The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-12-22 00:00:00

WEST DERBY BOARD OF GU.ARDIANS.

This board held its usual weekly meeting yesterday, at the
union house. Mr. J. HARRISON in the chair:
The following guardians were also present, Messrs. Alpass,
Heyes, Lunt, Taylor, Abraham, Mountfield, Browne, Moly-
neux, Miller, G. Harrison, Smith, Tattersall, Carter,
Medcalfe, Kirkus, Pilkington, Jefferies, Shaw, and Birch.
By the accounts it appeared there was £1256 17s. 6d. in
the funds of the treasurer, and charges to the amount of £lBO
were granted for out-door relief.
The governor reported that there were 679 paupers inthe house,
and that there were 723 in the house for the corresponding week
of last year. It was ordered that the sum of £350 should be
paid to the contractor for the erection of the new board-room, in
addition to £BOO already paid. Mr. and Mrs. Reed, the school-
master and schoolmistress of the union, sent in their resigna-
tion, which, on the motion of Mr. Alpass, was accepted, and .
the clerk was directed to prepare an advertisement for each of
the Liverpool papers, the London Times, and the justice of
the peace. It was the desire of the board that the persons
appointed should be single; the salary Of the master to be £6O
per annum, and the mistress £3O, with hoard and lodging in the
house.

Mr.. Woons, surgeon, was appointed one of the district
vaccinators.

As a member of the hospital committee, Mr. ALPAss direc-
ted the attention of the board to the little progress which was
being made in laying out the gardens, which he said was en-
tirely to be attributed to the incapacity and inability of a ser-
vant named Downes.

Mr. SHAW confirmed Mr. Alpass's assertion ; and after a
brief but warm conversation, in the course of which,

Mr. TAYLOR accused Mr. Shaw of having a spite against
the man, which was denied.
The hospital committee were directed to investigate the mat-
ter, and report thereon at the next meeting.
The tender of Mrs. Bewsher for the erection of an organ in
the chapel, at a cost of £6O, with 48 for an additional stop,
was accepted.
The governor of the houso was directed to prepare a report
of the age, character, &c., of the female paupers while in the
house, with a view of having some of the worst provided for
out of the house.

The following letter was handed in by the vice-chairman,
!‘ Having some suspicion, that the corpse of my late husband is
not buried, I am determined to see the corpse. • If I should
not receive the permission from you to see him I shall give it
into the hands of an attorney who shall force by all means.—W.
AUBERG."

The woman wanted the corpse-for the purpose, as she stated,
of selling it for £lOO, as she was short of money. The corps©
had been buried for weeks.

RAILWAYS r'N MIDDLESEX.—From a return to parlia-
ment, just issued, it appears that the length of railways
in Middlesex is 82 miles, 4 furlongs, and 115 yards ; and
the land occupied
.___ by railways is 'l,l furlong, and
29

DR: CHURCH'S BREECH-LOADING CANNON.—A final trial
was made on Friday of two cannons that have been pre-
pared to be sent to Woolwich. They were fired 50 times
with heavy charges of powder and ball with perfect success.
N
o.defect in any respect could be pointed out by the best
judges. Upon this plan heavy ship guns can be loaded and
fired, and brought into position, by two men five times in a
minute, and a field-piece eight times in a minute. The gun
heats very little.—Birmingham Journal.
PEARLS AND PEARL-MAKING IN CHlNA.—Thcpractice of
the art is confined to two coterminous villages, near the
district city of Tehtsing, in the northern part of Chihkiang,
in a silk producing region. In the month of May or June,
lar.:e quantities of the mussel (.111-iitilms cygnus) are brought
in baskets from the Tabu, a lake in Kiangsu about thirty
miles distant, the largest amongst the full-grown being
specially selected. A. their health suffers on the journey,
they are allowed a few days respite in bamboo oagov in
water, before being tortured for the gratification of human
vanity, when they are taken out to receive the matrices.
These are various in form and material, the most common
being pellets made of mud, taken from the bottom of water-
courses, dried, powdered with the juice of camphor-tree
seeds, and formed into pills, which, when dry, arc fit for
introduction into 'the unfortunate subject ; moulds which
best exhibit the nacreous deposit are: brought from
Canton, and appear to be made from the shell of
the pearl oyster ; the irregular fragments thus procured
are triturated with sand in an iron mortar, until
they become smooth and globular. Another class of
moulds consist of small images, generally of Buddha, in the
canal c;tt;ng posttire ; or sometimes of fish ; they are made
of lead, east very thin, by pouring on a board having the im-
pression. Pearls having these forms haro 4.eited much
surprise, since they first attracted the attention of foreigners
a few years back. The introduction of the pearl nuclei is
an operation of considerable delicacy. The shell is gently
opened with spatula of mother-o'pearl, and the free portion
of the mollusc is carefully separated from one surface of the
shell with an iron probe ; the foreign bodies are then suc-
cessfully introduced at the point of a bifurcated bamboo
stick, and placed in two parallel rows upon the mantle or
fleshy surface of the animal ; a sufficient number having been
placed on one side, the operation is repeated on the other;
stimulated by the irritatinc, bodies, the suffering animal
spasmodically presses against both sides of its testaceous
skeleton keeping the matrices in place. This being done
the mussels are deposited one by one in canals, or streams,
or pools connected therewith, five or six inches apart, at
depths of from two to five feet, in lots of from 5 to 50,000,"
—Correspondent of the Journal of the Society of