The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-09-03 00:00:00

DELIRIUM TREMENS.—One of the most frightful mala-
dies consequent upon the abuse of vinous or spiritous drinks,
is delirium tremens, which bears with it a melancholy train
of symptoms which are closely allied to some of the most
aggravated forms of disease which the sad catalogue of human
afflictions presents us with. Some time previous to the de-
velopement of this disorder, there are observed weakness,
languor, emaciation ; there is no appetite for breakfast or
for dinner ; there is a peculiar slowness of the pulse, cold-
ness of the hands and feet, a cold moisture over the whole
surface of the body, cramp in the muscles of the extremities,
giddiness, nausea, vomiting. To these signs succeed a ner-
vous tremor of the hands, and likewise of the tongue ; the
spirits become dejected, a melancholy feeling pervades the
mind; the sleep is short and interrupted: this may consti-
tute the first stage; after which a second comes on, attended
with the highest degree of nervous irritation, ending in
mental alienation. Objects of the most frightful nature are
present to the imagination ; the eye acquires a striking wild-
ness ; the person cannot lie down ; he fancies he see faces of
extreme hideousness before him, beings enter into a con-
spiracy against him : sleep is altogether banished. This dis-
order sometimes burst forth after a debauch with tremen-
dous violence, and in an unmanageable form ; it is some-
times characterized, by the exhibition of a furious delirium ;
the eyes become ferrety, the perspiration enormous, and the
want of sleep is almost painful to the attendant. Oftentimes
the paroxysm is of a melancholy kind : the appearance of
the sufferer is very striking from his total helplessness ; his
incoherence of ideas, and his refusal to drink, which pro-
duces almost as striking an effect of hydrophobia, excite the
utmost alarm. Death is sometimes sudden. Dr, Pearson
witnessed a distressing incident in a patient who, fora consi-
derable time before his death, imagined he saw the devil at
the ceiling above his bed; and as the disease increased, he
fancied the evil spirit approached him with a knife to cut his
throat, and actually expired making violent efibrts to avoid
the fatal instrument.—Dr. Signiond on Tea.

TUNNEL THROUGH THE ALPS.—M. Volt Zaninota, the
able engineer of Como, who, in conjuction with M. Brus-
chetti, of Milan, obtained, in 1837, from the Austrian go-
vernment, a privilege of fifty years, for the construction of
a railroad between Milan and Como, is now negociating with.
the Swiss cantons of the Grisons and St.. Gall an enterprise
which would far exceed in magnitude the Thames Tfinnel,-,---
viz. the piercing through the Grisons' Alps. Impressed with
the commercial importance of the passage of the Spulgen,
and at the same time with the various obstacles Which it pre-
sents, he thinks it possible to pierce through that mountain,
and establish in the passage thus effected a railroad, the
northern portion of which would end either at Wallenstadt,
or even at Schmerikon, on the lake of Zurich ; and the
southern would be connected with the Como and Milan rail-
road. M. Volta does not dissemble the expense and difecul-
ties of such an undertaken, but insists on the immense ad-
vantages that would accrue from a horizontal road, accessible
at all times, and not nearly so long and fatiguing as the pre-
sent one. As galleries above half a league long have already
been bored, he deems that there is no reason why longer
ones still should not be pierced. An examination has proved
that the granite rocks to be gone through can be easily blown
up, and that by a new process the operation may be rendered
easier still. M. Volta, reckoning that thirty years will be
required to execute the works, demands an exclusive privi-
lege of a hundred years, with liberty to establish companies
in order to procure funds, or to transfer his privilege to other
parties. In return he engages to execute 8,000 metres in
the course of five years, and the whole line, crossing the ter-
ritory of the Grisons and Saint Gall, in thirty years. More-
over M. Volta engages to pay 10,000 francs into the cantonal
coffers of the poor for every 'year of unjustified delay in the
construction of the first kilometre, or proportionately in the
completion of the whole road over the Swiss territory, or
else to resign entirely his privilege.

A Foun YEARS' FAST.—The subject of the narrative is a
young woman, of the parish of Largs, at present in her 19th
year, blooming with health and beauty. When about nine
years of age, she fell into bad health, the most prominent
symptom of which was a headache of the most painful nature,
very inveterate, and difficult to relieve ; along with the head-
ache, their were other symptoms of disordered constitution
—a rapid pulse and deficient appetite, &c. But to detail all
the varying symptomsof her lengthened illness is not the ob-
ject of this letter—that description falls more properly under
the province of the physician. It is enough to mention that
at one time she was supposed to be the threatened with water
in the head—at another the liver and bowels were supposed
to be the seat of her disease. After being seen by many
medical men, and undergoing various modes of treatment for
two or three years without any amelioration of her disease,
it was candidly admitted by the usual medical attendant,
that the only hope of a cure rested in the change that might
be produced on the subject of the case into womanhood. At
this time she wasfrom 11 to 12 years of age, her appetite had
completely failed, and her whole sustenance began to be de-
rived from a glass of whiskey in a teacupful of hot water,
sweetened with two teaspoonfuls of sugar. The quantity was
taken three times daily, with not so much as a mouthful of so-
lid food or milk, everything when swallowed being immedi-
ately ejected from the stomach, with the exception of the
above mixture of whiskey, wa! er, and sugar. There might at
long intervals, be a slight deviation from the above, when a
single mouthful of solid food occasionally rested on the
stomach; but without exaggeration, I must say, that for four
years her whole sustenance was derived from the above
mixture of whiskey water and sugar ; and although her form
was slender, yet she grew in stature, was never confined to
bed, nor within doors, except for a few weeks, when the spine
becoming slightly affected, she was obliged to take a slightly
recumbent position, to prevent curvature of the spinal column.
Suffice to say, that in process of time, nature did what neither,
man nor medicine could accomplish. The young woman is
now well, hale, and hearty. The being accustomed so long
to the daily use of ardent spirits, has left no baneful habit—
she is as abstemious as the most moral of her set.' Although
' a moderate eater nothing comes wrong to her in the shape of
solid or liquid nourishment. If any -feel sceptical of the
truth of the above statements, they can he testified by the
family of the young woman, who are respectableby the
medical gentleman who attended her—as well as by many in-
dividuals in the neighbourhood, who aware of the above facts,
were induced to visit the young woman from motives of curi-
osity.—Ayr Observer.

Fleetwood is now made a port, with Preston, Poulton, and
Lytham for its creeks. It is now separated from Lancaster.
Several of the Prussian officers who have been employed
in the army of the Sultan as disciplinarians and teachers of
tactics have met their death during the battle of Nezib from
the Turkish troops, who are stated to have shot them out of
a feeling of revenge for the severity of the discipline intro-
ducced by them.

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.—We received last night
another long report of the proceedings of the British Asso-
ciation. After very calm and steady consideration, we are
determined not to publish any more of these reports except
as advertisements. It is impossible that any reporter not
acquainted with all the subjects can give an accurate narra-
tive of the lectures and discussions, and an inaccurate one is
worse than useless ; it puzzles and misleads. Besides, we
have, we confess, a great contempt for this mode of dispen-
sing knowledge, where beef and botany, champagne and
chemistry, geology and goose-liver pies, are discussed toge-
ther to the great confusion of the digestive faculties both of
the intellect and the stomach. Every thing in its place.
We like dancing, but should be sorry to see a grave elder of
the Society of Friends.figuring away in flesh-coloured inex-
pressibles, in order to exemplify the simplicity of nature.
We admire astronomical science, but do not wish to see one
of its professors gorging himself, almost to bursting, with
truffle-stuffed turkeys, in illustration of the prodigal profu-
sion of the Milky Way. A Quaker may dance, but let it be
in private ; a philosopher may gormandize, but let it be in
his own dining-room. Neither religion nor science will be
advanced by the public exhibition of these undignified, though
perhaps natural, propensities. But, joking apart, we have
felt from the beginning that there is a great deal of folly and
humbug in the concoction and objects of this pretended sci-
entific association ; and latterly, we have had reason to think
that there is something worse—we mean that cross-jobbing
has tainted the administration of the society. We shall,
perhaps, have occasion to say a few words on this subject.
Meantime, we shall conclude by quoting the words of a
friend, that " the systematic concealment of important in-
formation from those who are called upon to decide, and the
support which men of high character and station have, by
cajolery, been duped into giving to contemptible measures,',
have disgraced the society, and paralyzed all its powers of
usefulness. We believe that Sir John Herschell, Mr. Bab,
huge, and Mr. Sedgwick, among others, have withdrawn
their motet et) from the Aseociationg—Twf,

CANAL LOCKS.—The canal locks did not detain us long—
they never lose time in America. When the boat entered
the lock, and the gate was closed upon, her, the _water was
let off with a rapidity which considerably affected her level,
and her bow pointed downwards. I timed a lock with a fall
of fifteen feet—from the time the gate was closed behind us
until the lower one was opened for our egress was exactly
one minute and a quarter.—Marryat's .Diary.—[On the ca-
nals here, with only eight feet of fall per lock, the time taken
to pass a boat is from three to four minutes.]
FALLING STARS.—During the night of Friday and Satur-
day last, the 9th and 10th of August, the heavens were be-
strewed with little falling stars of extraordinary brightness.
Mr. Forster counted above 600 of "them. It is not a little
singular, that the peasants of Franconia and Saxony have be-
lieved for ages past, that St. Lawrence weeps tears of fire,
which fall from the sky every year on his fete (the 10th of
August.) This ancient popular German tradition, on obser-
vation, has been found within these few years to be a fact,
which engages the attention of astronomers. The inhabitants
of Brussels can bear witness, that, in the night of the 10th
this year, Saint Lawrence shed abundance of tears.—Brussels
Paper.

WINE.—Good wine is a cordial, a good cordial, a fine sto-
machic, and, taken at its proper season, invigorates mind
and body, and gives life an additional charm. There can be
found no substitute for the fermented liquors that can ena-
ble man to sustain the mental and bodily labour which the
artificial habits of society so constantly demand. Tempe-
rance and moderation are virtues essential to our happiness,
but a total abstinence from the enjoyments which the boun-
teous hand of nature has provided is as unwise as it is un-
grateful. If, on the one hand, disease and sorrow attend the
abuses of alcoholic liquors, innocent gaiety, additional strength
and power of mind, and an increased capability of encoun-
tering the ever-varying agitation of life, are amongst the
many good results which spring from a well-regulated diet,
in which the alcoholic preparations bear their just proportion
and adaptation.—Dr. Siymond.
PLOUGHMEN (AS LATELY TO BE SEEN) IN IRELAND.—
The most ludicrous of all human objects is an Irishman
ploughing. A gigantic figure—a seven-foot machine for
turning potatoes into human nature, wrapped up in an im-
mense great coat, and urging on two starved ponies, with
dreadful imprecations and uplifted shillela. The Irish crow
discerns a coming perquisite, and is not inattentive to the'
proceedings of the steeds. The furrow, which is to be the
depository of the future crop, is not unlike, either in depth
or regularity, to those domestic furrows which the nails of
the meek and much-injured wife plough, in some family
quarrel, upon the cheeks of the deserviily-punished hus-
band. The weeds seem to fall contentedly, knowing that they
have fulfilled their destiny, and left behind them, for the
resurrection of the ensuing spring, an abundant and 'healthy
progeny. The whole is a scene of idleness, laziness, and
poverty, of which it is impossible, in this active and enter-
prising country, to form the most distant conception ; but
strongly indicative of habits, whether secondary or original,
which will long present a powerful impediment to the im-
provement of Ireland.—Rev. Sydney Smith.
ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE ROSE.—Among both the
Greeks and Romans, some attention appears to have been
paid to the cultivation of flowers, as offerings or as orna-
ments ; as offerings in the temples of their deities, and as
ornaments on occasion of public or private festivity. The
Romans, however, appear to have esteemed flowers more
than the Grecians, and the origin of this greater regard for
them may not improbably be found in the imitation of that
luxury and splendour which the Romans had witnessed in
eastern countries. The rose is mentioned by Homer and
Anacreon ; but the former, in the hymn to Ceres ; by the
latter, in many of his odes ; through which we learn that it
was a flower remarkable for the beauty of its petals; that it
grew amidst thorns ; that it had a divine I,•agrance •, was of
the colour of the human complexion ; that it was the most
beautiful of all flowers, " the queen of flowers," the " flower
of love." According to the Calendar of Natural Occur-
rences in Greece, the rose blossomed in March ; the Rosa
Grseca, or Lychnis coronaria, in May. In the Roman Ca-
lender we find early roses were in blossom in April, and that
in May they were generally in flower. In Egypt, according
to Theophrastus, the rose blossomed two months before it
appeared in Italy, and continued in flower for almost as
long a time in the former country, after it had ceased blow-
ing in Italy. In the latter country it succeeded the blossom-
ing of the violet and the lily.—Literary World.