Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-10-24 00:00:00

BOROUGH SESSIONS.

On Saturday last, the following persons were sentenced
before Gilbert Henderson, Esq., recorder, and J.. B.
Aspinall, Esq., assistant-barrister, at the general quarter
sessions of the peace for
.the borough of Liverpool :
Patrick Kennedy, aged 23, for unlawfully and maliciously
wounding Patrick APCarroll, on the 13th September
last ; five months' to hard labour.—Thomas Motters-
head, aged 30, clerk, in the employ of the Select
Vestry, for unlawfully conspiring, with some other
parties, to obtain £29 158., with intent to de-
fraud the. same ; five months' to hard labour.—
Thomas Griffiths, aged 50, for wounding Jane
Griffiths on the 14th September, eight months to
hard labour.—Alice Collins, aged 30, for having ob-
tained £1 ls., belonging to Euohemin R9wan, with
intent to defraud her, five months to hard. labour.—
Mary Clark, 43, for keeping a house of ill-fame, one
month.—Elizabeth "Ward, for a similar offence; three
months.--Antonio Jerusalem, 60, clock-maker, for
Assaulting Mary Ormsher, nine mouths.—Ann
aged 20, for stealing a shawl and other articles, the
property of Jan es Nelson ; and two bracelets, the
property of Richard !Allston, six weeks.—Andrew
Bailey, for stealing- a 4aek flour, the property of
Wilson, 041-7

WILLS AND BEQUESTS.—The will of Isambard Einz-
doin Brunel, civil Engineer, late of Dtliie"l—...ieet,- West-
rainster, was proved in the court of Probate by
the four executors therein appointed : the widow,
the eldest son, Isambard tamel:Esq., Sir Benjamin
Hawes, K.C.8., and Dr. Seth Thompson, M.D. ; the
personalty being sworn under £90,000. He thus dis•
poses of his property : To his eldest son, Isambard, he
leaves' an immediate legacy of £2,500, and a further
sum of £12,000 at the expiration of five years after his
(the testator's) decease, he receiving in the meantime
£450 a year during that period; to his other son, Henry
Marco, £2,500 immediate, and £B,OOO in five years,
£3OO in lieu of interest ; and to his daughter £4,000,
subject to conditions on marriage. He leaves his
books so that his eldest son may make a selection, but
leaving to his youngest son all his drawings, illustra-
tions, maps, plans, and such books as may be of assist-
ance to him in his profession of a civil engineer the
remainder of the books, together with all articles of
virtu, plate, jewellery, trinkets, and the whole of the
furniture, he leaves to his wife, and also a life interest
in the residue of his property, and at her death it is to
be divided in ten parts—five-tenths he leaves to his
eldest son, four-tenths to his youngest, and one-tenth
to his dazghter. To Sir Benjamin Hawes he be-
queaths £l,lOO, and to Dr. Thompson £lOO. The
will was witnessed by R. Elsdale, solicitor, 3,
Whitehall-place, and S. Bennett, 18, Duke-street;
Westminster, and bears date the 3rd of December,
1858:—The will and two codicils of the Right Rev.
,Thomas Carr, D.D., late Bishop of Bombay, and since
rector of Bath, was proved in London, on the Ist of
October, by his son-in-law, Sir John Wither Awdry,
Notton, Wilts, and the Hon. Sydney Roper Curzon,
of Tooting, Surrey, the executors ; the personality in
England was sworn under £B,OOO. He bequeathed to
his wife all his plate, jewellery, pictures, furniture,
carriages, house, and money at the banker's. The
residue of his property he leaves equally between his
son, the Rev. William Carr, 8.A., of Currachee, in
India, and his daughters, Elizabeth Catherine, the wife
of the Rev. William Kew Fletcher, M.A., chaplain of
the Presidency in Bombay, and Frances Ellen, Lady
Awdry, the wife of the said Sir John Wither AwdrY
and to their children. The will is dated the 9th of Au-
gust, 1851 ; the first codicil, 1852, and the last codicil,
the 11th of January, 1856.—The will of the Right
Hon. Charlotte Susannah Dowager Baroness Suffield,
who died on the 15th of August, was administered to
on the 15th instant by her uncle, the Right Hon. Robt.
John Lord' Carrington, the sole executor ; the person-
alty was sworn under t20,000._ Various specific articles
ofjewellery are left to, personal friends, and the residue
to her relatives.:—.Frons the Illustrated London _Yews.
THE LITERATURE OF THE BRITISH STAGE.—Why
is it that all our farces and light comedies are borrowed
from the French ? There are a hundred reasons against
such a practice ; the whole philosophy of life is different
in England from that adopted by our light-
neighbours. Half the things that they value we despise,
and- they regard with contempt more than half
ers of
thoie by which we set the greatest store. Our mann
are different from theirs ; our notions of politics are as
wide as the poles assunder ; even love itself is a different
thing on the two sides of the channel ; and yet no
B)oner does a new farce or comedietta appear at one of
the London houses, when lo ! it is ascertained to be "an
adaptation from the French." It is all very well to say
that the Gallic invention is brighter than any which we
yossess; that the dialogue of a French vaudeville is
infinitely more sharp and spirited than that of a cones-
raing, English piece; that the French are more rapid,
have more tact, more savoir vivre, and therefore can
make their characters display more than we can. All
this may be true, and we are not inclined to dispute it;
but we return still to the old objection—a French
piece is addressed to the French mind, and that mind is
es;eutially ditf.atat from the English,--Literary Gazette.

THE GREAT EASTERN & ITS PROMISED
MOVEMENTS.

A great change (says the Observer) has come over the
directors. pf the Great Ship Company since last week,
when they stated that the ship would positively sail for
America' on the 24th. We stated, however, last week,
that there were some requirements of the Board of
Trade which remained to be carried out, and which
would probably delay the departure for a few days, but
not beyond the end of the present month. All the
demands of the Board of Trade could have been corn-
pleted.by the 25th, and at the meeting of the board. in
London, on Thursday, it • was decided that the ship
should sail on the 29th. So far, therefore, as the de-
cision of the Board, and the demands of the Board of
Trade were concerned, there was nothing to prevent the
ship sailing with passengers during the presentmonth.
It appears, however, that Mr. Hawkshaw and the other
surveyors -appointed by the company to decide as arbi-
trators upon, all matters in dispute between-the company
und the contractors, relative to the completion of the.
'works, have reported that several things specified in the
contract with respect to the fittings of the ship have not
been finished; and at a meeting of the board at Holyhead,
the previous resolution as to the time of starting was
rescinded, on the plea that these trifling siiggeStions
ought to be carried out before the departure of the Great
Eastern. The fittings which were specified in no way
interfered with the safety or efficiency of the ship and
engines, for with these the officers of the Board of Trade
had expressed their satisfaction ; and they were pre-
pared to grant the usual certificate upon its being
applied for by the directors. As these details suggested
by the surveyors would take some time to complete, it
Was thought, considering the' advanced season, that it
would be better to abandon all notion of taking the ship
to America during the present year. The sole object
which the board had in view in sending the Great .
Eastern across the Atlantic, was to reap a good harvest
of admission fees, and this object would be frustrated if
the ship arrived in any of the transatlantic ports at a
time when travelling is Canada or in she States would
have 'become inconvenient or impracticable. The ne-
cessity of keeping faith with the public weighed to a
considerable extent with the board, and the motion
for further postponing the voyage was only carried
after a protracted discussion by the casting vote of
the chairman. The minority of the directors are greatly
annoyed at thiS fresh disappointment, and it is not
improbable that it will lead to the secession of several
of the most influential members of the board. With
respect, to the future movements of the ship, it is of
course impossible, after so many breaches of faith, to
speak with anything like certainty. It has been decided
to .take the ship to Southampton, as being the most
convenient place for completing the few remaining.fit-
tings that are required, but it will, not excite surprise
if it should be announced that some other port has, been
• selected. The, party in the board who succeeded in
upsetting the previous resolution have a prone-ammo of
future proceedings which includes visits to Gibraltar,
Cadiz, Marseilles, and Genoa, and other Mediterranean
ports, as they appear to think that tin mildness of a
southern climate will be more favourable to the ship,
and to the interests of the company, than a on
on the other side Of the Atlantic. They seem incapable
of conceiving any other purpose to which the great ship
can be turned than that of exhibiting it, lik Samson
bound, to be made sport of by the Philistines, and to
bring dollars cal half-crowns from visitors to the coffers
of the company. .
There is another party connected with the ship -who,
satisfied in every respect with its performance, are desi-
rous, however, of seeing it employed in developing the
idea of those by whom it was originated and constructed.
They are anxious to establish a complete ocean line of
communication between England and India and Aus-
tralia, by means of vessels similar in size and power to
the Great Eastern. Up to the present time the limited size
of ocean steamers, the largest being not more than 4,000
ton s,Wi th 800 horsepoiver, has rendered it impossible, when
seeking high rates of speed, to carry fuel for more than a
few days' consumption, and hence has arisen the necessity
in long voyages of frequent stoppages at coaling stations,
while the small amount of space left available for goods
involves the necessity of high tariffs of freights. The
attempts which have been made to use steam merely
as •an auxiliary. power, when calms or contrary winds
prevented rapid sailivg, have given but the slightest
possible speed over fast-sailng vessels. Proud as we
may be as a nation of the fact that we possess
almost the whole of the ocean steam navigation
—America not now' having a single line of ocean
steamers—we have obtained the monopoly only by means
of heavy annual sUbsidies and high rates of charges for
passengers and freight. The results of the trial trip of
the great ship, incomplete though they are in some
respects, have confirmed the opinion already very
generally entertained, that increase of size, and more
especially in the length of vessels, with equal motive
power, results in increased speed and capacity, with di-
minished expense, while at the same time the great ship
qs §livwn that vessels may 1)1 l,tdll of iron of any
..e . • !-
amount ui ..tee al or size. lase strengtn..:4 t tie ship
was tested in a most remarkable manner at the time of
the launching, when she remained for months resting
only upon the support of the two cradles near her centre.
Ever since'the commencement of the Great EiStern, im-
provements have been made in naval engineering, which,
applied to other ships of" the same character, .would pto-
duce even more important and satisfactory results than
those already achieved. Such,' for instance, 114 the else
of steel in the construction of boilers, as well as in the
hull of ships, and the important process of superheating
the steam, which, in the case of the great ship, has been
applied to only one pair of her boilers, and was most
sparingly used in the trial trip.
The speed which has been obtained by the great ship,
of froin 14 to 15 knots an hour, will suffice to take her
from England to Calcutta or Sydney in from 32 to 36
days, the voyage to Australia under the most favourable
circumstances now occupying from 55 to 60 days. Of
the four routes between England and Australia there
is but one, viz., that by way of the Red Sea and the
Mauritius, which is the course taken under the present
postal contract with the Peninsular and Oriental
Company,- which is shorter in point of distance than
by the voyage round the Cape of Good Mipe, the
difference being, however, only to the small extent
of about 370 miles ; but, in point of time, the ocean
route, via the Cape, would be performed by ships of the
class of the Great Eastern in less than half the
.time now
occupied upon this overland route. The accommodation
for passengers and goods by the large ships
they
in the ratio of at least two to. one over the Red Sea
line, and the rate of speed at the same cost for fuel
would be 50 per cent. in favour of the Cape line. So
far as the prospects of such a line are concerned, it must
be remembered that the railway system in India, Ceylon,
and Australia is but just beginning to develop itself ;
that China and Japan, with their immense populations
and varied products, will at no distant day be thrown
open to British commerce and enterprise, .and that
already at least one million of tons of shipping find
ample remuneration in the trade with the East. The
wants of commerce in that part of the world are
even now but insufficiently supplied with shipping. The
actually existing trade with the East is ten times greater
than the capacity of a whole line of these large vessels
would provide, and if their performance on a long voy-
age should be at all commensurate .with the results
already obtained in the short trips, there is no reason to
suppose that the expenses would be disproportionate to
the speed obtained, and the great carrying capacity of
the vessels. It, is absurd to suppose that large vessels
of the Great Eastern class could be worked with profit

upon shorttrWns-itlanti c trips, for the time which wouldbe consumed in
the
ports of this country and the United
States, in loading
to
that and unloading, would be out of all
proportion
week's work wouldwhileonlythatlong
require probably a month's delay,
and it was for these and these
designed—the delays in port
would take place only ats intervals of a month. With
one Great Eastern it would 3e of course impossible to
communication with the East
siat least would be re-
lineThofreoeeesnunchvesse
oesrtaAbalissthraalinay
quired, together with smaller
different branches. The plan which has
at the
and which irtmder the consideration of several persons
con-
nected with the present company, is to construpeetrasnor q
for-sea two other vessels similar to the Great Eastern,e-'ti-
but with such alterations and improvements as
ex-
perience may point out as necessary, and which with thexisting ship will be put upon a main trunk line between
e
England and Trincomalee, calling at the Cape of Good
Hope. Branch lines, worked by smaller and powerful
steamers, would run between the Cape and Australia,
and between Trincomalee and China, Madras and Cal-
cutta, in connection with the fleet of large ships, and
carrying freight and passengers to and from them to
their destination, There is no intention, so far at least

as a larger body of the proprietors and directors are
concerned, to permit the great ship to exist merely as a
spectacle to be visited at half-a-crown a ,head as the
" Great wonder of the world," but on the contrary to
endeavour to carry out to their legitimate results those
advantages which the employment of vessels of larger
size may be calculated to produce.

NORTHERN DAILY TIMES.