The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-12-26 00:00:00

I reference may be made:—
of St. Albans.

from Berlin,

has this day extracted
relieved the incur-
I have
ST. ALBANS.

any pain

From the Rev. Dr. Aspinall, Assistant Minister of St. James's

Church, Tosteth.park.
I have very great pleasure in stating that Mr. Simms has re-
moved from my left foot, a very troublesome corn of long
standing, without causing me the slightest pain ; nor could I have
believed, without proof, that the operation could have been so
skillfully performed. GEORGE ASPINALL, Phil. Dr., A.M.

From T. Austin. Esq., surgeon-dentist, 51, Rodney-street.
Mr. Simms has extracted a corn, without pain, and in a very short
time.—July 28, 1856.

rrom yr, t. n. 7 ucaer, Rodney-street.
Mr. Simms extracted several corns for me, without giving t
lightest pain.--July 28,1856.

Liverpoo

1 feet with great skill,'an

Liverpoo

THE]
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OFFICF., 19, SOUTH JOHN-STREET,

LIVERPOOL

AMUSEMENTS, PUBLIC MEETINGS, &c

THIS DAY

Theatre Royal—Pleasant Neighbours, and Pantomime—

seven p.m.
Boni Amphitheatre—Equestrian Company—half-past six
St. George's Hall—Jullien's Concert—eight p.m.
Queen's Hall—Hoffman's Organophonic Band—eight p.m.
Clayton Hall—Miss Julia St. George—eight p m.
Allsop's New Crystal Palace—Lime-street—ten a.m. to
ten p m.

Freemason's Hall—Gallery of Anatomy—eleven a.m. to

ten p.m.
Royal Colosseum—General Entertainment—half•past six.
Liverpool Academy's Exhibition—ten a.m. to ten p.m.

*** For particulars see advertisements in first page.

at !Mantra (TIMM

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1856

THE DAY'S NEWS

The local incidents of the day are neither numer-
ous nor important. A few hours before the Christ-
mas festival was ushered in, a thunder storm of a
severe and unusual character burst over the town.
Shortly before eight o'clock on Wednesday
night, vivid lightning flashed in every quarter of
the town. This was succeeded by peal after peal
of heaven's artillery. The old and the timid became
alarmed, as the repeated thunder claps caused
everything around to tremble. The circumstance
was much commented upon by many of the oldest
inhabitants. A thunder storm in the dead of
winter, and in the midst of a heavy snow shower,
and all this on Christmas eve, was regarded as a
somewhat remarkable phenomenon; and they,
whom the immortal Burns once satiracally termed
the "unto gude," were disposed to ejaculate pious
appeals to the Deity for pardon for the past and a
happy hereafter, conceiving, as many of them in-
stantly did, that the day of final retribution was at
hand. The lightning left its mark behind. Fortu-
nately no lives are, as yet, reported to be lost, but
many persons are said to have met narrow escapes.
A young man, connected with one of the print-
ing offices in town, was thrown down on the Land-
ing stage, and was insensible for some time after.
He still complains of great soreness in the right
side. A respectable lady was in St. John's market
at the time, and in the act of purchasing a goose,
when the lightning passed down the back of her
hand, but without touching it, and then set the
goose in a kind of blue flame, to the consternatihn
of all around. Of course the goose was not pur-
e 'lased, but the lady in question was so much
alarmed that she has not yet recovered from the shock
sustained. The lightning appears to have made
an effectual attack on the ship Lillias, coal-laden
to Savannah. The destructive element struck her
and entered the cabin, which soon became a sheet
of flame. Through the exertions of Mr. Hewitt,
his assistants, and the dock gatemen, on duty at the
Stanley Dock, where the ship was lying, the fire was
subdued, not however, without doing considerable
damage to the ship and the raiment of the Captain
and his first officer. The weather continues to
manifest a very wintry appearance. Frost and snow
are on the ground, and present appearances
would seem to warrant the expectation that
eighteen hundred and fifty-six will take his depar-
ture on the thirty first instant, bequeathing to his
successor a mantle of ic 3 and a snowy carpet.
That great day—Christmas—has again come, and
p tss2d away. It did not do so without thinning
the ranks of the community by the death of a
gentleman whom rogues and felons knew and
fo u-ed, not for the inhumanity of his nature, but
the firmness with whichhe enforced bridewell disci-
pline. Mr. Parkinson, of the main Bridewell, died
yesterday morning. He has been in the service
of the Corporation of Liverpool for thirty years. He
was a gentleman much respected by all who knew
him, and even criminals were forced to bear testi•
mony to his courteous and gentlemanly bearing,

the total absence of anything unfeeling in his
nature, and a desire to oblige and satisfy all as far as
stern dictates of his official duties permitted. From
what we can learn, this annual and national holi-
day passed off satisfactorily. We believe that the
police sheet this morning will present a rather
numerous array of charges of" drunken incapables,"
and " drunken disorderlies." This is only a com-
mon occurrence, but it is one which all true phil-
anthropists deplore, and for which they, as well as
statesmen and senators are as yet unable to find a
remedy.

The question of what shall we do with our
Convict population is becoming one of universal

discussion. The failure of the- " Ticket-of-Leave
system forms the prominent topic of Judges'
charges and of newspaper leaders ; and, although
there are a few newspaper writers to defend the
scheme, yet, taken as a whole, it is all but
universally condemned. Among the latest im-
portant remarks upon the question, are the letters
of Mr. Moncton Milnes, M.P , and Mr. Justice
Willes. The learned judge had before made some
obs

rvations on the subject, but a few days ago,
when sentencing two ticket of leave men for bur-
glary, at the Warwick assizes, ho was most em-
phatic in his denunciation of the entire scheme.
After alluding to the Act of Parliament authorising
" penal servitude" instead of " transportation," and
stating that he could not see any difference in the
treatment to be pursued to both classes, concluded
by saying :—" If government intended to be mer
ciful to you, I should have thought they would
have transferred you to prisons in which you
might have been instructed in a. trade, and been
enabled to get your livelihood afterwards. You
having been convicted so many times, I see no
reason why you should have been set at large, nor
any hope that, when set at large, you could gain
employment and abstain from doing wrong. I
think it is a great hardship upon men who have
lost their character by being sentenced to penal
servitude to let them loose in a country where
persons will not employ them. I cannot under-
stand why, either for tho sake of the public or
the sake of youtselves, you, having been sen-
tenced to four years' penal servitude in January,
1855, you should be let out to commit fresh
depredations in the same town as before, in
August, 1856. Those who did that act may
justify to themselves the proceeding, but for my
part I cannot justify it, nor can I follow the ex-
ample set by those persons, for facts have proved
the proceedings to be fallacious and injurious
to criminals and to the public. You two young
fellows are well able to earn an honest livelihood
and I heartily wish that you could. I hope, for
the sake of the convicts themselves, that we may
return to a system which sends them out to a
colony where labour is in great demand, and where
they may (as many transports have done) regain
good characters and become useful members of
society. In order to give you a chance of being
sent to such a place, in the event of the former,
system being renewed—as many persons, together
with myself, fervently hope it will be—l will sen-
tence you to be transported for 20 years."

On Wednesday, we gave a brief report of the
triple execution at Winchester. The detailed
reports of this legal tragedy which have since
reached us, are really too barbarous and too shock-
ing for the mind to dwell upon. The idea of keep-
ing three unfortunate wretches standing on the
scaffold for nearly fifteen minutes with the rope
around their necks, is monstrous in the extreme,
,and manifests a total want of consideration upon
the part of those on whom the arrangements for
the execution devolved. We never heard of such
refined cruelty. The advocates of " capital
punishment' urge, that hanging by the neck,
from its instant deprivation of life, is desirable,
but can they vindicat3 the bungling of Cal-
craft, albeit the " improved principle " of
pinioning was adopted, or the culpable negligence
of the prison authorities in so constructing the
gibbet and arranging the ropes, as to cause one
quarter of an hour to pass before the fatal bolt was
drawn. Indeed, the more we see and know of

" capital punishments," the more are we convinced
that they are not in unison with the spirit of the
age, and, moreover, quite insufficient for the objects
and purposes intended.

The Weekly meeting of the West Derby Guardians
was held on Wednesday, when the Board agreed to
reprimand Mr. Fitzpatrick for his negligence in not
attending one of the pauper patients. It will be per-
ceived from the report of the proceedings in another
column that Mr. Fitzpatrick rather lost his temper,
and for a time seemed, by his observations to the
board,to give greater cause of offence than the words
appended to his report, which originally called for
the interference of the board. The proceedings of
the Dock and Health Committees held this week on
Wednesday do not call for special remark.
There is not much foreign intelligence of moment
this morning. According to our Berlin advices,
the Prussian Government has issued orders to all
military officials to hold themselves ready for a
mobilisation, the definite order for which they may
expect to receive immediately after the commence
ment of the new year. Within a fortnight after the
publication of the definite order the troops must all
be on the march. Each of the eight provinces is to
contribute a division with its full contingent of
landwehr, 16,000 strong; making, together with a
division of the guards, a total of 144,000 men to
be sent to the south as a demonstration against
Switzerland. It is said that this projected
war with Switzerland is anything but popular
with the Russians, inasmuch as they have no
animosity against the Swiss, nor will it be easy
to excite any. The following telegraphic despatch
has reached us from Berlin via Paris :—All the
preparations which have been made here up to
this time have for their end to provide for the
march of 135,000 men on the 2nd of January.
The Prussian troops will be formed in nine divi-
sions, one of which will be furnished by each corps
d' armee. The divisions are to be composed of four
corps, supported by a division of reserve. Count
Groben is appointed Commander in Chief ; the
commanders of the corps are Generals Weller,
Wussow, Bonin, and Schack. The Prince of
Hohenzollern will command the division of reserve.
The division of the guards of the Ist corps is to be
under the orders of Prince Frederick Charles of
Prussia.

With regard to Switzerland we are informed that
the Federal Council, in an extraordinary council,
held on the 21st inst., decided on calling out
immediately the staffs of four new divisions : the
second, commander-in-chief F. Veillon ; the fourth,
commander-in-chief Kutz ; the sixth, commander.
in chief Egloff , the eighth, commander in chief
Zirumeoli. Each staff is immediately to repair to
its own head quarters, and there await the orders
that may subsequently be issued. It is also said
that the greatest emulation prevails among all the
cantons iu the exertions which they make to
comply with the requirements of the circular
issued by the federal government with regard to the
completion of the equipments and numbers of the
troops. The government of Argovia has granted a
extraordinary credit to the board of military admi-
nistration. The canton of Berne has allowed
180,000 francs for the purchase of greatcoats for
the soldiers. The federal board of military admi-
nistration made some weeks ago a contrast with an
Alsatian house for the delivery of 20,000 rations of
bread. It is evident that Switzerland will not be
caught unprovided. Respecting the approaching
Conferences at Paris, the last information we have
received from that city informs us that the sub-
stance of the instructions received by the Turkish
Ambassador as regards the Conferences is that
Bolgrad and the Isle of Serpents shall be given up by
Russia. Full and complete fulfilment of the treaty of
Paris for the organisation of the Danubian Princi-
palities. To settle as soon as possible the Turco-
Russian frentiar line in Asia, when the season of
the year will permit it. The great Powers are
begged to take into serious consideration the state
of Turkey, which desires to develope its resources,
to become a strong Power, and to be no longer a
source of anxiety to the West. Its rivalries
of influence, and the lamentable misunder-
standing on the Treaty of Paris have prevented
it from occupying itself with the great com-
mercial and financial measures which its wants
require. The Sardinian Plenipotentiary has re-
ceived instructions. The day for the opening of the
Conferences ha-, not yet been fixed. The French

and English Governments are perfeetly agreed on
the points tinder discussion. The Conferences
will only be occupied with the questions of Bol-
grad and of the Isle of Serpents. It is hoped that
the Neufchatel question will be amicably settled.
The Bank of France will discount bills at 75 days'
sight.