Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-11-17 00:00:00

Tho Bristol Mercury announces that Mr. George
Underfield, varnish manufacturer, of that city, has had
a daughter born to him, the thirty-third child since the
battle of Trafalgar, at which he was present.

A lawyer in a northern burgh some time ago wrote a
letter to his correspondent in Inverness, from which the
following is an extract :—" There was a concatenation
of circumstances which led to a congeries of offences,
and combined together, led to one general result, and
hence the accumulated claim of damages for £200."
Inverness Courier.

PICTURES FOR TILE NATIONAL GALLERY.-At the
recent sale of Count Stolberg's pictures at Soder, in
Hanover, two very beautiful Ruysdaels were bought
for the National Gallery, at the respective prices of
£l,lBO and £1,600. The pictures represent grand
waterfalls, and were probably painted as companion
pictures, being of the same size, if not from the same
locality.

The British Government is drawinc, largely on the
white oak forests of Virginia. Over 300 men are now
employed in getting the timber in the mountains near
Rowlesburg, on the Cheat River, which is to be used
for gun carriages. The contractor has orders which it
will take two years to fill. The Cheat River oak is said
to be the best yet imported into England, and far sur-
passes the Canada oak, which it is fast superseding.—
New York Courier and Inquirer.
PEnsu..—Letters from Erzeroum state that the cold
weather has already set in, and that snow has begun to
fall. The same advices report that his Majesty the
Shah of Persia had left Tabreez to return to the capital.
The Persian Government had despatched a high digni-
tary of state to proceed to the frontiers of Azerbigian to
meet his Excellency Sir Henry Rawlinson, her Britannic
Majesty's minister to the Persian Court, and conduct
his Excellency to Teheran.
THE FAMILY or JOE SMITH.—The Boston Courier
says :—" The family of the great Mormon
.prophet, Joe
Smith, still dwell in Nauvoo. No persuasions can pre-
vail on them to remove to Utah. His widow has
married again, and with her husband keeps the Man-
sion-house, the only house of entertainment the city
affords. The eldest son, who bears his father's name
of Joseph, is a justice of the peace, and a useful and
much-respected citizen. Great inducements have been
offered him to remove to Great Salt Lake City, but he
steadily resists all such importunities."
NEW COINAGE.—A Florence letter says :—" I hear
from very good reliable sources that the Tuscan Govern-
ment had sent to the French mint an order for coining
the new decimal coinage which is presently to become
the currency in Tuscany, and connect this country ii
its monetary arrangements with France, Piedmont,
Switzerland, and Belgium. The Hotel de la Monnaie
had accepted the order, but was prevented by Count
Walewski from executing it. The order has, therefore,
been forwarded to the Royal Mint in London, which
accepted and is now executing it, without any scruple
of its own, or any hindrance from her Majesty's
Government. The delay occurring in the introduction
of the new coin must be ascribed to this very singular
conduct of the French Government."

DESPERATE ENCOUNTER WITH A CONVICT.—On
Monday, Mr. Raynor, the chief warder of the New
Bailey Prison, Manchester, conveyed a prisoner, named
James Garner, who was under sentence of transporta-
tion for eight years, from Salford to the Wakefield
House of Correction. They proceeded by the 12.30
train, and, when under one of the tunnels, the prisoner,
a powerful man, made a desperate attack on the officer.
Although ironed, the prisoner contrived to kick, and
bite, and struggle with such violence as to place Ray-
nor in a very dangerous position. On arriving at a
station, Raynor appealed to the guard for assistance ;
but the appeal was disregarded, and he had to continue
his journey unprotected against his desperate and unde-
sirable companion, who only relaxed his ferocity from
sheer exhaustion, and was at length safely lodged at his
destination.

SINGULAR DISLOCATION OF THE NECK.—Some two
weeks since, at Louisville, Kentucky, an elderly German
fell during the night down a steep flight of steps, and
struck the side of his head against the wall at the
landing. He was taken up insensible and carried to
his room. It was found on elamination, when he
became conscious, that he was paralysed in all those
parts of his body below the neck, and that his neck was
broken. He remained in this condition something over
five days, conversing freely with his attendants, and
describing to them all the sensations which he had.
His attending surgeons made an attempt to set the neck,
but were obliged to desist, on account of suffocation
coming on whenever the head was brought into its
natural position. Between the fifth and sixth days the
nurses undertook to move him for the purpose of
changing his linen, and in doing so the head-was
unwittingly turned so that the neck was straight.
Death took place instantly.
FIVE MEN NEARLY SUFFOCATED.—About three
o'clock en Monday morning, the engineer of the steamer
Ruby, plying between Greenock and Helensburgh,
while lying inside of the steam-boat quay, was awoke
by loud snortings proceeding from the forecastle, from
which he was only separated by a thin wooden partition.
He get up to see what was the matter, and, after enter-
ing the berth where the five men were sleeping, he
proceeded to shake the one who was making most noise
—all of them groaning more or less heavily. He failed
to rouse the first man, and trying the others he was
alike unsuccessful. Getting alarmed, he opened the port-
holes, and being a powerful man; he dragged them severally
up the stairs and laid them upon the deck in an ap-
parently insensible state, two of them being stiff from
spasmodic muscular contraction. He then ran for assist-
ance, and on returning with Dr. Lochead the men had
all somewhat recovered. They now chiefly complained
of headache, giddiness, sleepiness, unpleasant taste in the
mouth, and one or two vomited. The one who had
slept nearest the door was least affected ; but he,
though quite conscious all along, and aware of his aiid
his comrades' danger, was totally unable to bestir him-
self or give any alarm. It appears that before going to
bed they had inconsiderately closed every aperture by
which a breath of air could be admitted, and a fire being
left burning in the stove in the middle of the apartment,
exhaustion must soon have supervened.
POST-OFFICE ROBBERIES IN FRANCE.—A post-office
clerk, named Mention, was on Saturday tried by the
Court of Assizes for stealing money letters. Very many
such letters having been missed from the post-office vans on
the Havre and Cherbourg railways, to which for the last
three years the prisoner was attached, suspicion at length
fell on him, and on the 26th July, a letter, having the
appearance of containin g money, addressed to an imaginary
person at a place near Clivers, was put into a heap which
the prisoner had to sort, and that letter was missed; it,
however, turned up after a while, but had evidently
been opened. On that the man was arrested, and in his
lodgings, which were searched, were found twelve Bank
of France notes, one of 500 f., the others of 100 f, several
Terftiat notes; upwards of 9,000 f. in-French gold coin„
112 American dollars, 14 English sovereigns, some C
in
hole
beneathhis
it
were found 24,100 f. in bank notes, and 20 Western Rail-
fornia, and Spanish pieces, and a great number of French
and foreign postage stamps which had been torn from
the letters. In addition, on the indication of a young
wwhaosuir removed, vweadsintimate,
, and
way bonds of the nominal value of 500 f. each. The
man was forced to admit that all this money, and all the
securities, with the exception of 5,500 E, came from
letters stolen by him. He was declared guilty and con-
demned to eight years' hard labour and 500 f. fine ; all
chimney-piece
the money and securities seized, with the.exception of
the 5,400 f. which he proved to be hisproperty, were be-
sides ordered to be given up to the post-office.
'"-THE INEXTINGUISHABLE SIGNAL LIGHTS.----011 Mon-
dayex evening.,:i isiIwiihFehrliilandSilep 4
eaained . inextinguish-
ablesurprisingerlsirgeiniai lights, his
indestructiblethe Brtinsviick Pier, Blackwall,
by order of the committee of the Royal National
Life=boat Institution. There were present
on the
occasion Captain Robertsen,. R.N., surveyor to the
-ef Traderwith-Air.—Graliarn, MmiraLM`Carthy,
Captain Ward, and Mr• Lewis, of the National Life-
boat Institution, and other gentlemen. We so recently
noticed these admirable experiments on the Serpentine in
that° colums in "detail, that it is unnecessary to repeat a
description of them. It will be sufficient to say that, as
on the occasion alluded to, they were alike brilliant and
successful, and indicated by their luminous intensity,
even in the'dense fog that on Monday prevailed over
the reaches of the river, how highly usWL a purpose
they will soon subserve for the protection of shipping on
our coasts and' as beacon - lights, -in the -event of- ship-
wreck, for saving property and life. The gentlemt z
present appeared to form an extremely favourable
opinion of the experiments,.which will be repeated for
their satisfaction an an early occasion, and on a larger
scaly, with the view of ascertaining how far they may
be of service in communicating between the shore and
ships in distress, and wl ether, for that purpose, it will
he impossible to throw them out to ships at sea in dis-
tress, like shrapaell shells, from a mortar.