Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-07-01 00:00:00

TRADE AND FAST LIVING IN NEW YORK.

A walk throilgh any of our wholesale dry goods streets
will convince any one that the business doing is very slight
indeed ; end, if they will but step inside, they will find
convincing proof of this fact, that all hands, from the head
of the firm down to the porter, are variously engaged in
reading the paper, the latest novel, lounging on a stack of
goods, or smoking a cigar. Such a state of affairs as this
cannot, of course, pay a ten or twelve thousand dollar rent
of store, six or eight thousand more for clerk hire, three
to five thousand more for rent of residence, and probably
twenty thousand (at a low estimate) for family expanses.
The thing is impossible, and it did not surprise me, there-
fore, a few days since, when I heard it intimated that,
of the vast amount of dry goods rates due on the first
of the month, not more than one in ten was actually paid
in full. Fortunately the monet market happened to be in
a very easy condition, and this enabled the delinquent
parties to obtain a renewal or extension of their paper for
sixty or ninety days. Had not this been the case, the
list of failures would have been startling. But the dry
goods' men are not the only ones who are so " hard up,"
for the shoe trade is very nearly as bad. The chief
trouble with the houses in this city is their fast mode of
doing business. That portion of our city lying West
of Broadway has been bought up in lots at the most
extravagant prices, and on these lots have been erected
marble edifices of the most noble appearance. The
tradesmen move from their more humble establishments
(where they were doing well) into these imposing struc-
tures ; import half a million to a million w)rth of
goods ; give their note, sell to every ono that comes
along, take his note, and so the day begins and elide,
until the payments come due, when, as is too often shown,
neither party is able to square accounts. By submitting
to a ruinous Wall-street shave, however, of one and a half
to two per cent a month, they are enabled to keep up
their sign a while longer. But let next " pay day" witness
a tight money market, and they are not able to " settle,'
and it would seem that nothing can prevent a most calami-
tous result. The mania for fast fortunes and fast living
was never so prevalent as at the present day. The clerk
of eighieen or twenty years sees his employers going
it with a perfect looseness, and forthwith follows his
example. He can be a clerk no longer ; so he quits
his yard sticks and tape, and comes out with an
establishment of his own ; for there are plenty
to be found who will give him a stock, and let
him pay when he can. The clerk, that wag, cuts a big
figure for a time ; but, like other houses built on sand,
it soon fall", and he fails with it—not without, it is hoped,
having learned a useful lesson. So with a thousand
speculations of the prevent day ; speculations in real
estate, in cotton, in breadstuffs, provisions, sugars, tobacco,
tea, &c. People seem to have actually gone mad in these
things, so desperate are their efforts to get rich quickly !
The result of all this is beginning to be felt in the cry of
the poor for bread, and other sustenants of life ; for so
high have the actual necessaries been forced, by specula-
tion mainly, that tens of thousands of families in this
city, and at the South and West, are daily deprived of
what has heretofore been regarded the commonest f eed,
and within the reach of all.—Nert, York Correspondent.

A MOTHER POISONED BY HER OWN

DAUGHTER.

The neighbourhood of Bandon hes been thrown into
great excitement, consequent on a rumour having gained
currency that a woman named Hawes, mother to one of
the female officers of the Bandon -Onion Workhouse,
had been poisoned. Oa inquiry, this rumour proved
correct, and was found to be accompanied by circum-
stances which created a suspicion that her death had been
occasioned—whether through wilfulness or mistake is
not yet fully demonstrated—by her own daughter.
Nes* the bed of the deceased, the police discovered a
pill-box filled with a eubstance which has all the
appearance of strychnine. Mr. Honohan, the active
coroner for the district has instituted strict inquiries
into the matter, and the result of the first day's inquiry
has been to render it necessary to cause a post mortem
examination to be made; and the contents of
the stomach of deceeeed, having been sealed up, have
been transmitted to Dr. Blyth, the Professor of Che-
mistry in the Queen's College, for the purpose of being
submitted to a chemical examination. It would, o
course, be premature to publish the evidence of the first
day's inquiry in detail, as such publication might pre-
clude the obtaining of further evidence. It appears
that the deceased, who lived at Upton, in the vicinity
of Bandon, was in the habit of occasionally calling
at the workhouse to see her daughter, who states that
latterly she complained of being affected with severe fits
of perspiration at night. Her daughter advised her to
take a little gallic acid, and promised to procure some
for her from the medical department. If the daugh
ter's statement can be relied on, it would appear that,
during the absence of the officer in charge, she pro-
cured the bottle of gallic acid, and filled a little of it
into a pill-box. She states that she secreted the box,
intending to give it to her mother on the first
opportunity, but when she came to look for it she could
not find it. However, she subsequently found a box
which, from its similarity to that which she had lost, she
supposed to be the same, and gave it to her mother who
took it home, and hiving swallowed a small portion, that
evening was seized with tetanic convulsions, and died in
great pain within two hours, exhibiting all the symptoms
of poisoning by strychnine. A very small portion of the
contents of the pill box having been administered to a cat,
the animal was soon after seized with convulsions, and
died within a few 1:112121V09. What renders the occurrence
more mysterious is, that the workhouse officer states that
there was no strychnine in the establishment for months
past ; but this is stated by some parties to be a mistake.
There seems to have been no reason which could, have
induced the daughter to commit the crime beyond that of
getting rid of the expense of her maintenance. Many
parties conceive that the occurrence must have Jaen the
result of accident.—Dublin Daily Express.

ILLICIT DISTILLATION.—ConstabIe Lowe, and party,
have within the last few days, succeeded in making four
or five s-izares of poteen, stills, heads, and worms, &C., in
the neighbourhood of Roslea. And on last week Con-
stable Moore, and party, seized a quantity of malt and
vessels used for illicit purposes in the neighbourhood of
Newtownbutler. We have no doubt but through the
exertions of these efficient men, a stop will shortly be put
to such nefarious practices.—Fermanaga Reporter.

EFFECTS OF A STRIAE . —The blacksmiths have returned
to their work, and the strike is at an end, all parties haying
lost a good deal of money by the movement. A number of
platers, &c., employed in iron shipbuilding, are still going
about unemployed, having been paid off in consequence of
the strike having cause' their masters to decline contracts.
In addition to the sum mentioned by us some time ago as
having been lost to the community by the einduct of the
workmen, a shipbuilding and engineering firm has been
obliged to give up contracts for two very large screw
steamers, the building and fit ing out of which would
have been worth upwards of XlOO,OOO to the town. The
ships are now in progress in the North of England,—
Greenock Advertiser.

CUAROE or MURDER. =On SaturdaLeveninz, Inspector
Rankine received information, at the Calton Police-office,
that a woman named Elixabeth Kelly had been murdered
by her husband, Peter Kelly, 63, Canning-street. Ou
proceeding to the room in which the event was said to
have occurred, he found the woman lying on, the floor,
with blood issuing from her mouth and nose. It would
appear that shortly before Kelly's mother, an old woman,
had left the room for the purpose of attending some
household duties, and when going Kelly and his wife were
sitting on each side of the fire—the wife nursing a chil t.
While the old woman rwai sliti heard the child scream,
and on returning to learn the 2ause of its cries she saw
deceased lying on the floor, -with her head jammed into
an iron pot, and the accuse 4 sitting where she had left
him. The man is in c,,isto iy, and the police seeking
inquiries as to whether ;he death of the woman resulted
from violeece or was acetidental. It has been alleged that
the deceased and her husband bad been quarrelling pre-
viously, but his 'm9tjter denies the statement.—Glasgow
Mail.

'VHS 3112610 N LUADER.—He is a poely man of middle
height, 'anparently about fifty-four ; his face bespeaks strong
vmmdit sense, and when in the prayer he was spoken of as
the ',prophet and revelator," I tried, but in vain, to dis-
cover any sign of contempt in his countenance: After the
rJain diseourse be spoke for a few minutes; he complained
that men would come to his house. without any sufficient
object, and that women would come and ask for sister
Young (which?), and then try to see over the house, and
the thing had become a nuisance; he had lost shirts; his
wives bad lost articles of dress. There were capacious
offices for the transaction of business, to which strangers
could come; friends he should always be happy to see at
his own house, but he wished to warn all present that he
had just received from London a new pair of boots, with
particularly strong toes, and that he shoul.d not scruple to
use them on intruders. He theti—l forget how—turned
aside to the subject of inspiration, and how, because the
American people would not believe in visions and spirits,
" God had sent them a strong delusion that they should
believe a lie and those who rjected Joseph were now
deluged with evil spirits ; with this be concluded. The
last remark I did not undPrstand, but on inquiry found the
allusion was to table turning, which Mormons refer to the
agency of evil spirits, permitted and even sent forth to de. I
ceive the "eetarian world."— pfie to eh. Salt Lakcs

WEST INDIA AND PACIFIC MAILS.

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.

SOUTHAMPTON-TUESDAY.

At a late bout' last night, the Royal Mail Steamer
Atraio, Captain Wordy, arrived with the West
Indian, Mexican, and Pacific mails.

The Atrato brings 17(3 passengers and 956,000 dollars
on merchants' accounts. Her dates are—Havana, Deme.
ram, and Trinidad, June 9th ; Granada and Barbadoes,
10th; Jamaica, 11th; Porto Rico, 15th; and St. Thomas,
16th. Yellow fever was raging at St. Thomas amongst
the shipping, a few cases only appearing on shore. The
Atrato lost by death, at St. Thomas, eight of her crew, and
at sea four others. Among the latter were Lieut. Shaw,
RN., adtniralty agent, and the fourth engineer. Four
bands left behind in the hospital. The crew numbered
133, out of whom there had been 40 cases of yellow fever
—ll proving fatal. The rains at Jamaica have brightened
the prospects of a large stip'. crop. The island was
healthy and markets generally dull. Exchange as last
quoted. The sugar crop at Grenada is excessive. At
Demerara the weather was wet and unfavourable. Sugar
scarce and much inquired for. Freights dull.