The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-11-12 00:00:00

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MISCELLANEOUS.

Bath is rapidly filling, and there is every prospect of a
flourishing season.
We have authority to contradict the report that Sir Thos.
Lethbridge will be a candidate at the next election for our
city.—Bath Gazette.
A smart shock of an earthquake was experienced at Gratz,
in Styria, towards the latter part of last month. No acci-
dent, however, is recorded.
Mr. Villiers, M.P. for 'Wolverhampton, has lately been
confined to a sick bed, but is now so much better as to be
enabled to attend to his important local duties.
His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge, attended
by Col. Cornwall, will make a short sejourin Paris, en route
from Berne. The prince has been 15 months performing
the grand tour.

Spohr is composing a symphony for the Philharmonic
concerts, in which he will give specimens of the styles of
various composers from S. Bach to the present time.
Mrs. Fitzwilliam has made her courtesy to the Americans,
at the Park Theatre, and has proved a decided favourite.
Every night she played the house was crowded.
Rodwell, the composer, son-in-law of Liston, has a new
opera, accepted by the lessee of Drury-lane. It is to be
called the Maid of Saragossa, and it is to be produced after
Christmas.

CHATSWORTH.—The intended visit of the Duke of De-
vonshire to his estates in Ireland is postponed sine die, and
it is doubtful whether his grace will go to Ireland until next
year.

A bill to abolish capital punishments has been introduced
into the house of representatives of Vermont.
Bone manure is now extensively used upon grass land, par-
ticularly in Cheshire ; and the improvement it makes on clay
soils is wonderful.
A new bank, called the Alliance Bank, has this week com-
menced business in Manchester. It has arisen out of the
ashes of the Northern Central.
Robert Dale Owen, son of Mr. Robert °vim, the social-
ist, is spoken of as the probable candidate for governor of In-
diana, at the next election.—American paper.
M. Litz, the celebrated German pianist, has given the sum
of £2400 the produce of his savings, towards completing the
subscription opened for a monument to Beethoven.
Lord Rolle on Wednesday attained the 89th year of his
age, upon which occasion the neighbouring gentry congratu-
lated his lordship at Bicton Park.
Thalberg, on Tuesday last, had the honour of performing
some of his most admired productions before the queen, and
the whole of her majesty's distinguished visitors and suite.
VERY PACIFIC.—We have been told that a house in this
town has received an order from the Paella of Egypt for 200
tons of bullets to be sent out immediately.—Glasgow Chron.
A Swedish government schooner has arrived at Havre,
bringing some magnificent porphyry, vases, and other valuable
objects, which have been sent as presents by the King of Swe-
den to King Louis Phillipe.
A man has been discovered in Alabama who is so short that
he cannot see the sun shine. Another man in New Orleans
has drunk so much and so habitually, that his throat has been
entirely worn away.
Too BAD.—A shoemaker at Lynn, Mass. the place where
they shovel so many shoes together, and so fast, lately
whipped one of of his apprentices almost to death because"
he could not hang up the shoes as fast as his master made
them !

There is said to be a woman in Centre-street, New York,
who takes in children to wash. She gives them a good scrub-
bing with soap and sand, and then sets them in the sun to
dry. She washes at four shillings per dozen.
A new list of subscription to the metropolis church fund
has just been published, to the amount of £5OOO, making a
total of £136,000 already subscribed towards the erection of
fifty new churches.
It is rather curious that the chairman and secretaries of the
meeting to erect a splendid theatre in this city, to cost
£350,000 dollars, were editors. The subscribers to the stock
we fancy will come from other professions.—New York
"Era.

The Cheltenham Free Press, which has shown itself well-
informed on many similar occasions, asserts that the hoax of
Lord Brougham's death was, beyond any doubt, a ga►nbling
affair, and that immense sums of money changed hands on
the occasion.

Cuiuous IDEA.-At the last 4th July the following toast
was given at a western celebration :—" The wretch who would
refuse to defend the liberties of his country—Shod with light-
ning, may he be condemned to wander over a desert of gun-
powder.'

REMARKABLE PRODUCE FROM A SINGLE POTATOE.—
Mr. Thomas Slater, of Withington Cottage, near Manches-
ter, has grown this season, from a single potatoe of the
French kind (which was cut into ten sets), the enormous
weight of 8-llbs, which were grown upon four square yards of
land.

The late Duke of Argyll has died far from wealthy. His
grace's entailed estates descend to the present duke ; but his
personal property has been bequeathed to Miss Campbell, a
relative, who resided with his grace at the time of his unex-
pected demise.
ARCHIBALD BOLAM.—It appears from the report of the
finance committee of the borough of Newcastle, made on
Wednesday, that the costs incurred in the prosecution of
Bolam amounted to £3,580, which must be paid out of the
borough fund.
Mr. J. Fennimore Cooper has a work in press in Philadel-
phia, entitled, " The Patte Finder • or, Our Inland Seas."
It would seem that he proposes to dabble a little in his old
trade, notwithstanding his new vocation as supervisor of the.
press.—New York Paper.
IMMENSE POTATO.—The largest potato we have yet heard
of this season, was sent to our district office on Friday last
(Ist inst.) It measured 16/ inches by 14 inches, and weigh-
ed 2/ lbs. It was of the White Martin kind, and appeared
to be quite sound. It had been grown on the farm of Clen-
dry, in Kirkcolm.—Dumfries Times.
RE-OPENING OF THE MONUMENT.—The Monument,
which has been closed since the last melancholy suicide, was,
by order of the City Lands Committee, again thrown open
to the public on Tuesday morning. Two men are in future
to be placed opposite the door at the top of the staircase,
whose duty it will be to keep watch upon the visitors. One
man will remain from eight till four o'clock. The' 'iron'
railing has had no addition made to it.
DEVONPORT ELECTION.—Mr. Tuffuell,the whig underling,
is to be opposed. The conservatives have publicly announced
the speedy appearance of " a gentleman well known to the
electors" as a candidate on " conservative principles." This
gentleman is reported to be Mr. George Dawson, who, when
secretary of the admiralty, in 1835, unsuccessfully contested
the borough with Sir George Grey and Sir. Edward Codring-
ton.—Hampshire Telegraph.
LUXURIANCE OF THE YAZOO SOIL.—The ordinary
height of cotton on the Yazoo praires is six feet. It is com-
mon to see thirty pods on a stalk. An average crop is from
one bale and a half to two bales an acre. As many as three
bales have been raised on an acre. Other plants grow with
like luxuriance. Corn grows to a prothigious height, yield-
ing a double abundance. The Yazoo Union boasts of a
sweet potatoe, raised in the neighbourhood, which measured
13 inches in circumference, and 1.2 in length. All of the
vegetable productions are on the mammoth order.—New
fork Paper.
STEAM VESSELS.—A short time since we noticed an in-
vention of Captain George Smith for saving the lives of the
passengers and crews of steam-vessels in cases of wreck, burn-
ing, &c., by means of extra boats, which, by this contrivance,
steam-vessels are enabled to carry without being in the least
incommoded, the boats forming a covering to each paddle-
box, and easily lowered in case of necessity. The Firefly
steamer is now lying off Woolwich Dock-yard, fitted on
Captain Smith's principle, with a life-boat over each pad-
dle-wheel, capable of containing 50 person's • she is a man-
of-war steamer, and is bound for the West Indies.—Times.

DUKE OF ARGYLL.—BREACH OF: PROMISE.—As Lord
John Campbell has now succeeded to the Dukedom of Ar-
gyll, we understand he requires to pay to the beautiful and
accomplished Miss Logan the sum of £5OOO, in addition to
the former sum of £lO,OOO, awarded against him for breach
of promise of marriage.—lbid.

IT IS TO BE!—We stated some time ago that Mr. Lock-
hart was about to lead to the hymeneal altar the celebrated
Miss Burdett Coutts, daughter of the late " Old Glory of
Westminster :" we have great pleasure in now stating that
the arrangements are nearly complete, and that the worthy
heiress is devoted to the accomplished author.—She ieldlris.
A CONVERT TO CHARTISM.—A change has taken place
in the editorship and in the principles of the Perth Chronicle,
which are now declared to be those of chartism. Last week,
the new editor, in making his bow to his readers, unfurls the
banner of universal suffrage, which, he states, is henceforth
to form the sumnium bonum, to the attainment of which the
efforts of his paper are to he directed.—Strathmore Journal.

The intended divorce of a baronet's widow, wife of a foreign
marquis, is much talked of, and occasions the reflection that
it would have been quite as well had the parties decided on
the legality of the marriage before the solemnization; particu-
larly as we are 'credibly informed that her ladyship is already
" a fiancle" in anticipation of the decision of the gentlemen
of the long robe and his Holiness the Pope. The gentleman,
who also is deeply interested in the result of this fashionable
cause, is the son of a noble earl, and brother to a noble
countess who reigns predominant in the coteries of Almack's.
—Morning Post.

NORTHERN AND EASTERN AND MIDLAND COUNTIES
RAILWAY.-Mr. Robert Stephenson, having been called
upon to report upon the present and future prospects of the
former railway, recommends that, instead of continuing it
directly northward to York, through a thinly populated dis-
trict, it should be carried from Cambridge by Peterborough,
Stamford, Oakham, and Melton, and form a junction with
the Midland Counties Railway ; about half way between
Loughborough and Leicester ' thus connecting the manufac-
turing towns of Birmingham, Nottingham, Derby, and Lei-
cester, with Cambridge and the eastern agricultural districts.

A del-h
PAPIST LIBERALITY.—Lord
..as refused to re-
new the lease, about to expire, of land on which a dissenting
chapel, at Tisbury, in Wiltshire, is built. This refusal,
which is supposed to arise from vexation at certain attacks
upon the abominations of popery from the pulpit of the cha-
pel, is stigmatised by the Morning Chronicle as excessively
Illiberal. "We will suppose (says the Chronicle) the coun-
try Ireland, and the estate belonging to a Protestant, who
refuses to renew the lease of a Catholic chapel. We ask
Lord Arundel, or his father confessor, if that refusal would
not be a piece of injustice? lf, for instance, the Duke of
Devonshire were to say, There shall be no Catholic chapel
suffered on my estates in Ireland,' what an outcry would
justly be raised! But is it one whit less unfair, if the coun-
try be England, and the owner a Catholic peer, who refuses
to renew the lease of a chapel in which the dissenters of the
neighbourhood have assembled for centuries? Tisbury is
situated on a small stream, one of the feeders of the Avon,
and some thirteen or fourteen miles from Salisbury ; and the
chapel is an interesting object to all who visit that delightful
part of Wiltshire. To the descendant's of the Puritans, who
worship under its roof, it must be endeared by the most
powerful associations. Shame, then, on Lord Arundel, we
say, for this violence offered to the feelings of his dissenting
neighbours !"

A CORN-LAW AGITATOR DEFEATED.—Mr. Something
(we forget what) the secretary to the Manchester Anti-Corn-
law Association, is at present performing a tourin the Midland
Counties, with a view to agitate the public mind on the sub-
ject of the corn-laws. It is not a little remarkable, however,
that be studiously eschews the very threshold of any impor-
tant town, his orders and labours being evidently confined to
the villages, the clod-hoppers and ale-house politicians of
which he is endeavouring to instruct as to the effect which
would result from a repeal of the corn-laws. On Friday last,
however, he encountered a signal defeat at Smethwick, near
this town. Mr. Fussell, the late leader of the Bull-ring
rioters, repaired to Smethwick, and having heard the Man-
chester lecturer on his favourite subject, he replied in such
stringent and convincing terms, and displayed the fallacy of
the lecturer's reasoning so vividly that the " sweet-voices" of
those who had previously applauded the corn-law agitators
were turned in a different direction. The lecturer was sig-
nally overthrown, and was compelled to retire amid the hisses,
groans, and laughter of the assembly. Only three hands were
held up in his favour. We hear it is his intention to visit
Stourbridge, Dudley, and Kidderminster. If he values the
safety of his manuscript we would advise him to keep from
the latter town. The carpet weavers of Kidderminster have
an inveterate antipathy to gentlemen of his calibre. Two
unfavourable harvests have tested the vision of the cheap
labour, cheap manufacturing schemers. A two year's free
trade in corn has drained England of eight millions of sove-
reigns instead of our manufactures.—Ten Towns Messenger.