The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-13 00:00:00

LOCAL SHARE MARKETS.

LIVERPOOL. JUNE 11.—The share market has been again
very dull and depressed, without change on the closing
prices of yesterday. The approaching settlement of the
account on Tuesday neat has been exercising an unfavour-
able influence upon the market. Quotations were as
follows : Blackburn, 7—Caledonian, 33 k—Eastern
Counties, 121—Lancashire and Yorkshire, 77 61 1 1 7 1—
London and North Western, 11411—Manchester, Shef-
field, and Liacoln, 291 I—Midland. 71 1 1 1 —North
British, 81 South Eastern and Dover, 201}1 201—
York and North Midland, 291—Dutch Rhenish, 1 9-16 1 d.
BIIIIIINOIIAM, JUNE 11.— f his market was heavy to-
day, and, except in local stocks, there were very few trans-
actions. Old Birmingham Canals were done at 1041.
MAticitsirran, JUNE 11.—Piices rather lower at the
opening, but recovered a little afterwards. Eastern Coun-
ties, 121—East Lancashire, 171—Lancashire and Yorkshire,
77, 61, 7—Lmdon and North Western, 1141—Manchester,
Sheffield, and Lincolnshire, 291—Midland Railway Consols,
701, —North British, 81—South Eastern and Dover, 201,
15-16.
LEEDS, JUNE 11.—Again the market for railway shares
has been flat to-day, and prices show a further decline.
The following are the closing transactions :—Lancashire and
Yorkshires, 77—Leeds Northerns, 151—Midlande, 71—
North Westerns, 81—York and North Midlands, 29.
DUBLIN, JUNE 11.—Mining Company of Ireland, 161,
I—Cork, 131ackrock, and Plumage, 19—Dublin and Wick.
Bj—Great Southern and Western, 551.

GENIM IN DOLL-MAKING.—The triumph of genius
in doll-making is to prooduce a doll which will speak. Few
are such examples, and necessarily somewhat costly. Thir is
mechanism, true mechanism ; and the doll rises to the dig-
nity of an automaton. What was the mechanical pigeon
of Archytas, and the clock of Charlemagne, and the
speaking head by Roger Bacon, and the fly of Regiomon-
tanus ; what was the automaton made by Albertue Magnus,
which opened its door when any one knocked ? were they not
all dolls, pleasant and curious, but not useful ? Then there
were the little actors who represented a pantomine in five
acts ; and M. Canines wonderful production of the coach and
horses and lady and page ; and Vaucanson's flute-player and
flageolet player; and Malzel's trumpet-player; and M. Droz's
artist; and Vaucanson's duck, which—if Dr. Hutton's ac-
count of it can be believed—not only dabbled in the water,
swam, drank, quacked, moved its wings, dressed its feathers
with its bill, extended its neck, took barley, swallowed it,
and exhibited the natural motion of the throat, but actually
digested the food by means of materials having the requisite
solvent properties. We do not say that our speaking-dolls
equal these marvels, but we do say that they are—Just as
useful. A doll that can say " papa" and " mamma" is a
veritable automaton, and requires the same kind of study
as that which produced the more noted examples, though of
course less in degree. Speaking-dolls are made only in very
mall number, and we believe by only one person: such a
Poll would be worth picking to pieces.—Dicketies . House-
led Words. _ .

PUNCII-BOWLS AND POETS.—Bowls were in vogue
when, in the middle of the last century, Hogarth drew his
great punch-picture of " Midnight Modern Conversation."
Still earlier were they in fashion, when (1701) a poet of
King William the Third's reign perpetrates in print the
following bad verses on a punch-bowl :
" Capacious goblet! stored with all delight,
Sweet to the taste, and pleasing to the sight;
Where nutmegs, lemons, and the jolly toast,
Scattered like wrecks o' th' merry ocean float."
The last note that Otway is said to have composed was
" a song in praise of punch ;" but it unfortunately has not
reached us. Johnson, in his youth, loved a bowl of
bishop —" a mixture," he tells us in his Dictionary, "of
wine, oranges, and sugar." Barns delighted in whiskey
punch; and his bowl has cost its present generous pos-
sessor many hundreds of pounds to keep it filled for
his own friends and the poet's numerous admirers. We
have drank from it often, and hope to do so, while it is still
in Mr. Rastie's hands, on other and still greater occasions.
Campbell loved to recite poetry over the silver punch-bowl
presented to him by the Glasgow students, and we have seen
the poet who wrote "Ye Mariners of England," sitting
" like a prophet in drink" over the grateful steam derived
from his favourite beverage. What sort of duty is per-
formed by the bowl at present is unknown to us. The last
time we saw the Ettrick Shepherd's silver punch-bowl, it
was filled with strawbmiss and cream. I3ut, when this
occurred, death, as Wordsworth expresses, had closed the
shepherd-poet's eyes. It was never filled with so mild
mixture in the poet's lifetime. To what base uses may even
punch-bowls come at last.—Dicken's "Household Words."
RAILWAYS AND STEAM IN AI:STRALIA.—A Syd-
ney paper says: " Railways in Australia offer a fair and
profitable field for the employment of money ; and even our
coasting communications present a very respectable opening.
Already the presence of large and commodious steam-
vessels, such as the Great Britain, the Sarah Sands, the
Chino, the Formosa, the Cleopatra, and the Australian,
have made us discontented with the little coasting steamers
which have plied for a twelvemonth between Sydney and
Melbourne, and which a twelvemonth ago were looked upon
as a wonderful improvement upon the schooners and sloops
which laxity crept through the Straits when there was no gold
to carts, to and fro. We must have large steamers now; we
have tasted the luxuries in which our European brethren
revel when they go to sea. and we are determined to be
not far behind them. The daily increasing trade between
the sister settlements renders speedy and rapid and com-
fortable means of transit a sine gun non; and the enor-
mous orate which have been reaped by our steam compa-
nies afford excellent data on which to found calculations tee
the future. If the profits attaching to railway enterpise
are less certain, endless distinctly predicable, it is only be-
cause we have as yet no local experience whatever of what
railway communication would do for the country. But, rea-
soning from analogy, we may safely assume thtst the results
would far exceed the molt sanguine eniloote.tiont."—.4as•
(ralian and New Zealand Gazelie.

gilt eripvtoo.