The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-12-28 00:00:00

ICibtrpoot taitVittV.

TUESDAY

MORNING, DEC. 21, 1552.

THE

WEEK

IT is only necessary to remind our readers of its

being Christmas week, to account for the dearth of

all matters of local interest, save the various pre-

parations for the appropriate festivities and the
realisation of them, which must have been of the
most satifactory character, from the quietude which
it seems to have universally effected. It is true that

there is a ministerial crisis going on in London,
but the public of Liverpool are so satisfied of its
leading to nothing but a recal of the Conservatives
that they have not yet disturbed themselves with

speculations as to the time when the next Cabinet

explosion will take place

On the morning of Christmas Day, and again
morning, we were visited by one of

on yesterda

those violent and destructive gales which fortunately
occur but rarely. We have given full particulars
of the several disasters in another column.

NEW YEAR'S DAY.

JANUARY, the first and the coldest month of the year,

name from JANUs, a deity represented by the
Romans with two faces, because he was acquainted with
past and future events. The Saxons called this month
" Wolf-monat," because the wolves, impelled by hunger,
were wont to prowl and attack man ; and they also called
it " Aefter-yula," or after Christmas. The festival of the
Circumcision, which is observed on this day, stands in the
Calendar of the Church of England as well as in that of
Rome. It was instituted about the year 487, and at first
appeared in the Reformed English Liturgy in 1550.

The New Year formerly commenced on the 21stof March,
as being the commencement of Spring, when the sun
enters the first degree of Aries—the first of the signs of
the Zodiac; but in 1750, by Act of Parliament, the year
was ordered to be commenced on the Ist of January. It
is owing to this that dates between January Ist and March
21, before 1750, have usually two years assigned to them,
the year as then reckoned which was not ended, and the

year as nosy reckoned which had commenced.
New Year's Day has been observed from very ancient
times as one for the interchange of gifts. The Romans
accustomed to carry small presents as new year's

gifts to the senators under whose protection they were
severally placed. In the reigns of the Emperors they
flocked in such numbers with valuable ones, that various
decreeswere made to abolish the custom, though it always
continued among that people. The Romans who settled
in Britain, or the families connected with them by mar-
introduced these new year's gifts among our fore-
fathers, who got into the habit of making presents even to
the Magistrates. Some of the Fathers of the Church wrote

against them, as fraught with the greatest abuses, and the
Magistrates were forced to relinquish them. The Druids
were accustomed on certain days to cut the sacred misle-
toe with a golden knife, in a forest dedicated to the gods,

and to distribute its branches with much ceremony as new
year's gifts among the people. Among the Saxons of the
North, the festival of the new year was observed with
more than ordinary jollity and feasting, and by sending
new year's gifts to one another. The practice of the
Romans was continued during the middle ages ; and our
kings, and the nobility especially, interchanged presents.
MATTHEW PARIS shows that HENRY TV. extorted new
year's gifts, and in a MS. of the public revenue anno 5
EDWARD VL is an entry of " rewards given on New
Year's Day to the King's officers and servants in ordinary
£155 55., and to their servants that present the King's
Mejestie with new year's gifts." Bishop LATIMER, in-
stead of presenting HENRY VIII. with a piece of gold, as

was customary, for a new year's gift, put into the King's
hand a New Testament, with a leaf conspicuously doubled
down at Hebrews xiii. 4, which will be found to have been
worthy of all acceptation, though not, perhaps, well ac-
cepted. It is supposed that the wardrobe and jewellery of
QUEEN ELIZABETH were principally supported by these
annual contributions on New Year's Day. From the
original rolls published in " her Progresses," it appears
that the greatest part, if not all, the peers and peeresses
of the realm, all the bishops, the chief officers of state,
and several of the QUEEN'S household servants, even
down to her apothecary, master-cook, serjeant of the
_ itc. gave new irt f-i
P... q . .. FR _A
consisting, in general, either of a sum of money, or jewels,
trinkets, wearing apparel, Sic. The largest sum given by
any of the temporal lords was £2O; but the Archbishop
of Canterbury gave £4O, the Archbishop of York £3O,
and the other spiritual lords £2O to £10; many of the
temporal lords of great offices, and most of the peeresses
gave rich gowns, petticoats, shifts, silk stockings, garters,
sweet bags, doublets, mantles embroidered with precious
stones, looking-glasses, fans, bracelets, caskets studded
with jewels, and other costly trinkets. Sir GaBERT
DETHICIC, Garter King at Arms, gave a book of the

States in WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR'S time; ABSOLON,
the master of the Savoy, gave a Bible covered with cloth
of gold, garnished with silver, gilt, and plates of the royal
arms ; the QUEEN'S physician presented her with a box of
foreign sweetmeats ; another physician presented a pot of
green ginger, and a pot of orange flowers ; her apothe-
caries gave her a box of lozenges, a box of ginger candy,
a box of green ginger, and pots of other conserves. Mrs.
BLANCH A PARRY gave Her MAJESTY a little gold comfit
box and spoon ; Mrs. MoRGAN gave a box of cherries and
one of apricots. The QUEEN'S master cook and her ser-
jeant of the pastry presented her with various confectionary
and preserves. PUTRINO, an Italian, gave her two pic-
tures ; AMBROSE LUPO gave her a box of lute-strings, and
a glass of sweet water ; each of three other Italians pre-
sented her with a pair of sweet gloves ; a cutler gave her a
meat knife, and a fan haft of .bone, with a conceit on it ;
JEROMY BASSANO gave two drinking glasses; and SMYTH I
the dustman, presented Her MAJESTY with two bolts of
cambric. Dr. DRAKE says, that though ELIZABETH made
returns to the new year's gifts, in plate and other articles,
yet she took sufficient care that the balance should be in
her own favour.

Gloves were customary new year's gifts, being more
expensive than in our times, and occasionally a money
present was tendered instead, and called glove-money.
Pins were also acceptable new year's gifts to the ladies.
instead of the wooden skewers which they used till the end
of the fifteenth century. Sometimes they received a com-
position in money ; and hence allowances for their separate
use are still denominated pin-money. The custom of pre-
senting new year's gifts is still preserved, particularly in
Scotland, but not to the same extent as formerly. in
Scotland, however, the day is kept with far more obser-
vance than Christmas.

On the Ist of January, 1308, WILLIAM TELL assembled
a band of his countrymen against the tyranny of their
oppressors. The opposition was carried on for three
centuries, and was terminated by the treaty of Westphalia,
in 1648, declaring the independence of Switzerland.
On the Ist of January, 1631, Charles 11. was crowned,
at Scone, King of the Scots.
On the Ist of January, 1801, the Union of Great Britain
with Ireland commenced, according to Act of Parliament ;
and the event was solemnised by the hoisting of a new
Royal flag on the Tower of London, accompanied by the
firing of guns there and in St. James's Park. On the
same day Plazzt, the astronomer, at Florence, discovered
the planet Ceres. .

Among the customs still preserved to our times is the
meeting of social parties to see the old year out and the
new year in ; and the ringing of merry peals on the church
belfries with the same laudable object.

LIVERPOOL CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS.

SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB.
THERE are afflictions to which human nature is liable,
of which it is almost impossible to comprehend the seve-
rity, as there are senses the value of which cannot easily
he estimated without suffering from the loss of them.
This is especially the case with the faculties of hearing
and speech, the deprivation of which presents no visible
token, and the sufferers ore consequently liable to be
passed by without exciting our sympathy. The blind ap-
peal at once to our feelings of pity, for their loss is self-
evident, and most persons can form some idea, however
imperfect, of the misery of their condition ; but few peo-
ple can fully appreciate that complete isolation from
human society which is the unhappy result of being deaf

and dumb. Never having heard the sound of the human
voice, the softening and humanising strains of music, or
the melody with which all Nature hymns its Maker's
praise, the soul of the hapless sufferer from this calamity
is a mere Llank, less fitted than the brutes that perish to
recaive impressions from education or associations, and
incapable of making known his wants and wishes, except
by the imperfect medium of signs, only intelligible to those
immediately about him, and only adapted to the gratifica-
tion of mere animal desires. Under such circumstances,
there existed no ordinary means of making the patient