartial
tribunal. A short time ago I inserted in the papers a
letter suggesting the idea that, as a negotiation is on foot
for the sale of the reversionary interest in the Birken-
head docks to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board,
the circumstance might offer a favourable opportunity for
our coming to some agreement as to the improvement in
question. 'Whether this be practicable or otherwise, I
am not prepared to say.—l am, gentlemen, yours very
respectfully, WILLIAM EARLE. •
Liverpool, December, 1860.

MUSICAL, DRAMATIC, ;LITERARY, AND

ARTISTIC NEWS AND GOSSIP.

Mr. Bailey, curator of the Soane Museum, died on

;he 17th instant.

Dr. Ingleby has published " A Complete View' of the
Shakspere Controversy."
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean have been playing to
overflowing houses at Cork.
Messrs. Black, of Edinburgh, have in preparation an
unpublished work, by the late Hugh Miller. •
Mr. H. Leslie's new Cantata, the title of which is
"Ilolyrood," will be produced on the Ist of February.
The King's Scholars, the other day at the Royal
Academy, were Miss Zimmermann and Master Still.

Miss Elizabeth R. Henderson has been elected Pottet
Exhibitioner in the Royal Academy of Music.
A new opera, "L'Exile," composed by Muncbhcimer,
is to be brought out shortly at Hamburg.
The Bristol Mercury announces the death of Mr.
William West, artist, in his sixtieth year.

M. Levy, of Paris, announces "The Garibaldians,"
by Dumas pere, with a preface by Madame Dudevant
(Sand).
M. Berlioz is said, in the Gazette. Musicale, to be at
work on a one-act opera, on a subject taken from
Shakspere.
Cherubini's opera, "Les Deux Journees," has lately
been revived at Copenhagen with the greatest success.
The Messrs. Blackwood are about to publish "The
Campaign of Garibaldi in the Two Sicilies," by Captain
C. T. Forbes, R.N.

We hear of new operas by Signor Schira, Herr
Molique, Mr. Frank Mori, and half a dozen other
English aspirants.—Athenawm.
Mr. Alfred Bunn, the well-known ex-lessee of Drury
Lane, died suddenly at Boulogne, of apoplexy, ou
Thursday.
Halevy is now engaged upon an opera, in four acts,
" Vanina d'Ornauo ;" the libretto written by his
brother, Levy Halevy.
Madame Clauss-Szarvady, the most distinguished of
lady pianistes, has been performing in Cologne, Leipsic,
Hamburg, and Hanover.
Messrs. Chapman and Hall have published " Paul the
Pope and Paul the Friar ; a Story of an Interdict," by
Thomas Adolphus Trollope.

Dreyschock, the celebrated pianiste ; Reichardt, the
tenor; and Gleichauff, a
.pupil of Vieuxtcmps, are
amongst the most recent arrivals in Paris.
Her Majesty has lent to Mr. Gambart, in order that
it may be engraved by M. Auguste Blanchard. Mr. J.
Phillip's painting of "The Marriage of the Princess
Royal."
The author of " Scarsdale " is said to be engaged in
the preparation of another Lancashire novel, to be
entitled "The Weaver of Whalley Nab," which is to
be published in the autumn of 1861.
It is rumoured that Mr.
,Flatou is the gentleman who
has liven Mr. Frith, R.A., a ten-thousand-pound com-
mission. The picture contemplated by Mr. Frith is said
to be "Life at a Railway Station."
The
,manuscript department of the Library of the
British Museum has lately been enriched by the purchase
at a cost of 2,250 f. of the "Life of St. Benedict," and
other 'holy personages. It is by Sterclot, of the year
1430.

The following English physicians have been elected
Associates of ' the Societe Medico-Psychologique of
Paris :—Dr. John Conolly, D.C.L. of Ilanwell ' • Dr.
Forbes Winslow, D.C.L. of London ; and Dr. Bucknell,
of Devon.
Mr. Noble has received a commission from Govern-
ment to execute the national monument in memory of
the late Sir John Franklin, for which £2,000 has been
granted by Parliament. The monument will be placed
in Trafalgar-square.—Atherwerem.
At Berlin, it would seem that the repugnance of the
authorities to the performance 'of "La Traviata " has
been overcome, for we read in the continental papers 'of
the complete success of Mdlle. Marie Brunet, in the
character of Violetta.

An artist in Paris has found a means of rendering any
description of wood so soft that. it will receive an im-
pression either of the most varied sculpture or the most
delicate chasing. The wood is then hardened to the
consistency of metal, while the impressions remain
perfect.
A highly interesting work has just been published in
Paris: it is a translation of the libretti of Wagnee's four
operas, "The Phantom Ship," "Tannhauser," " Lohen-
grin," "Tristan and Iseult," preceded by a letter on
musical art, of upwards of sixty pages, by Richard
Wagner himself.
On Monday evening last Mr. Mudie opened a new
ball, erected in the rear of his library, in the angle
between Museum-street and Oxford-street, London. A
company of authors, artists, naturalists, and publishers
gathered on the occasion, including nearly all the best.
names in literature and the trade.
At the sale of Hullah's library, on Thursday and
Friday, at St. Martin's-hall, several old Italiar editions
of rare musical works were sold at high prices. A
kindly feeling of sympathy for Mr. Hullah, among pro-:
fessionals present, allowed some lots to be bought at
very Moderate prices, on behalf of that gentleman.
Arnold's edition of Handers works, which fetched some
few years ago .E5O, were knocked down to Mr. Ella for
only 'X9. Upwards of 300 volumes of literary and
musical works were also purchased by this professor,
including Purcell's and Mareello's sacred compositions,
full scores of "Guillaume Tell" and " Les Huguenots,"
and an autograph composition by Rossini.
The concert season in Paris appears to be setting in
unusually early, and with " unusual severity." !'he
programme of M. Wckerlin's entertainment announces
a new sea Cantata on a grand scale,'--such fact being a
drop, greater or less, which swells a stream. If concerts
are to live as entertainments they must get rid of shred
and patchwork as much as possible,—more still, of the
pretence of presenting opera music in a transformed, or
at best, weakened state. Meanwhile, in London, con-
cert-givers (with the exception of the "popular," and
deservedly popular, managers of St. James's Hall) have
been, till now, rather more inert than usual. One con-
cert, however, that of Madame de Vaucheran, may be
mentioned as having taken place.

A new issue of bronze coin to the amount of 1,500,00 f.,
is about to take place in France.
"The estate of Billy," says the Journal de Saone-et-
Loire, " one of the most extensive wine producing pro
perties in France, has just be sold by M. de Lamartine."
The Archbishop of Friburg, in Baden, has, at the
request of the Government, interdicted the clergy from
making collections in private houses of St. Peter's Peue.