The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-05-21 00:00:00

nature; prefer
holes: ..-.7arrie 'bodies ari
whilst others are not so

conduct electricity. The metals
electricity, but of. various grades.

perfect co:iductor
prObably the w: wA.en we wish to ele.ctri
ball, we mount it upon a stem of shell lac. Those
stances which do conduct electricity, are called elet
and those wl.ich do not conduct it, are called non-eh.
Now, the metals are as much entitled to be called ele
a pi-ee Of glass, because by rubbing them we v-
as highly electric as glass, prolided you pro
the non-escape-of the electricity which excited.
person stands.upon any substance of glass or resin,
to be insulated, the air, and glass, and resins being n,.
ductors, and he 'night be saturated with electricity, so
sparks will be .emitted from his body which would se"
of wine on fire. If he were standing upon a mass
result would be the same. The electricity ols'.
piece of sealing wax 'behaves differently fro,-
we obtain from a piece of rla

and suspend it by ax i
will first attract the fe
it, and we may Chas

it about

attrac

a make

the eleetr

it, and afterwards repel the feather in the samo
if the feather is first , saturated with the electricity of
wax, and the excited glass he then applied, instead of rep,
ling the feather, it willattract it, proving that the electricit,
produced by the glass is of a different nature to that
produced by the wax. The one we therefore call
vitreous, and the other,. resinous, electricity, and the
electrometer enables us to indicate the particular class.
This is done by holding a piece of sealing wax to the
electrometer, and if the leaves open- still more it will
prove that the • electricity is resinous and not nitreous. As
glass is a posit:Pre electri'e and wax a negative, we can by this
means easily ascertain to which Species any substance may
belong. If a brass hall be mounted upon a glass rod and
placed. near the electrifying machine, it willbecome electri-
fied, and the portion of the ball near to the machine will be-
come negatively electrified provided the machinnis a positive
electric, and the portion opposed to it will be positively elec-
trified. This will he the case whatever body may intervene,
as electricity 'ean•penetrate all bodies. The centre of a con-
ductor is neutral, there is no electricity excited there, as may
be proved by placing pith balls over it. So much so that if
• the centre of a conductor be taken out when the conductor
is changed with electricity it will not open the leaves of an
electrometer. We cannot perform any electrical experiments
without electrifying the air and every thing in the room. In
deed we could• electrify a portion of the' air in a room an
bring • down the electricity as lightning by a conductor. When
lamps are burning.
prone to pass throat,.
paper shavings in the air
we shall be able by means of
tricity down from the air.
by what are called d'
which electrici;. -
situation ; and when the pith figures are well constructed
they appear as if aisisnated. The active portion of electricity
is superficial. It Vlattth-s, not therefore what may be the
thickness of our conductors or receiver,—superficial surface
is ail that we require. This is beautifully shown by enclos-
ing an electrified metallic ball
hemispheres, when it will be fou.,
will be taken away front the bail L
two hemispheres being -alhneable to ac
We cannot take any eieetrieity from th
receiver—thus, if commun'

!y rarifyTtlic

ji

is mad

3. electricity is very

en, we electify some

3. buia spirits of wine

a conductor to bring

Lr then

electricity

le surface of any

y to a c

tectricit
it Call bz,

coal scuttle, we shell find t
exterior but not in the int
by means_ of the electrometer
tion is similar to that of the attr

every description of attraction acting from
that they dianMsoed in natensty
squares of the distance in(
been devised .by Mr. Harr
law with respec., to the utti
of a small metallic receivci
of electricity, a given num
required to fiii a large, r
placed a delicate pair of
are placed a number of w

A. beat

. .
tance to which the other scale
electric conductor, and as the

upon th

ceiver mu he counted,
the obedience of th 6 lasV of
log the other species of att
(painted.

It would appear thia the Popo. ilas rued to :,raction the
rnarri*e of the Duke do iitolibri.g with the iiaughter of
the 'Emperor o Ittissia, liCL':111S0 he hilt: engaged 4.0 bring up
his children in the Greelirclii;ion. •

ottrp.

PRAY NOT FOR THE DEAD

(From the Atheneum)
Pray not for the dead ! Alas, alas ! the prayer
So often poured in bitterness of heart,
In the first fullness of the soul's despair,
Over the grave of loved ones, who depart •
And leave us mourning, shall we not confess
And know and feel its utter worthlessness?

Pray for the young ! That they may live and learn,
And hallow their Creator's name, and love
The creatures he hath made ; and so return
The spirit to its resting-place above,
To God who gave it; and the dust to dust,
Whence it was taken—pray for them and trust.

Pray for the weary and the sick at heart,
For these bowed down by sorrow's heavy weight ;
Pray that the God of patience may impart
His own good spirit to_the...desolate ;
And pray that those who sow in tears may reap
In joy unchanging—pray for them and weep.
Pray for the sinner—for the weak and blind ;
For them. who will not, or who cannot pray—
Pray that the poor benighted ones may find
A !tar to light the darkness of their way ;
The troubled spirit, the repentant tear,
May yet be theirs—then pray for them and fear.

Pray for the dying, that their end be peace—
Pray for the mourners who beside them kneel ;
Pray that the worn and aching heart may cease
To suffer, though it may not cease to feel ;
And oh ! that sorrow may not pass away
And leave those hearts unchastened, deeply pray !

But pray not for the dead, nor weep nor sigh—
Ye cannot know, ye cannot change their doom ;
For as the tree bath fallen, it must lie.
In lowliness of spirit, by the tomb,
Kneel down, and tears of contrite sorrow shed ;
Pray for the living—pray not for the dead.

THE REPLY OF THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE
TO THE LAST EDUCATIONAL EPISTLE OF
LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

" Well done !" my Lord John, thou bast neatly play'd
The statesman's part—that motion was well tim'd—
it was the knell of the expiring church, and thou
Shalt be remembered at the Vatican
When Popes do reign in England. Softly on,
And we shall wreck them. Oh ! how finely plann'd—
To rob the arch-prelate's meeting of its lustre
And then to clutch the grant ! All still at Oxford,—
.A.v, and at Cambridge too—no mouse is stirring—
We'll take 'em in their sleep, or, if perchance
The wake, the deed is done, and all is over !

Methinks 1 see my Priestley rise again
To hear our story. He listens to the tale
With silent rapture—bishops and churches fall,
Tithes cease, and church-rates are no more.
Oh ! how it glads them to enjoy the sight
Of wandering curates and of exiled parsons!
Philosophers ascend the pulpit, and their text
Is rerolution—changing was his pleasure,
And now he sees its triumph—versions old' and new—
The Rhemish and the Douay—above all
The unitarian—papists, dissenters, churchmen,
Ali learn at once, and all confound each other :
'Tis Babel—hut that Babel charms his ear.

These are thy glorious works, parent of mischief
To the parsons—thine this scheme of ruin
To England's church ! 0, Russell, thy forefathers
Did rob the church of Rome, and thou repay'st
The debt thou owest. Wyse and O'Connell wait
To take thy offering. Thrice thirty thousand
Were but a scantling of thy obligation.
Hash ! and we'll take the whole—not one mite-wanting
Of centuries yet unpaid; but silence—hush !
Stanley and Peel do watch our footsteps—hush !
Once get the grant, and we'll be cowards no longer.

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

THE QUEEN'S MISTAKE.

The Queen can do no wrong, says the " old saw,"
but Lord Melbourne, in the shape of a " modern in-
stance," very unequivocally declared that the Queen
may occasionally lie under a pretty considerable mis-
take. " The statement," says Lord Viscount Mel-
bourne, " was, that Sir Robert Peel had required the
power of dismissing the ladies of the household, not
stating the extent to which he would put it in execu-
tion, but leaving it on her Majesty's mind that he
meant to carry it out, to a very great extent. He did
not say that the statement itself was erroneous, but that
he now believed the impression on her Majesty's mind to
have been erroneous."

So then, all her Majesty's high-minded determina-
tion—her Majesty's noble resolution—her Majesty's
bold defiance of the tyrant tories—her Majesty's touch-
ing appeal to the sympathies of her people—sweet sym-
pathisers that they are !—her Majesty's heroic self-de-
votion to the cause of liberality—her Majesty's mag-
nanimous resistance to the demands of an overbearing
faction—her Majesty's devoted fidelity to the friends of
her Majesty's early youth, and so forth—all the stage-
tricks and touching tableaux exhibited during the last
week to the admiring eyes of her Majesty's faithful
subjects on the boards of Buckingham-place—have
been mere moonshine and misconception—mere error
and false apprehension—simply and absolutely a politi-
cal flash in the pan !
It was all a mistake ! If her Majesty had not sup-
posed that you meant to go a great deal farther than
the removal of Lady Normanby and the Hon. Ladies
Howard—if her Majesty had not, by an unfortunate
obtuseness of understanding, failed-to—pere-eive that
your objections were directed Only against these ladies,
and the slandereis of Lady Flora Hastings—if, in a
word, her Majesty had not been as dull of apprehen-
sion as she has proved herself resolved of will, we ne-
ver would have advised-her to write the note she did to
Sir Robert Peel !

Let it not be supposed that, although we have sup-
plied the clothing of language to these ideas, the sen-
timents or the statements are ours. They are the state-
ments of Lord Viscount Melbourne in his place in the
House of Lords. The sentiments are his own. He
says the Queen was wrong. He declares that she was
in error. He admits he was himself led astray by her
Majesty's—what shall we say:?—stupidity, or miscon-
ception, or want of habituation to business ?—we can
find no language so apt as his own, and we therefore
use it—by the " erroneous impression on her Majesty's
mind."

Her Majesty, says Lord Melbourne, erroneously
imagined that Sir Robert Peel desired the dismissal of
her whole household—that Sir Robert Peel meant to
act up to the system of his predecessors in office, and
was resolved, to use Lord Melbourne's own words,
not to let an opposition cat mew about the palace ;"
and so, under this erroneous impression, her Majesty
conveyed her ideas of the affair to her advisers; and
they, having her Majesty's authority for the presump-
tion, and takino- it for granted that there would be an
entire turning of the tables if Peel got in, dictated that
short and dry communication which compelled the new
administration to throw up their engagement,
It simply comes to this—that Lord Melbourne has
found it necessary to open a door for the re-admission
of Sir Robert Peel ; and the course he takes is to al-
lege that the whole matter was a mistake, not of his
own, but of her Majesty.
We protest we do not believe it. We believe the
truth of the matter to be this : that but for a moment-
ary hope of reconciling the radicals, there never would
have been one word of dissent to the customary mi-
nisterial arrangements in the household; that in a
moment of renewed hope, springing from the fallacious
prospect of a radical coalition, this despicable experi-
ment was struck out by some of the more practised
intriguers of the Cabinet; that the hopes of radical
assistance having since vanished, and Peel's return to
power being now as inevitable as ever, some pretext
must be found to secure a second retreat ; that the
readiest-pretext is to say, oh ! it is all a mistake ; and
that the cry, not of peccavimus, but of erravimus, has
been raised accordingly.
But was it fair or manly to make the Queen their

scape-goat ?

GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WHIG PETTICOAT
PENSIONERS.
(From the Bolton Chronicle.

If ever a nation was degraded by her ministers,
England at present is. The true principles of politics,
and the.most imperative demands of morals are alike
unheeded. We are burdened by a body of men who
possess neither talent, integrity, nor the public confi-
denec—,-men who have hurt religion, encouraged pro-
fligacy, defied decency,
.and betrayed the people. The
court is corrupted—the throne compromised. The
highest situations of public life, from which good ex-
amples and the sternest probity should flow, contribute
only baseness and profligacy to the funds of 'rational-
government.' In spite of the votes of the people's re-
presentatives, the whigs still dare to insult the nation
by resuming the reins of office. Are we Pagans, that
we endure further aggressions upon the Christian
faith ? Are we debased so far that our morals resem-
ble more the code of conduct patronised by Mingrelian
barbarians, than the upright rules of society adopted
and enforced in a civilized land ? - Are we so indiffe-
rent to the dearest interests of the country that we
permit them to be sacrificed for the sake of a few gos-
sipping women, who happen to be the owners of cer-
tain pretty coronets ? We verily believe it would ,be
no disadvantageous exchange, did the whig ministry
take the places of the ladies of the bedchamber, and
the ladies of the bedchamber become ministers of
fe, and form themselves into a political petticoat go-
The only difference would be, that instead
of having a parcel of old women to rule over us, we
should be enabled to • console ourselves under the in-
flictions of whiggery, by knowing that our tormentors
were perhaps young and " fair to look upon."
But one point in the late contemptible proceedings is
deserving of strict attention. It is this. The whigs,
finding the Commons adverse to their colonial policy
regarding the Jamaica-House of Assembly, resigned.
'Fhe Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel were
called upon to construct a new administration. The
evil intrigues of one or two female relatives of the whigs
:suggeste.cl to the Duke and Sir Robert the necessity
for their dismissal, in order that the policy of the new
overnment might not be subjected to the adverse re,
present4tiOnS which .such parties might be instructed- to
ilialig. to the, eaueen their mistress. Her Majesty
lc cnbtlesa acting- in erecordcive with her_ own free will.
(1, c1.,k4: to di4itain—lfziVe 01104:0170.tgiklaie,Aa9k.:.
<-7--N.,,,,,,, oui Sir Robert, Witi.7manlTTiromptness, in-
.414-A*44l'9es to form a ministry. The whigs, there-
It
ji
4.t, r:c r nt, 4 office ; but how they are to retain it,
' ''tvleii-"4,(6):i Avn admission, implied in their resig-
(
Trl.:. Aitilii.J;,,t'`e.,ailudyi,is unfavourable to them—nay, ein-
e. el':b4it.ik,4l
' - AgOletetminedly opposed to their rascally
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