The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-01-31 00:00:00

kenhead Docks have been selected, and have
become the scene of all those movements which
have heaped debt upon debt on the dock estate
of Liverpool. Parliamentary and legal expenses,
interminable alterations and excavations, acquiring
lands and borrowing money, are all as rife on the
Cheshire side of the Mersey, at this moment, as
they were on the north shore in. 1854. But is
is to be hoped that the extraordinary ability and
legal ingenuity displayed in wording the pre-
amble of this young Birkenhead monster will not
prove too much for the discernment of the Com-
mittee of the House of Commons. Should Sir
WILLIAM CLAY happen to be the chairman of
the Committee which will be asked to consider
the merits of this measure, we can form a very
correct idea of what its doom will be. He
treated the Dock Committee very cavalierly last
session, and he may prove somewhat more dog-
matical when he finds that he has to answer the
same gentlemen, and on the very same subject,
this year. Still the Dock Ratepayers must not
lose sight cf this very memorable Bill, as it
savours very strongly of a dark job, which we
may designate Birkenhead Dock job No. 2.

THE STEAMSHIP Grussr BRITAIN. —A few days ago we
alluded to the fact. of this splendid vessel having left the
graving dock, and commencing to take in coals and stores.
Yesterday we had an opportunity of witnessing the trial of
lifting her new screw, and were astonished at the celerity
with which the operation was performed. Much as we
admired the ease and rapi &ity with which this was exe-
cuted on the Royal Charter, we are bound to declare that
yesterday's proceedings convinced us that as regards
the Great Britain an important improvement
has been effected in this particular respect.
The machinery has been put in motion for the
last day or two, and works with the most admirable pre-
cision. Of its strength and durability we have already
spoken favourably, and at length ; and the more we
examine this portion of the noble vessel, the more are
we struck with its durability and perfect adaptation in
every part. The grand saloon, the ladies' after cabin,
the library, and the state sleeping apartments are
all but completed in their fittings and arrangement..
In this department of this splendid vessel, maser minds
have heen at work, so that nothing shall be wanting to
render her a model for any other vessel—steam or sailing,
which will leave this country for the Australian colonies.
No ore who paces her extensive promenade on deck, walks
through her superb saloon, and glances at the first class cabin
sleeping berths, but must be perfectly satisfied that
neither pains nor expense have been spared to make the
Great Britain the ne plus ultra of an emigrant ship. The
second class cabin and steerage berths are also excellent,
well arranged, and have had adopted in them every plan
which can secure health and comfort during the voyage. We
are glad to learn that the Great Britain is fast filling up
in all her passenger departments. She will also have a
full cargo of goods, but the owners are determined to exer-
cise caution in this respect, and not to engage more freight
than will be in unison with the ship's capacity and tonnage.
The Great Britain can now be viewed at the Wellington
Dock. Intending emigrants should not lose the opportunity
of sisiting her, and thus forming their own judgment as to
he strength, arrangements, and the comfort for passenger
accommodation, &c.

CALCUTTA may be regarded as the metropolis of Asia
having risen to be the seat of a trade of twenty millions
sterling in annual value; but Calcutta wants the three
attributes of a capital—convenience, beauty, and original
character. By a mistake on the part of the founder, the
city was placed on a spot where there is no natural drain-
age ; and such has :been the apathy of the controlling
power, that a report on the subject of an artificial drain
age has only just been made. A single shower of rain
fills the streets knee deep. The bazaars and the native
town are alike crossed by open drains, full of corruption.
The river, though the most beautiful of Asiatic streams,
besides the uncleanliness natural to a port, is filled with
dead b3dies, and fetid with the excrement of a nation.
That river, and a few lalf stagnant tanks, furnish the
drinking water of the population. Continually scourged
by epidemic cholera, still no measures are enforced to
secure ventilation—no new streets are opened—no paths
cleared for the wind ; and as for building acts, and acts
for the regulation of lodging-houses, they are left for the,
perhaps, useless discussion of some future generation.
The population congregates as it will, builds as it can,
and lives as it may, utterly without that guidance which
constitutes the only moral right to govern.—Friend of

FUNERAL OP THE LATE DUKE OF RUTLAND, K.G.—
The mortal remains of the deceased duke were interred in
the mausoleum of Belvoir Castle, at half-east 10 o'clock
on Thursday morning. The funeral was strictly private
(iu accordance with the wish of the deceased nobleman),
and remarkably plain and unostentatious. The procession
was headed by the present duke as chief mourner, followed
by Lord John Manners, Lord George Manners, Earl
Jermyn, and Lord Forester. A large number of the tenantry
e present.

" I was made witness to-day," writes a Paris correspon-
dent of a Brussels paper, "of a curious spectacle. It seems
that they have organised a sort of human telegraph round
the Bonrse. Certain signs announce the rise or fall of the
funds. Thus an individual standing under the peristyle
raised his hat, and this sign was immediately repeated upon
the place, and communicat-A to a group including some
ladies. This denoted that the Credit Mobilier were under a
particular figure. I speak of what I saw."

DEATH OF VISCOUNT DowNE.—We regret to have to
announce the death of Lord Downe, which took place at
Torquay, on the 26th instant, in his 45th year. The
deceased, William Henry Dawnay, was the seventh Viscount
Down, of the county of Down, in the peerage of Ireland,
to which he succeeded in 1846. He was married in July,
1843, to Mary Isabel, fourth daughter of the Hon. R.
Bagot, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and has left several chile
dren, of whom the eldest, the lion. Hugh Richard, born
in July, 1844, succeeds to the title arid estates. The late
viscount's mother was the only daughter of John Heathcote,
Esq., of Conington Castle, Hunts, and his grandfather (the
fourth viscount), married, in 1763, Lora, only daughter and
heiress of William Burton, Esq., of Ltaffenham, Rutland.
In 1841 the deceased, then the Hon. W. 11. D.awnay, con-
tested the county of Rutland, and defeated Viscount 0 imp-
den by twelve votes, the number being—for Mr. G. J.
Heathcote (now Lord Aveland), 767 ; Mr. Dawnay, 676;
and Lord Campden, 664. Mr. Dawnay supported the free
trade measures of Sir R. Peel, and feeling that his consj-
' tuents disapproved of that course, he resigned his seat in
1846, and Mr. Pinch, of Burley-on-the-Hill, was elected
unopposed to supply his place.

THE WEATHER IN THE BALTIC --BOlderan, Jan. 20 :
The roadstead is free of ice, and the seaward channel and
mouth of the 'river are now °pm—Copenhagen, Jan. 23 :
The fairway of the Zolibude is now navigable.—Hamburg,
Jan. 27: Last night there were abut 4 deg. frost ; to-day
it is snowing ; in the river there is old and also young
floating in.—Cuxhaven, Jan. 26: The harbour and the
roadstead are to-day completely fill of drift ice.

THE EARL OP HAREwoon.—The following medical
bulletin was issued yesterday morning :—" The Earl of
Harewood has passed another good night, and his lordship
is going on satisfactorily.—Harewood House, Thursday
morning, January 29."