The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-05-26 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIME S.-LIVE RPOO L, TUESDAY, MAY .6, 1857.

which would soon befall them The war suddenly ceased
their vessels came home with large liabilities on them ;
their business, the current of which had been diverted, was
to be brought back again, and it was while struggling
under these difficulties that the pressure came, and they
succumbed. 0 hers had done as they did, and whatever
the other side might say, the court should deal with the
case relatively, and not as an iso ated one. They had
merely followed the same current with which others went,
and it was not to be said that t nay should be punished for a
calamil against which no foresight could have protected
them. In regard to Mr. Lamont, who was most instru-
mental in bringing about the Limited Liability Act, he
was at the very time the pressure came on them nego-
tiating—Mr. Denny offering them every convenience for the
purpose—to bring the whole conduct cf their affairs under
that measure ; and had that arrangement been effected,
Mr. Denny himself possibly becoming a shareholder in
the company , resources would have been realised which
would have enabled 'hem to extricate themselves from
all their d.fficulties, and to retrieve the losses which they
had incurred. The stability of their business previous to
that pressure was shown in the fact that from January,
1854, to January, 1856, they sustained losses to the extent
of £60,000, and were yet able to bear up against them ;
and had Mr. Denny chosen to keep faith with them, the
present result would have been avoided. They were led into
expectations by Mr. Denny which caused them to conceive
that, with his assistance and co-operation, they would be
able to discharge the pressing liabilities coming
on them, and had these expectations been realised,
as they deserved to be, Mr. Denny would not have lost a
farthing from his transactions with them. As to the
£17,200 to be derived from from the Canadian Contract,
the court had it as an undobted fact that there was a con-
tract to ran over a series of years—that part of that
contract was performed, and that a considerable suns was
received from the Canadian government and the
company. Again, filo Far interfered, contrasto
the wishes of the bazikrupte, the ccmpany;
employed
their steamers as transports, and the result was;
as he had already stated. But could the bankrupts be
blamed for that ? Certainly not. Were they to doubt the
trustworthiness of the Canadian CAnpany ? Certainly
not ; n. .r yet was the e anything unreasonable, on the part
of the bankrupts, in treating 'he benefit to be derived from
that company in the manner they had done. Just as a
publican or other shopkeeper valued the good-
will of his house, so were they entitled. to
treat as capital a good-will reversionary to them
that which they would have realised and earned by
way of profit had the Canadian Company carried out their
contract. With regard to the books, they might not have
been kept as the court could wish, but in c; nsidning that
point the court should take into account not only the
extent of the business, but the very material fact that both
Mr. M'Larty and Mr. Lamont were constantly called away
from home on the business of the firm. As to the
transaction with Mr. Bost, Mr. Yates, as representing
Mr. M'Kean, would show that it was a transaction in
the ordinary course of business; and then there would
remain but the opposition of Mr. Denny, who alone, of all
the creditors of the bankrupts after a long trading, now
came forward to oppose them. He (Mr. Almond)
looked upon that fact—Mr. Venny being also vir-
tually the opposing assignee—as the best testimony
which could be given of the honcurable manner in which
the bankrupts had conducted themselves in their commer-
cial career. He hoped the court nould take the same
view of the case He hoped that it would, by its judg-
ment, free them from the charges brought against them,
and that, remember eg the hit h position the firm held iu
Liverpool up to the iime of the bankruptcy, it would send
them back into the commercial world with the declaration,
that however great their misfortunes might be, they were
stainless alike from dishonour a,,:d dishonesty. Mr.
Aspinall and Mr. John Yates will be heard this day on
behalf of Mr. Lamont and Mr. M'Kean.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE. --YESTERDAY.

LIVERPOOL.
BEFORE MR DIXON.

A Row CREATED BY A POLICEMAN ! John Jackson, a
shoemaker, and Charlotte, his wife, who reside in Back-
Chester street, were charged by Policeman 762 with assault-
ing him. Mr. Bluck defended. It appeared that about
one o'clock on Sunday morning, the officer was taking a
drunken person to the sta ion, when he was interfered
with by the prisoners, and, as he alleged, the man struck
him, and the woman tried to rescue her husband when in
caszoa'y-. In reply te Mr. Bluck, the officer admitted that
he was pulling the original prisoner by the ears. Mr. Block :
Were you not beating the lad in a barbarous menner about
the ears and head ? I was pulling his ears. Mr. Dixon :
Why did you pull him by the ears ? Because he was
a bad character (!) Mr. Muck : How do you
know he was a bad character ? I suspected
he was one. Mr. Block : Did you ever see
him before ? No. Mr. Block : Well, you are a genius.
After addressing his worship on behalf of the prisoners, he
called a young woman who said she saw the whole tran-
saction. She was going home with the prisoners, when
they saw the officer beating a boy in the most awful
manner about the head. The prisoners merely said—
" offi.,:er, don't beat the boy in that way about the head ;
take him quietly," and then he let the boy go, and seized
the man by the neck, saying—" I will take you in his
place." The female prisoner only said, "don't take him,"
and he then took her also. Mr. Dixon, addressing the
policeman, said, you acted exceedingly wrong ; it was you
who created the disturbance in the street, by beating a boy
who, so far as it appears, VMS not guilty of any offence.
Your conduct was most improper, and you very much
exceeded your duty. Discharge the prisoners.
MANGLlNG.—Elizabeth Aspinall, the keeper of a mangle
in Finch-street, was charged with stealing a sheet, a table
cloth, and other things, belonging to INIr4. Makin, of
''-efford-street, The things were missed about a month
pawn, when she was.
ago, and on ....catwdaY the prisoner offered the things for
Gypped. She wed to
en the
mangle for the
complainant. The prisoner' admitted having to
property. She was sent to gaol; c,17 three months.
ti

POLITICAL G )6SIP.

On Thursday next a public meeting of the Poor-law Medical Officers
of England and Wa es, and of the profession aeneratly, will b.- held,
to decide on the form of a petition to be presented o parliament,
and to transact such other business as may be thought desirable."
The Earl of Shaftesbury wi.l preside.

It is report:ol that during the present session a motion will be
brought forward in both houses of parliame t for an Increase to the
established number of g, neral offic,ra of the Rua Marines, viz ~-3
generals 3 liente. ant-generals, and 8 major.generals.
The Record has deserted Mr. Spooner.—" It may be matter for calm
deliberation whether Mr- Spooner's method of conducting the fitty-
hooth discussion Is the best, o• ,hether it might not be conducted
with better prospects of success by some of the younger members et
the house "

The United Service Gazette observes that whether the Dake-
Cambridge visits Aldershott, Colchester, or Shorncliffs, the garisons
of Chatham or Woolwich, the tictiool of Mwketry at Hytne, or the
Cavalry despot at Maidstone. his inpection is not a mere formality, an
official sham, but is carried out in the spirit of the regulations, in
virtue of which it is undertaken. "We have the means of knowing
that the commander-in-chief on such occasions institutes a most
searching enqtrry into the condition of the troops, their accommoda_
tioa, and such grievances as they may have to complain of, and
thereby seta an example to general OffiZ '3 in district or garrison
command, which it would be as well they tollowed."
The Leader says it is far from being a secret that Sir Edward Bur
wer Lytton resents the nominal leadership of Mr. Disraeli, Nor is he
the only obstinate member of the Carlton Club " Lord Malmesbury
has recently proved unmanageable., A section is falling off at Mr.
Bentinck's instigation, No one can persuade the Earl of Derby that
there is any hope for him or his friends, or even that public affairs
are ,f much, consequence to him, as a man and a peer. Fraco re fa
forte gente fraca. A weak leader makes a weak party.
rue main distinction between the two measures of medical reform
before parliament seems to lie in the following point :—Lord Elcho's
but would allow a medical gra mate of a university to practise as a
physic an on as de.ree as his sale qualtficattda ; while Mr. 'leathern
p r,po •
•es that, after obtaining his degree, he should farther be required
to because a member of a coltege of physicians. Tills has long been
a in ,tter of d,re debate between the universities and the corporations-
" Boca bills," says the Lancet," purport to effect uniformity of quail -
ILation, reciprocity of practica, and registration ; both recognise the
right of the general practitioner to a voice in the council; both aim
.t the elevation of the social and educationa status of medical men.
ath so much good intention on both sides, enough of common
-1 concession will bs found to prevent the hopes of
• shipwreck in a fratricidal contest."
•rnist) it may safely be said that
-'0 are ,At what we

SudB!►

sense and to mat.—

medical retormers an& lab -
in the counties (thinks he ECO7O.
very tew members nave any chance of etzetion
ma) call quarter•sessioa men. "The, ma/ be Lineraig, and they
may be Co ,servatives or new., but th6y lire of one type of mind, and
enter heartily only into one crass of inte-ests. The counties can never
return men who repres,,nt any variety of anal influence. Tftey

'epiesent the land, and, like the land, they have a settled character, a
wholesome fixity of view, an invaluable immobility of their own•
They deserve vast Lifted e in tae co antry, and they have vast
influence. they give momentum to the fi al decisions of the legisla-
ture, exactly because they at first re:ard its movement. But to
augment the r itifirt,nce womd be, we think, a totally false step. The
e.orm which parliament needs is the introditetioa of a definit3 pri n-
caple which shall give nfluence to tie unrepresented classes, without
excludli g or swamping those wh ch ars now epre tented. The landed
interest s, perhaps, bet er represented than any other, because it is
necessarily mere oniform in character, more m inotonous so to speak,
and contains fewer germs of latent p Attica! divergency than an, other
tterest tie state."

The Spectator observes, on the best ran of action for making our
navy e i.cleot If we place iat trio head o the Admirity a man
distingu,shcd by his energy and capacity as a naval commander, and
give the 48,000,000 into his hands, with full ant urity to override
every other per,on, offi :ia: or not, probaby we should Soon see such
a navy—so built, so distributed, and so manned—as to defy till world
Say that we took !for that purpose Lord Lyon., or if hs is not
yonu enough, awl is too much connected with high families
and official circles, say Sir Baldwin Walker himself. The rem
root o too evil lies in c instantly handing over authority to mon more
connected with official cliques than with the navy or with the naval
aehie7einents of the country, and I is increased by dividing the re•
sponnibinty winch would reside in o man, a ccumdanied with the
reward fur per on it renown in the event of success, am:ng a number
of persons whose ii.dividuality is merged in a 'board.' The country
s governud, not by Sovereign, not by Parliament, bat by' boards ;

b ards ' a:l3 governed by clerki, and the true admiral-in-ch ef is that
an known herd of gentlemen in the civil serr,ce."

The opponents to centralism, ' says the Weekly Dispatch, " will
not learn one indispensib e lesson, that the best preventive against
interfere Ica wit local authority is for that local autaority to do its
duty. Let there la? no sufficient ground for a central board to meddle
with th, decisions of the parties charged, in the first instance, with
district affairs, and the public will take excellent care that the inter-
lope's, if they will trouble themselves about what is dons better
without them, get nothing but contumely for their pains. This,
how.ver, is not tee way in which the Ilarylebone vestry a id board of
guaralans read the matter. We have long remarked, though we have
scarcely thought tee attain worthy of public comment, the cool vulgar
ignorance with which these parochial worthies have treated the
government inspectoe, Mr. Farrell, sent to them by th e Poor-law
Commissioners, to induce teem to do their duty with regard to the
woman-beating master and the habitual treatment of female lunatics
in the workaouse. They had neither low nor reason, equity nor
humanity, on the r side; but they imagined they had a popular cry.
They fancied they might perpetrote any wrong, or deny any ri3ht, in
opposition to ' centralism.' "
The Times, in commenting upon the provision which has been male
for the Ptincees Royal, remarks that the government proposal has
been adopted, for the simple re icon that there was no other before the
house, which naturally took the only offer that was made. " The
eccentric) member for Sheflie:d, who is admirably adapted for standing
on tne top of a pillar and preaching to pilgrims of all nations, or
testifying to a plague smitten city, and who cannot reduce his
inspirations to a vulgar working form, undertook to meet the ministe-
sriasloprnotrabintit had th proposition.
nHe
ee agmdiestitreoenalybl'evithaPr characterin aipie which might be ever
o uof disturbing unanimity
and threatening what might possibly be a serious difference of opinion.
Had Mr. Roebuck had the wit to name a handsome round sum to be
substituted for the composite proposition of the Minister, and had he
divided the House at o ice on the first call for adivision, we have ve-y
little doubt lie would have had a decided majority. We believe his
only objectien to this course was, that he did not venture to name a
sum high enough for that purpose, or to commit himself to any sum
that would trivoive ranch explanation to the electors of Sheffield. If
this was nis reason, we can only say that ho ought to have handed
over his cause to some one blessed either with more courage or with a
more reasonable constituency. As it was, he took poseeesion of the
ground and employed it to deliver a barren testimony. Since it is to
settled, we hive only to express our 0711 earnest wishes that the
Princess Royal may long live to rec'sive the testimony to the virtues
of her mother and to her own engaging qaalities; end that nothing
may ever occur at that court weere her lot is now cast to make the
British people repent of their generous confidence."

THE MURRAIN AMONG CATTLE.-REPORT OF
THE GENERAL BOARD OF HEALTH.

On Saturday was issued a very interesting report, addressed by Dr.
Greenhow to the General Board of Health on the murrain among
cattle and the epidemic which is raging in Eastern Europe. It appears
from the report that the General Board of Health had their attention
drawn to the great mortality among cattle in Paddington, no less than
nineteen per cent. of the whole of the cows kept in Paddington
having died within the three months ending the 7th of March of the
present year. At the same time, or nearly so, the attention of the
Government was called by a series of official despatches from Colonel
Hodges, C.Be her Majesty's Consul-General at Hamburg, and from
her Majesty's Consuls et Warsaw and Koningsberg, to the murrain
which existed in Eastern Europe, and to a disease which prevailed
amongst horned cattle in Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Mecklenburg-
Schwerin ; and Dr. Greenhow was instructed to inquire whether the
disease which existed in this country was similar to those ravaging
the Continent; and further to investigate whether any relations
existed between the causes of disease in cattle and the human subject,
It w.ll be recollected that this question was again and again put to
Lord Palmerston at the first meeting of Parliament by several
agricultural members, as to what course the government intended to
take to prevent the importation of the disease into this country. The
Government promised to investigate the matter, and hence the
present report. It will be very acceptable to our agriculturalists at
the present time, as it conclusively proves that the alarm that has
been excited is, in a great measure unnecessary, and that the reports
which have been spread have been greatly exaggerated. Dr. Greenhow
found that the disease which had been so fatal in Paddington was
identical with that prevalent hi many parts of the country, and
commonly known among veterinary practitioners, graziers, and cow"
keepers by the name of '• lung disease," or more scientifically,
exu-
dative pleuro-pneumonia." It is therefore identical with the
monary murrain of German writers. In this country it is also called
the new disease, to distinguish it from an eruptive disease which
preceded it, popularly known as toe " foot and to :gue disease," an d
now commonly spoken of by cattle dealers as t le " old epidemic."
This latter disease first appeared in England in 1839, and became
generally diffused in tee course of that year. It would appear to be
contagious, bat is now much less frequent than tormerly. This epi_
demic was followed, after an interval of two years, by the present
epidemic, pleuro-pneumonia, or, as Dr. Graenhow now terms it, pul-
monary murrain, a disease whi:h has been very destrective and
fatal, it s said, to upwards of 50 per cent. of the animals attacked.
Pulmonary murrain would seem never to have entirely disappeared
since its second outbreak in 181 E. That the disease is new t o thiej
present generation is unquestionable', but it was only too we_
known about a hundred years 8 tice. More than 200,000 cattle are
reported to have died in Holland in 1745, and more than 40,000 in
Nuttingtiame.dre in 1;47 whilst in Cheshire 30,000 died in less than
4e.tructive nature of the disorder attracted the

six months. -tile eesse • - • •
,
attention of the government, and a ter a time strict orders were
issued for the destruction of every animal that exhibited the slightest
symptom of the disease, the Owner being of course remunerated for
his loss. In the third year of the murrain 80,000 cattle were thud
destroyed, in addition to at least double the number that died of th
disease. In the fourth year cattle were destroyed at the rate of
7,000 per month, until it was found that the farmers frequently con-
cealed the cattle really suffering from the murrain, and brough t
their otherwise diseased and old and worn-out cattle to be slaughtered,
in order to obtain the allowance made by the Government, for the
destruction of such as suffered from murrain. The disease at length
began to disappear very evidently in the year 1758, but did not al-
together disappear until several years later. The disease reappeared
in this country and in Ireland in 1841, where it was very destructive.
One dairyman in Dublin lost 413 cows in four months from it. In this
country, especially in the metropolis, the disease appears to have been
chiefly prevalent at the close of last year. Mr. Stedman, a I argr cow-
keeper in the east of London, whose stock of cows varies from 15e to
200 in number, lost 27 from the disease in one month. The disease,
n its course, is at times very rapid, frequently proving fatal in twelve
hours. Dr. Greenhow is of opinion chat the disease is not contagious'
but can be spontaneously produced. It is, however, dillicult to
estimate the actual amount of this disease that has exieted, even
approximately, as, with few exceptions, the cowkeepers in the metroP -
olis send their cows to market as soon as they cease to sappier a
profitable yield of milk. A sudden diminution of milk is usually one
of the early symptoms of the disease. As animals when attacaee by
this disease, besides becoming unprofitable as mitch cows, lose
conditon very rapidly, it is now the pracjce to send thesis to Market
at once, if in to•erable condition. as yet no certain cure has been
discovered, although many remedies have been tried,
bat with
indifferent success. Inoculation has also been resorted to, but with a
similar result. Dr. Gresahow states „that pulmonary murrain doe s
not strike tee cattle of a whole district as influenza does the isumae
inhabitants of a considerable area, but attacks by a euceession of
local oatureaks. Its re-Appearance in the present century, after an
aesence of nearly a century from the herds of tins country, is a mos t
important fact in ite history, particularly when considered in con-
junction with the occurrence o cholera in the human subject, and of
toe potatoe disease and other blight among vegetables at nearly the
same pericd of time. Blight and. murrain and pestilence have often
been associated as calamities ; perhaps they are not altogether unallied
in their causes. Whether the epidemic influences from which inan
suffers act also upon the lower animals and on the vegetaile kingdom,
and whether the causes of their epidemic diseases affect oarseives ,
are as yet undiscovered, but, nevertheless, they are important fields
of inquiry. It is, indeed, true that the materials for felting these
questions are at present most scanty; but the study of human with
animal and vegetable epidemic diseases could not fail to elucidate
many still obscure facts, and throw important tight both on human
pateology and on that of those animals whose well doing is so inti-
mately associated with man's material prosperity." Dr. Greenhow
completely proved that the disease now existing in Mecklenburg is
identical with that which has not been entirely absent in this ceantry
for the last sixteen or seventeen years. lie says, "The importance of
this fact can scarcely be overrated. It proves that, for the present at
least, it is unnecessary to employ any additional restrictions to prevent
the admission of diseased cattle from abroad, wide h, as nearly One'
fifth of the horned cattle sold in the Metropolitan Cattle Mark et
during the years 1855 and 1856 has consisted of cattle imported from
the Continent, is of great consequence in an economical point of view'
Even if pulmonary murrain were propagated exclusively by conta-
gion, any attempt to exclude from this country a disease which has
already existed here for many years, by means of prohibitory or
quarantine regulations, must be futile. That it does not extend itself
exclusively to contagion, bat that it is frequently developed sponta-
neously, IS the all but unanimous opinion of the most competent
observers, both at home and abroad, an opinion which is supported by
my own investigations." But, in feet, every reasonable precaution to
exclude diseased animals is already in operation. The Commissioners
of her Majesty's Cue oms have appointed duly qualified veterinary
surgeons, at the chief ports of importation, to examine all cattle
coming from foreign parts previous to their admission into this
country; and where no permanent 'tweeter has been appointed, the
collector for the port i i autheri.e4 to employ a veterinary surgeon to
make the inspection, whic!, is directed to be done as soon as possible
after the arrival of a vessel on board of which there are any cattle.
That these instructions have been most carefully attended to in the
port of London there can be no doubt, for ramonst:asmes respecting
the stringency of tie regulations in force have been !made by the
importers of cattle, both to the Board of Tattle and the Commissioners
of Customs. The carefulness with which this inspection is conduetol
is also confirmed by the assertion made by the inseects:
,of the live
cattle market, that he has not found occasion to se'a s a single
animal amore; the thousands of foreign horned cattle sent for
sale to the market. Dr. Greenhow calls attention to the feat
that the pulmonary mnrrain has been confounded with the rinderpest
or Steppe Murrain, which is developed in aad generally almost
exclusively confined to Bessarabia, Podolia, and other - provinces in
Russia; but as information reacassed this country that this latte
disease had r ached Rewno, Tanroggan, and other places in the
vicinity of the Russian frontier, the. Government issued an Order ins
Council prohibiting the importation of cattle, and of horns, hoofs,
raw or wet hides, or skins of cattle, into the United Kingd sin from
any port eastward of Denmark. " Steppe Murrain " is described as
a febrile disease analogous to continued fever in the human „subject,
but incommunicable to man or other animals. It is very fatal, and
is believed to be so contagious that men, digs, and goats, although
themselves uninfluenced by the viras, are thought capable of con-
veying the infection from a diseased tea healthy lierd. That this
dire malady will reach this country, according to Dr. Greenhow, does
not appear probable, on account of the energetic measures adopted
by iiltermediate states to secure the exclusion of the pestilence from
their territories, and secondly from our insular position, the pre-
caution adopted by our Government, and from the feet that the,
disease wonid have passed through its period of incubation areong
the cattle previous to their arrival in this country, and could
therefore be easily defected. There appears, also, is be, a third
species of mnrrain peculiar to the horses of the Black Sea and the
Danube, called dyseaterie mitt-rain, but from this W 3 hove no
reason to fear, as it has net, as yet reported, travelled westward